The Pope's Bookbinder

"Early on in this rambling, easygoing account of his career, Mason mentions three outstanding classics of [the] subgenre: Charles Everitt's The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter, David Randall's Dukedom Large Enough, and David Magee's Infinite Riches. The Pope's Bookbinder belongs on the same shelf."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

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Includes episodes on: hitchhiking cross-country and provoking arrest to get out of the cold, being itinerant in Europe, sleeping off an amphetamine high on the floor in William Burrough's Spanish hotel room, working at a bookbindery in Spain doing a special commission (in white morroco) for the Pope, and blackmailing the head of the Royal Ontario Museum
Chapters about his youth are as much about the beat movement & drug culture as they are about books
Snapshot of book culture in the 50s and 60s, including time spent in Spain at the Beat Hotel and in Paris at Shakespeare & Co.
Compare to Larry McMurtry's Books: A Memoir (2009), Nicolas Basbane's Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century (2003), David Meyer's Memoirs of a Book Snake (2001), Lawrence Goldstone's Used and Rare(1998), or John Baxter's A Pound of Paper (2005)
Insider takes on the secrets of bookselling, including the risks of high-stakes auctions, dos and don'ts, costly mistakes, happy accidents, and wonderful finds
Author is now a very well-respected and well-connected dealer who's been in the book business since 1967
Antiquarian memoirs have a built-in audience with a higher price-point
32 pp B&W photographs