NATE PEDERSEN

My article on April Fool’s Day was in the most recent issue of Renaissance magazine (issue 90).  It’s the most recent entry in my occasional Feasts & Holidays column with the magazine.

An article I had in the Spring 2013 issue of Fine Books & Collections is now available online: The New York Antiquarin Fair, Past and Present.

Another one of my favorite people in the world died last week when Norman Kane died quietly in his sleep at the age of 88.  Norman was a rare book dealer for the better part of 60 years, most of them spent selling books from an old farm outside of Philadelphia.  After Norman’s wife passed away, he moved to North Carolina to be closer to his two daughters, and that’s where our life stories intersected.  I went to work for Norman for a bit over a year in 2007 while he was selling books from his home outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  He was a true gentleman of the old school of bookselling, extraordinarily well-versed in literature, history, politics, religion, and the arts.  He loved a fine meal, and we spent many lingering lunches together discussing life over a bottle of wine.  He was a mentor to me about much more than books and I will miss him greatly.  While my own path in life took me away from North Carolina after only a year of working for Norman, it was a year that will always stand out vividly in my memory for the time we shared together.

Much love to Norman, and a glass of his favorite Vinho Verde is raised here in honor to a life well-spent.  Safe journey, old friend.

You can read a lengthy and far-ranging interview I later conducted with Norman at Fine Books & Collections.

My blog post about the new series of Jane Austen stamps in Britain was picked up by AL Direct, the newsletter of the American Library Association.

I’ve got a new article entitled “Sharing Life Discussions” in Ageless magazine, a special publication by the Bend Bulletin, about senior book clubs in central Oregon.  In a cool twist, it’s mostly about book clubs managed by my own Deschutes Public Library.  You can view the whole publication online here.  My article is on page 22.

New article on the Barlow Road, a historic wagon road in Oregon (and a branch of the Oregon Trail), published in The Oregon Encyclopedia.

My second column in the How I Got Started series for Fine Books & Collections is out in the new issue.  It’s an interview with David Culbert.