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Tag Archives: Carol Sandberg

Michael R. Thompson, In Memoriam

11 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Michael R. Thompson, In Memoriam

Tags

ABAA, California, Carol Sandberg, Francis Bacon, J. Willard Marriott Library, John Windle, Los Angeles, Lou Weinstein, Michael R Thompson, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, rare books


“We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake…” — Francis Bacon

Rare Books lost a dear friend.

Michael R. Thompson, owner of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books based in Los Angeles, California, died Friday evening. We will miss his friendship very much. Our heart goes out to his beloved daughter, grandchildren (“best grandkids in the world”), and family, and his faithful friend and business partner, Carol Sandberg.

Michael was a dedicated antiquarian whose passion for and knowledge of all things old books was legendary. His warmth, honesty, and generosity will never be forgotten.

Over many years, Michael provided the J. Willard Marriott Library’s rare book collections with innumerable treasures. Michael was a key player working with library staff in 1968, when the Marriott family bestowed a generous gift toward building a world-class rare book collection. Many of the science books we have featured on this blog are ours because of Michael’s hard work and enthusiasm for this project.

Michael had a keen capacity for listening to Marriott Library curators, finding gems that added breadth to our ability to offer topic-specific hands-on experiences for students, faculty and community members. From incunabula to science to fine press to women’s studies to artists’ books to book collecting to philosophy (his favorite) to seventeenth-century classics to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, Michael provided depth to our collections. He was tenacious in representing not just ancient tomes but the work of some of the best presses today.

Michael delighted in hearing how the books he found for us were used and how thrilled our students were to hold these books. These books will be held by many hands to come and Michael’s legacy, whether those hands know it or not, will always be a part of that experience.

Michael was responsible for the donation of several key pieces to our collections. If you search “anonymous” in this blog, much of what you see is here because of him.

I learned a lot from Michael. He was a fount of knowledge without pretension, told great stories, had a terrific sense of humor, an infectious laugh, and kept me going when I felt discouraged. Michael was intrepid, both in selling books he knew we should have and in belief in life at its best. His friendship inspired me in all sorts of ways. I cherished his sympathetic ear and his kind, encouraging words, delivered in his gruff, gravelly voice.

Francis Bacon wrote, “There are two ways of spreading light..to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Michael was both.

Memory eternal.

~~Luise Poulton, Managing Curator and Head of Department, Rare Books


Good books


Good cats: Peaches and Sam


Good friends: Michael Thompson, Lou Weinstein, Carol Sandberg, John Windle


Michael R. Thompson talks about bookselling in 2014.

From David Mason Books, August 14

A tribute to Michael from Bruce Whiteman, Clark Head Librarian Emeritus, UCLA, posted August 16th. 

From And Now We Are Five, August 25

From Tavistock Books, August 29

From Bruce McKinney, Rare Books Hub, September newsletter.

From Rollin Milroy, Heavenly Monkey, September 3, 2018.

Memorial Michael R. Thompson, Clarks Library Los Angeles
Michael’s memorial at the Clark Library, August 25, 2018

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Now is the night one blue dew.

26 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Tags

American History Printing Association, antiquarian, booksellers, Carol Sandberg, Carolee Campbell, cousins, Essex House Press, Fairfax, floriated initials, Gaylord Schanilec, Jack Stauffacher, James Agee, Jerry Kelly, John Keats, Joni Kay Miller, Kathleen Thompson, London, Los Angeles, Luise Putcamp jr, Melrose, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Michael Thompson, Mississippi, music, poems, poetry, poets, Robin Price, Rover Art Books, Third, Universal Books, vellum, Walter de la Mare, William Shakespeare, Zeitlin & Van Brugge

PS3501-G35-H3-1964-cover

“…do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou has not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”
— John Keats from Ode on a Grecian Urn

In Memoriam — Kathleen Thompson

Kathleen Thompson of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books worked for several Los Angeles antiquarian booksellers, including Universal Books, Royer Art Books, and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, before entering into a partnership with her husband, Michael Thompson, and Carol Sandberg in 1985. Hers was often the first face one encountered when visiting their shops on Melrose, Fairfax, and Third. We remember Kathleen for her warmth, sense of humor, thoughtfulness, and intelligence.

I had the pleasure of many conversations with Kathleen over the phone and by email. I will miss her soft Mississippi meter, which, thank goodness, she never did lose, even though she swore she had. We wrote to each other about cousins, music, poets and poems. Here are a few of her favorites.

PR2841-A2-E55-pg153
THE POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
London: Essex House Press, 1899
PR2841 A2 E55

Printed in black and red. Illustrated with floriated initials and one full-page drawing. Bound in vellum with ties. Edition of four hundred and fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 274.


Z250-V47-2006-3panel
VERSE INTO TYPE THE APHA POETRY PORTFOLIO
American Printing History Association
S. l.: American Printing History Association, 2006
Z250 V47 2006

Seventeen gatherings contributed by fifteen different presses in a variety of typefaces, colors, formats, papers, all letterpress printed, some illustrated. Contributors include Carolee Campbell, Jerry Kelly, Robin Price, Gaylord Schanilec, Jack Stauffacher, and others. Issued in blue cloth clamshell box with paper label. Edition of two hundred copies.


And this from Walter de la Mare:

All That’s Past

Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier’s boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are–
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve’s nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.

PR1309-C485-N85-1925-CoverPattern


And this from James Agee:

Knoxville: Summer of 1915

(We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in that time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.)

…It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.

A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter, fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew.

PS3501-G35-H3-1964-cover


And this from the aunt of Kathleen’s “dearest old friend,” Joni Kay Miller (1945-2017):

It is peculiar mercy none can find
In this lost time where only losers dwell
Who lose the most, the ones who left behind
Wisdom and love and never knew them well
Or those who know too well and as they stay
Inherit silence and the vacant day.
— Luise Putcamp jr.


And I had the honor of being called by Kathleen “a kindred spirit, too.”
— Luise Poulton


Memory eternal!

PS3501-G35-H3-1964-cover(feature)

26 March 2017

Friends Gather for Kathleen, 26 March 2017

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