[Early book collectors] supported the lively culture of book hunting that still goes on, diminished but not dead yet, in the auction houses and antiquarian bookshops of New York, Boston and other cities.

Can this gentle, humane culture survive the attritions of social media and the carceral state? In a way, it already has.

~Anthony Grafton, in an delightful LRB review-essay of Denise Gigante’s new book. 📚