Dear Reader,
In my next post of the Arugula Notes blog (fall 2023), you will see a change. Instead of an update on the whereabouts of Arugula Books, it will have become a blog on books and reading.
So…how will you know when and where I’ll be selling books? I have just launched a new mailing list specifically to update people about Arugula Books where-and-whens. If you would like to join this new list, there is a link below this post.
In the meantime, I do want you to know that I’ll be at the last indoor Providence Flea of the season on May 7: 11:00-3:00. There will be lots of new stock to share with bibliobrowsers.
My favorite hardware catalog
At the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair In November, I encountered, and became smitten with, an eighteenth-century hardware salesman’s catalog . The bookseller, from Bruce McKittrick Rare Books, allowed me to page through it and we discussed its many charms: the wonderful painted images of tools, the enclosed sales orders, the fact that the business remained in the family for centuries.
I bookmarked the bookseller’s online listing on my phone so I could continue to view the hardware catalog at my leisure. (Have I shared too much?)
This past weekend, I attended the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. Such elegance and beauty! Volumes from past centuries, illuminated, handwritten, early printed, delightfully bound.
Without looking very hard, I found the catalog again. I told the bookseller I’d been haunted by the book since November. Without asking for any reason other than that, she pulled it out from the glass case for me. I paged through it again. I hadn’t lost the feeling.
Would you like to see it too? Here is a link to the catalog of Josue Scharff de francfort.
If you know anyone who works for a library or any institution that might be interested in industrial history or whatnot, perhaps you can help find it a good home.
Then tell me where it is so I can visit.
NEW: Mailing list to announce Arugula Books updates
Here is the link to sign up for the mailing list that I mentioned above.
Arugula Books 
I seldom wish I was rich. My life is good as it is. However, it would be lovely to purchase that hardware catalog! First, I page through it, taking my time. Then I would gift it to you!