Behind the Bookshelves

We interview Rebecca Baumann about her collection of books covering crime, science fiction, horror and pulp paperbacks. Rebecca's day job is working as a librarian at Indiana University's Lilly Library but this interview covers her wide-ranging personal book collection, which stretches from HP Lovecraft to Arthur Machen, and Shirley Jackson, as well as a host of less famous authors.

We interview Lisa Grimm, who collects books about ghostlore, general folklore and weird fiction. Her shelves are filled with ghosts, hauntings and nasty things going on in the woods. Lisa, a former librarian, describes her collection and the inspirations behind it.

Lee Israel was a run-of-the-mill author of non-fiction books, who became an exceptional forger of literary letters by the rich and famous. Melissa McCarthy plays Israel in a movie adaptation, released this week, of her 2008 memoir. Discover the story behind Israel's journey from author to criminal.

Sons who have followed in their literary fathers' footsteps and become authors are surprisingly common. Perhaps it’s the genes? We look at 1o pairs of fathers and sons who wrote, visiting France, the UK, Canada and the United States along the way.

He's looking good for a bear from Darkest Peru who is now 60 years old. Paddington Bear is much more than just a hero of a children's book series. His introduction was inspired by wartime evacuees, and there are several other aspects to his bear that make him exceptionally lovable. Discover the story behind Paddington.

Rockwell Kent had three special talents – art, writing and adventuring. Best known for his Art Deco illustrations, Kent was also shipwrecked off the coast of Greenland and he described the experience in a 1930 book called N by E. Learn about this remarkable artist with a passion for traveling.

We all make them but mistakes in the publishing world can come back to haunt you. From Harry to Carrie and le Carré, discover how some of the world's bestselling books were initially rejected by publishers who thought they were not good enough.

Many of you will be familiar with the dark Netflix crime drama Ozark. But did you know Ozark has sparked interest in a 1929 first edition by Thomas Wolfe worth thousands of dollars? Listen to the show and we'll unravel the mystery.

The Voynich Manuscript has been confusing clever people since the 15th century. It's an illustrated document written in an unknown language that has defeated all efforts to decipher it. Herbology and pharmacy, astronomy and cosmology, and human biology appear to be the main subjects. Join AbeBooks as we consider this on-going mystery.

The Hobbit was published on 21 September, 1937, and only 1,500 copies were printed. It was a landmark day for modern literature. Learn how the original version was altered after JRR Tolkien realized he had written a book that was going to become immensely popular.

In 2015, AbeBooks sold an original, Russian-language copy of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak for $11,000. The bookseller's description read: "Original blue cloth. The true first edition in Russian, one of 1,160 copies, which was printed as part of a covert CIA publishing and propaganda program for distributing banned material to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe." A dramatic claim but it's true. Learn about this epic story of love, loneliness and the CIA's desire to destablize the...

Amy Stewart is an old friend of AbeBooks. We've been following her writing career for many years and saw her move from non-fiction to historical crime fiction. She is also the co-owner of Eureka Books, a bookshop in Northern California. In September, Amy's latest novel is released. Called Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, this book is the fourth installment in the Kopp Sisters series. A mystery set in the middle of hotly contested election in 1916, Constance Kopp, one of the America's first...

An unlikely bestseller from 1968 was the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada - a handbook for Americans who wanted to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War by fleeing to Canada. Discover the origins of a book that shaped the lives of thousands of young people during a period of immense social turmoil.

Amy Bronee has a wonderful cookbook to her name. It's called The Canning Kitchen 101 Simple Small Batch Recipes, and it was published by Penguin in 2015. Amy works just around the corner from the AbeBooks HQ, and she visited our office to explain how she got noticed by a major publisher. This podcast is all about relishes, pickles, jams and jellies, and what it takes to become a publisher author.

We go beyond Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle to recommend books set in London. From a genre-defining non-fiction book about Arsenal FC to fictional descriptions of the immigrant experience by Zadie Smith and Hanif Kureishi, we cast our eye across a wide selection of books.

Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid. We all know and love these gentle fairytales. But are you familiar with the original versions? Many popular fairytales started as gruesome tales of violence and killing. Discover the grisly origins of these stories and that there isn't always a Prince Charming.

Be careful what you use as a bookmark. Thousands of dollars, a letter written by CS Lewis, a Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card, a 19th century marriage certificate, a baby’s tooth, and a diamond ring are just some of the stranger objects discovered inside used books by AbeBooks sellers over the years.

AbeBooks visits Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of British Columbia Library to learn about how they work and who they serve. From early exploration to immigration and settlement, and the Canadian Pacific Railroad, learn about some of the remarkable books, art, ephemera and other objects that are housed in this specialized institutional library.

An ex-library book is a book that once belonged to a public library or institution and has been 'discarded' after being deemed no longer useful. They are humble but useful things. This podcast pays tribute to these former library books getting a second lease of life on the used book market.

Discover the background to Ray Bradbury's classic dystopian book-burning novel from 1953 and why it's still relevant today.