After Porto, we trained north to Spain and rented a car for a week to tour the coast of Spain. The highways were great and it was spectacular country with beautiful beaches, the majestic Pyrenees Mountains, castles on just about every hill, and the first of many Anton Gaudi buildings, the Capriccio, a house he designed as a vacation house for one of his Barcelona clients.
The last bookstore we visited was directly across from the amazing Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The Guggenheim had a three-story wire puppy statue in front of it packed with potting soil and flowers that gave the puppy its colorful spots. It was a gas. The bookstore was called Libreria de Bilbao. It was quite modern and clean. They had a few English language books, mostly new books. We were sort of lost and had gone into the store to ask how to find another bookstore that we had heard about, Libreria Astaroloa. As it turned out, the very nice clerk spoke quite excellent English and was dying to use it. We asked about the other store and she told us that it was owned by the same person who owned the store we were in, but that it was mostly antiquarian books. She gave us directions and we hiked for an eternity to get there just in time to find it closed. Darn! The windows looked interesting.
The most frustrating experience of the trip was in San Sebastian. We had driven most of the day and were pooped. San Sebastian is in the heart of the beautiful Basque country right on the ocean. We had reservations at a small hotel in downtown San Sebastian and a great map of San Sebastian. However, though we had specific directions on how to get to said hotel and all the street names on the map were in Spanish, all the street signs were in Basque. Basque bears no resemblance to Spanish (which I sort of speak), Portuguese (which we picked up a bit of), or French (which we know not at all). It is a language totally unto itself with a lot of Xes and Zees. After an hour and a half of trying to figure out where we were, we found the hotel. We also found that it had recently been gutted and was no longer there. We finally gave up and drove thirty miles down the road to a wayside hotel.
Next day we zipped through Pamplona, getting only slightly lost in their morass of streets, and on to an amazing walled city from the 17th century called Ainsa where we spent the night. Our hotel room looked out over the mighty Pyrenees Mountains and we found a really good, eclectic Mediterranean restaurant. They had a fascinating craftsman’s museum there with tools and articles from the 16th century on to about the 1800s, which we enjoyed very much.
Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
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Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachie, Paris, 1546, Parisian calf by Wotton Binder C for Marcus Fugger. €200,000 to €300,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Nausea. De principiis dialectices Gorgias, and other works, Venice, 1523, morocco gilt for Cardinal Campeggio. €3,000 to €4,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.
![<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/8caddaea-4c1f-47a7-9455-62f53af36e3f.jpg "<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.")
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 16:</b> [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of <i>Sense and Sensibility,</i> the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/9a74d9ff-42dd-46a1-8bb2-b636c4cec796.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 16:</b> [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of <i>Sense and Sensibility,</i> the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.")
