Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt
Just what do you do to begin reading Martial Bliss.: The Story Of The Military Bookman., By Margaretta Barton Colt Searching the book that you enjoy to review first or find a fascinating publication Martial Bliss.: The Story Of The Military Bookman., By Margaretta Barton Colt that will make you wish to check out? Everybody has distinction with their factor of reviewing a publication Martial Bliss.: The Story Of The Military Bookman., By Margaretta Barton Colt Actuary, checking out routine has to be from earlier. Many individuals could be love to review, but not an e-book. It's not mistake. A person will be bored to open up the thick e-book with little words to check out. In even more, this is the real condition. So do take place most likely with this Martial Bliss.: The Story Of The Military Bookman., By Margaretta Barton Colt
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt
Ebook Download : Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt
in the seedy New York of 1976, Harris Colt, a Wall Street refugee, invented and with his wife, Margaretta, ran a specialty antiquarian bookstore, The Military Bookman. The store, in a brownstone in New York's Carnegie Hill, was a confluence of old and rare military, naval and aviation history books, with the rare characters, near and far, who wanted them. Those who love books, bookstore, and New York will savor this light-hearted memoir of a fantasy turned reality, a unique enterprise which flourished in the late 20th century. Many customers thought of it as "'Cheers' without the booze."
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt- Amazon Sales Rank: #649481 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-18
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.21" h x .78" w x 6.14" l, 1.07 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 346 pages
From Kirkus Reviews Most of all, it’s the story of a couple who dedicated their lives and livelihoods to a small, peculiar field, and the community that arose to embrace them. Colt is a surprisingly urgent and elegant writer… An engrossing, delightful descent into a life of books.
Review The story Margaretta Barton Colt has to tell in her charming memoir, “Martial Bliss” — do not misread its title as “Marital Bliss” — takes place only a few decades ago. But it seems to emerge as if from a time machine. Ms. Colt returns us to 1976, when New York City was a seedier and stranger place. Ms. Colt’s husband, Harris Colt, had lost his Wall Street job. Rather than seek a new one, he and the author pursued his unlikely dream: They opened a specialty antiquarian bookstore unlike any other, one that sold only military titles… Would there be enough books to sell? One pleasure of reading Ms. Colt’s account is learning about significant and unusual titles in a sweeping number of military genres. The store covered warfare from “rocks to rockets,” Ms. Colt comments. … If you can read about all of this without ordering some of these books (online, sadly) you are a stronger person than I…. Would anyone come? Another pleasure of Ms. Colt’s book is feasting on details about the store’s offbeat band of customers: the regulars, the cranks, the autodidacts, the dandies, the lurkers, the charmers, the cheats, the mouth-breathing Soldier of Fortune types…. Ms. Colt’s voice, in this memoir, is lively if low-key. She clearly kept a diary. There is minutia about nearly every book-buying trip the couple took in America or Europe, what they drank, where they slept. But these exacting details are also this book’s gift. She recalls the names of dozens of now-forgotten bookstores and experts. If a book dealer stiffed her, she names names. Her volume is a kind of secret history of Manhattan’s book trade, and in some ways it’s a deep slice of the English-speaking world’s. “Martial Bliss” cracks open a whole world. It has a real if accumulative emotional impact, and it made me laugh out loud more than once. Dwight Garner, The New York Times
Review … the Military Bookman was that kind of bookshop--one where personal relationships with customers mattered. One regular called it “Cheers without the booze.” But unlike other booksellers’ memoirs, it’s not nostalgia that fuels the telling. She shares her memories in a pleasant, matter-of-fact way, as if setting straight the record for posterity--or for her former customers, who will, no doubt, adore reading her account. As will those with an interest in antiquarian books, bookselling, or military history. “The fine line between passion and obsession was probably crossed many times in the stacks of the Military Bookman,” she writes… For those who missed out on this New York City institution, Martial Bliss invites us in. Rebecca Rego Barry, Fine Books Magazine
Where to Download Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. A treasure on the Upper East Side By Joan Traub What a treat! Written in an elegantly easy style, this book captures a time when New York loved books, specialty bookstores abounded, and The Military Bookman was one of the best. Harris Colt left Wall Street to turn his skill, his experience, and his life-long passion for collecting things military into the reality of a shop that would be a resource for like-minded collectors and scholars. That Margaretta, though taken by surprise was instantly on board with the enterprise the moment Harris announced it, speaks brilliantly to a very special and lively affection that shines through every line of their story. And a Divine Providence must have been on board, too, because good luck seems also to have shone on the project at every turn - good luck and a remarkably extensive circle of friends, neighbors, and family who brought cheerful helping hands to build this Upper East Side treasure. Margaretta Colt has written much more than the memoir of a book store. She has written a wonderful love story.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Like Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford--or even childhood classics such as ... By Jeffrey Simpson by Jeffrey Simpson, author of American Elegy and Rose Cumming: Design Inspiration.Martial Bliss: The Story of the Military Bookman by Margaretta Barton Colt recounts the thirty year ownership by Colt and her late husband, Harris, of a rare military history bookshop on New York's East 93rd Street. This is the kind of book that creates its own world, and it's a world you want to retreat into and never leave. The enclosed space in the English basement floor of an 1890s brownstone is warm and hermetic. Colt evokes and describes the idiosyncratic customers and often equally idiosyncratic staff with tolerance and a real eye for the eccentric detail.When the Colts travel to England--and occasionally France and Germany--on buying trips once or twice a year, they seem to have a magnetic attraction for their own kind, so the booksellers lodged in old manor houses or half-timbered village shops are The Military Bookman Abroad.A not inconsiderable pleasure of this book is the expert and mouth watering detail Colt brings to describing the inventory--everything from traditional Japanese wood block prints, but with the subject being the ironclad ships of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War breathing fire and smoke, to a 50 foot long engraving of 1852 funeral of the Duke of Wellington. And of course, the books themselves! They made regular customers of the staffs of West Point and the Pentagon, as well as the neighborhood rich recluses and the occasional bag lady.Like Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford--or even childhood classics such as The Wind in the Willows, Martial Bliss is its own snow globe creation and you only wish you could have lived inside it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. A Bibliophile's Delight--Entertains as it Informs By James J. Bloom Just got the book in today's mail and am devouring it. It brings back memories of many mornings the day after receiving the little red catalog, frantically dialing and speed-redialing to the heart-wrenching sound of the busy signal as I stared at my circled choices, heart in my mouth that my selections would still be there. I usually got Harris on the phone, but sometimes Margaretta or Jason. If my top two or three choices were gone, Harris patiently strolled the stacks looking for alternate editions or similar titles. He never failed to come up with something, and they were often better than my original choices. He was a walking , talking annotated bibliography. He, Margaretta and Jason came to know my likes: those British staff histories prepared for Sandhurst classes or for the officer promotion exams and official histories of those little wars of Victorian and Edwardian days---Kipling's army.I am quoted in the book (upon receiving a faithful client gift and a catalog with staff photos) “You all look as friendly as you sound”. Indeed, friendly and caring (and patient) they were. I only regret that during my infrequent trips to Manhattan from DC I never got the chance to visit the store.Margaretta's love for the business she was pulled into pell-mell by Harris shines through as does her love and respect for her scholar/entrepeneur husband. The book world (what's left of it) will sorely miss him.This is an extremely lively book –not something one would expect in a book about a book business—with plenty of human interest stories about the trade and its “characters”. Thanks to the fine collection of military history books I snagged from MB, I became a military and naval historian, now finishing up the ms of my third book (on ancient Roman sea power). As I gaze around at my overflowing shelves and mounds of books about 90% from MB, , I am enjoying browsing through Margaretta's warm yet erudite memoir. I can still hear Harris's nasal twang on the phone as he suggested. “That one is sold, but I think you would love this...” And I inevitably did.Besides the sparkling prose and chatty insider's anecdotes about the world of both the main and the arcane booksellers of Manhattan a world now gone, this is an excellent primer on the military historian's profession. The demise of MB, as well as it's kindred shops, was a victory of electronic media over we poor Luddites who see books as objects to hold and cherish, and yes, to read, bookmark and even annotate in pencil.Margaretta Barton Colt provides as well, and most imporantly to this reader and collector, a grand tour of military history through its rare and long-gone printed volumes. She is quite a scholar in her own right, and yet wears her learning lightly.You need not be a military history afficionado to enjoy this book. The fact that it will appeal to that group as well as a general reading public is a bonus.
See all 14 customer reviews... Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton ColtMartial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt PDF
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt iBooks
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt ePub
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt rtf
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt AZW
Martial Bliss.: The Story of The Military Bookman., by Margaretta Barton Colt Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar