Welcome!
I am Perkamentus antiquarius. 'Perkamentus' because I like my old books bound in parchment/vellum (perkament) and 'antiquarius' because I am an antiquarian. My blog is mainly about book hunting, my book collection/private library and bibliophilia, but sometimes I also write about cultural heritage an historical artifacts in my collection.
After publishing more than 200 blog posts in the Dutch language I wanted to take this blog to another – more international - level. According to the viewer statistics of this website there is a growing interest in my blog from people abroad who most likely don’t read, write or understand Dutch. I guess not all of them came here by chance. Probably few people use Google translate and I guess most are just paying a visit to see one or more of my bookish pictures.
Anyway, to accommodate more Bibliophiles from around the world I have made this special English page. Here you can find links to the English pieces on my blog all of which have been adopted by the ILAB library) as well as some guest editorials I wrote in the past and my bookish pictures.
What’s in it for me? First of all I would like to improve my English language skills. English is my second language but nevertheless I’ll probably make some mistakes. So if you see or read something ‘stupid’ please let me know.
Secondly, I hope for your bookish comments! Being a passionate bibliophile I am interested in your book adventures, experiences and expertise.
All friendly comments or questions here (or here:
Perkamentus antiquarius
PICTURES
For a list of my bookish pictures for 'Book Porn' look here!
GUEST EDITORIALS
For ‘The Private Library’ (L.D. Mitchell).
1. A Private Library in the Netherlands (A short introduction to my library and book collecting)
2. Serendipity and the Private Library (About one of my most awesome finds in a bookshop)
3. "Going Dutch" at the Private Library (The Netherlands
ILAB LIBRARY
So far all English pieces on my blog (see below) are adopted by the ILAB library, for a list look here!
ENGLISH PIECES ON MY BLOG
Surprise, surprise!
Though I have written some ‘guest editorials’ in the past (look here!) this will be my first piece in English on my bookish blog Perkamentus. Let me first I apologise to my (few) Dutch readers who can’t read English! I promise to keep it short with almost no text and lots of illustrations. Continue reading...
Ever been in Amsterdam?
As in every European city there is much to see. Beautiful old buildings, the historic canals (Amsterdam is one of the cities called ‘Venice of the North’!) lots of museums, history and art. For booklovers there are some great old book shops and flee-markets. People are friendly, and - guess what? - with few exceptions everybody speaks English too! Continue reading...
I have not been to the new Rijksmuseum yet.
I saw the documentary about its ten year renovation on television. I watched the opening ceremony on television too and I have heard from people who have been there that the museum is very beautiful. I am deliberately delaying my visit. Continue reading...
4. Being an 'Ai Sho Ka' I normally don’t. But this time I couldn’t help myself and paid almost two hundred fifty US dollars (€ 175,- euro) for three books in Kanji (logographic Chinese characters used in Japanese language) printed on very thin paper and traditionally bound in yellow embossed paper wrappers. Why? Continue reading...
Some years ago I bought a copy of “Bizarre Books, a compendium of classic oddities” (New York, 2007).
Books like that are not only fun to read but also very useful as a reference when hunting for 'bizarre books'. Books with funny titles, obscure topics and unusual stories, especially the older ones make me curious and greedy. Most of them are hard to find though. Continue reading...
6. Twitter #BookCoverChallenge
I do (@Perkamentusblog) and recently I was invited by Helwi Blom (@HelwiB) to participate in the #BookCoverChallenge. I did Tweet a book cover every day (for 7 days) of a book that means something to me.
You want to know why I did choose a particular book? Here they are again with a short comment and this time it's not about rarity or value, it's about emotions and memories. Continue reading...