Collect What You Love
A Beginner’s Guide from Strand’s Rare Book Expert
Darren Sutherland was hired as the Rare Books Manager in 2006 gain much expertise on the rare sector in his 10 years here. In this interview from July 2016, we asked him a few questions about rare books and how to start your own collection.
How long have you been working with books? Do you collect any of your own? Tell us about it!
I’ve been working with books all my life — but professionally for over twenty years. Thankfully, I get to handle so many excellent books, I don’t have the need to own all of them. But I do collect some things: primarily books published by Thomas Mosher (known as the “pirate prince of publishers”), books on fishing, literature, books relating to literary forgeries and fakes, as well as just books that have affected me in my life, whether it’s Paradise Lost, or Leonard Gardner’s Fat City. My collecting has always been guided by my interests.
To a new collector, what do you recommend looking for when starting a collection?
First, collect what you love. Start with the books that mean something to you and allow that curiosity to guide you (along with the help of a trusted bookseller). Your collection can shift as your interests unfold, so run with it. Buy the best available copy you can afford. But don’t buy things because you think it’s a good “investment”; certainly along the way you will be presented with things which you will acquire for less than they are worth, but that should not be the foremost consideration.
Why collect books? Have you seen this practice change at all over the years? (Is it a dying art? etc.)
Collecting books can be an interesting and exciting way to engage intellectually (and emotionally) with the world around you, offering a chance to explore your passions, to learn, and to expand relationships. Like anything, book-collecting has changed across the years, and certainly larger cultural interests are shifting, but I would say literary culture in America is, in many ways, stronger now than at any point in history. People are collecting books, just not the same books they collected forty (or even twenty) years ago.
What factors do you think have impacted book collecting the most?
The internet has certainly had the single largest impact on the world of rare and collectible books. Books once thought to be hard to find have been revealed to have many copies in the market, in many cases dropping prices across the board. But at the same time, the access to information has allowed buyers and sellers to recognize what are truly rare and important. The sharing of information today allows for collectors to more fully engage their interest.
What are 5 books in the Rare Book Room right now that would make a great start to a budding collection?*
Like I said, the most important principle is to buy what you love, so my 5 books to start a collection will be different than your 5 books. Our inventory changes so quickly that you’ll always find new material to spark your interest.
Currently, we have a first edition, a beautiful copy, of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s ($900), as well as a signed first of In Cold Blood ($1500). But not everything needs to be $1000. There’s plenty of books in every price range: from a first edition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History ($30), or a signed first of David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green ($40).
There’s photography books like Bruce Davidson’s Brooklyn Gangs and Larry Clark’s Tulsa, as well as artists books with original lithographs by Max Ernst and Juan Gris. We also recently had the first collected edition of Alexander Hamilton’s Works from 1810, including the 3rd edition of his masterpiece the Federalist Papers, and copious selections from the prodigious writer, statesman, and now Broadway star. Wherever your interests lie, I’d venture that we’ve got something to both meet them and incite them.
*as of July 2016. Some books are no longer available.
Visit the Rare Book Room on the third floor (accessible via the in-store elevator), open to the public every day until 6:15 PM. Don’t forget! Sign up for Strand’s weekly newsletter the Strand Insider today!
