Why the Antiquarian Book?

[vc_column width="1/2" column_padding="padding-5-percent" column_padding_position="all" background_color="#ffffff" background_color_opacity="1" background_hover_color_opacity="1" column_link_target="_self" column_shadow="none" column_border_radius="none" tablet_width_inherit="default" tablet_text_alignment="default" phone_text_alignment="default" column_bord The bibliophile will protect it, cherish it, care for it. They will not hesitate to spend excessive sums (ten times its value in some cases) to entrust it to a restorer using surgical instruments in their book hospital.The book may be cleaned with milk, like vellum bindings. It likes to be nourished with cream, always colourless for leathers (available in all good drugstores). Sometimes the book has a tough life—it may be orphaned; what then becomes of a fifth volume?A contrario, some have had a prestigious career, dressed in a fine signed binding, annotated or enriched with a presentation inscription from Flaubert or Malraux. Others are hunted down, banished, tracked. The Index librorum prohibitorum lists irreligious, erotic, political or witchcraft works...Nowadays, is the book not the most ancient object? Among all the clutter and old odds and ends in our homes—dishes, clothes, furniture, trinkets, jewellery—what has been best preserved? And why? It has sometimes kept a low profile, often been scorned, dismissed as one of the "old books" or simply forgotten. Yet it remains the best antidote to uniformity, banality, standardisation and sanitisation.The bookseller