Poets & Writers Theater

What exactly does it mean for a book to be out of print? AbeBooks explains how technology and the prevalence of e-books and print-on-demand books have changed the rules for supply and demand.

Book collectors and enthusiasts are always on the hunt for the elusive first edition of a book. AbeBooks explains the even rarer forms of editions that come before and are not often seen by the public.

Richard from AbeBooks.com offers ten reasons why George Orwell's dystopian novel still resonates seven decades after its initial publication by Secker and Warburg in London.

First published in 1925, The Great Gatsby has been reprinted in many different editions and in many different formats. Richard from AbeBooks.com counts down thirty of the covers used to illustrate the novel over the past eighty-eight years.

Founded in 1935, Penguin Books revolutionized marketing and publishing by producing inexpensive softcovers with an instantly recognizable design. Richard from AbeBooks.com gives viewers a color-coded survey of the iconic series of books.

As explained in this clip from AbeBooks, a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby sold for $182,000 at auction in 2009, and the reason it fetched such a high price was the presence of its dust jacket. A first edition of the novel without a dust jacket could sell for anywhere between two thousand and eight thousand dollars, depending on its condition.

Good question! Watch as Richard from AbeBooks explains that the unique aroma comes from the reaction of a book's organic material to heat, light, moisture, and the chemicals used in its production. What's your favorite-smelling book?

This helpful video from AbeBooks demystifies the terms used to describe the physical parts of a book, including boards, hinge and joint, leaf, endpapers, book block, and plates.

Learn how to decipher the sometimes arcane methods that publishers use to label first editions (the language and lines of numbers on copyright pages) in this incredibly helpful video from AbeBooks.

In response to the "I Hate Reading" Facebook page (which is "liked" by nearly half a million people), Lindsay Thompson, an account manager at AbeBooks, created this brief appreciation of books. And if you find this inspiring, check out one of several (sadly less popular) "I Love Reading" pages that have popped up on Facebook.