Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Other Collectible Case, Filled with Boswell Books

Remember that display case filled with my bandage tins? Well, we've actually got two matching cases, and I only have enough bandages for one of them. Perhaps someday I will have some expensive items that I want to sell out of them. But for now, the other case is also filled with an item not for sale, David Schwartz's collection of Boswelliana.

It's a treasure trove of journals, histories, and even novels. We added the recently published The Brothers Boswell to our collection.

So a few weeks ago, we had a passer by ask us if he could buy a book out of the case. It turns out he wrote his dissertation on Boswell and we had a book that he was missing. Despite us not being able to honor his request,we made his day anyway.

He turned out to be bicycling from Chicago to Minneapolis to promote Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac. Evan Schneider (for that was his name) is the managing editor and his tour was sponsored by Fat Tire Ale. So I asked if he was doing the event at Hollander or Sugar Maple, both Belgian beer headquarters in Milwaukee. Why no, he was just passing through.

What? A store named after his dissertation and Belgian beer running like tap water and you're not having an event here? And yes, we have bicycle lanes too. Maybe next year.

No comments: