From the Editor by Craig Stark #159, 2 November 2011

Among booksellers, there is often a distinction made between commodity bookselling and antiquarian bookselling, and at BookThink we have been busy over the years doing our best to clarify it. Among antiquarian booksellers there is also, often, a disdain for buying and selling books on the basis of taking advantage of something in today's news, say, a celebrity's death or a current trend, as if "real" bookselling should be focused on stuff of lasting value. But I would argue that, apart from the rightness or wrongness of this approach, what's going on today can often point back to what happened yesterday and help us identify things, sometimes very old things, that have significant value to today's collectors.

Such is certainly the case with the current New Thought Movement, and today I invite you to take a trip into the past with me for bookselling gold. Our feature article follows.

Speaking of current trends - and this also pertains to the tested concept of bread-and-butter bookselling presented in the feature article - here's a tip for you: Several years ago ESPN magazine launched an annual publication called The Body Issue. It's a sort of celebration of the nude athletic form and to date has presented many notable athletes in scant - make that no attire. If this seems reminiscent of the Sports Illustrated annual swimsuit issue, indeed it is, though palpably bolder, and grabbing any issue at sales and either selling them immediately or stockpiling some or all should give you a reliable source of income for the foreseeable future. Collectors are already lining up and paying upwards of $50 for some issues despite large print runs. Note that cover variants are issued regionally. To date, 18 different have been issued over three years, and you can see them all here.

A current issue featuring soccer star Hope Solo:

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