The antiquarian book trade reveals a few of its secrets and several of its eccentricities in this gentle but engrossing documentary by filmmaker D.W. Young. Specialist bookshops are inherently fascinating places, with tightly packed shelves and the promise of treasures hidden in dim corners. Young shows us some of the best, as well as the auction houses, apartment clearances, libraries and book fairs where the real deals get done. Loving close-ups of cracked leather spines and softly wrinkled pages will awaken your inner bibliophile, although there are more unusual specimens on show too: volumes bound in human skin or embellished with gold leaf and precious jewels.
As with most docs, the personalities stand out. Young introduces his erudite bookworms gradually and almost coyly – from the redoubtable owners of Manhattan’s remaining rare bookstores to a younger generation of book-lovers opening new shops, collecting overlooked works and, in one case, appearing on Las Vegas-based TV show Pawn Stars to share her knowledge of first editions and folios.
This is very much the world glimpsed in Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?. Clips of movies from 1932’s Boudu Saved From Drowning to 1984’s The NeverEnding Story are inserted to comment wryly on the fusty image of rare book dealers, but some of the young curators shown collecting documents of Black history and archives of ’90s hip-hop magazines defy clichés. All the participants bring an infectious enthusiasm to their work, but it’s the optimism of the younger generation that inspires — the millennials who refuse to believe that Kindles and internet shopping will kill the pleasure of browsing the shelves or breathing the scent of old paper. And they’re all united by the thrill of the hunt. As one of the old guard says: “The only things I regret are the books I never bought.”