If holding a fine, leather-bound book in your hands and tenderly turning its linen pages is something you savor, then the best place to be this weekend is the Cobb County Civic Center in Marietta.
For the 20th year, the Georgia Antiquarian Booksellers Association hosts the Georgia Fine and Collectible Book Fair of rare and antique books from more than 40 dealers. But not all the offerings will be antique: Some of the most-sought-after items will be those from modern authors, including Ernest Hemingway; C.S. Lewis, who wrote in “The Chronicles of Narnia” in the 1950s; and Margaret Mitchell, who published “Gone with the Wind” in 1936.
“Those are very popular,” said organizer Jim Strawn of the Dunwoody-based Smythe Books. “Some of my signed Lewis works are probably my most expensive, worth about $3,000.”
Strawn will also showcase a two-volume signed set of “Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events,” penned in the 1950s by city historian Franklin Garrett. But there will also be plenty of books much older.
“There will be books from the 1600s and lots from the 1800s,” Strawn said. “And many will be rare. In the U.S., book printing started in the 1700s, so a book printed that year in Philadelphia is more valuable than a book printed in England the same year.”
Browsers will find an array of genres and topics, including railroad fiction, the Civil War and children’s literature. Several extremely rare works will be exhibited by Robert Williams, senior curator of the Bentley Rare Book Gallery at Kennesaw State, who will also give a seminar on collecting.
Fair hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Cobb Civic Center, 548 S. Marietta Parkway, Marietta. Two-day admission is $5; children younger than 12 are free. Information: www.gaba.net.
