Fine Books' Top Ten Reads of 2017
It's always an enlightening end-of-year undertaking to dig into the data and ascertain which stories were the most popular with our online readers. News items? Auction previews? Interviews with book world folks? Book reviews? Turns out, it's a little bit of everything. Here's the rundown:
#1 Thieves Steal Over 160 Rare Books in Major Heist
A summary of the January 30 theft in London (that could have been a James Bond plot).
#2 Bright Young Booksellers: Rebecca Romney
Author and antiquarian bookseller Rebecca Romney on how she got into the business and her new book, Printer's Error. 
#3 Sylvester Stallone, Book Collector
That's right: the Hollywood hunk's library of roughly 1,000 volumes was sold at Heritage Auctions last March. His The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman (1902), bound in blazing red morocco (pictured above), sold for $3,000.
#4 Photo Claimed to be Jesse James Surfaces
A man who claims to be a distant cousin of Jesse James took his never-before-seen ambrotype of the notorious outlaw to auction.
#5 1916 Bestsellers: A Conversation with Linda Aragoni
Which books were booksellers a hundred years ago, and how well did they hold up? We ask Linda Aragoni of the Great Performances blog.
#6 A Library--and a Love--Rediscovered
A trip to the 2017 Washington Antiquarian Book Fair prompted occasional FB&C contributor Chris Lancette to return to book collecting. 
#7 Bookfinder's Most Sought Books in 2016
The annual list of most searched for out-of-print books is always ... interesting reading!
#8 New Digs for One of London's Oldest Antiquarian Bookshops
Maggs Bros. relocated to 48 Bedford Square, having spent eighty years at its previous residence.
#9 Books About Books Holiday Roundup
Five just-released titles that are worthy of attention, particularly if you're a bibliophile.
#10 Cartoonist Roz Chast Designs National Book Festival Poster
This year's whimsical poster (pictured right), created by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, depicts the National Book Festival from the books' point of view.
Images: Top: Courtesy of Heritage Auctions; Bottom: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
