Announcing the Eighth Annual Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize

Tuesday February 20, 2024

LitHub — Literary Hub is pleased to announce that submissions are now open for the eighth annual Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize, which awards $1,000 for “an outstanding book collection conceived and built by a woman aged 30 or younger,” who lives anywhere in the United States...

Announcing the Seventh Annual Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize

Wednesday February 22, 2023

LitHub — Literary Hub is pleased to announce that submissions are now open for the seventh annual Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize, which awards $1,000 for “an outstanding book collection conceived and built by a woman aged 30 or younger,” who lives anywhere in the United States...

New York's Bookish Fashion Week

Sunday May 8, 2022

Luxe Libris — A few weeks ago, I threw on a pink corduroy suit, book tote, and comfortable pair of shoes and headed to my first-ever New York Antiquarian Book Fair . . . 

Interview with the Honey & Wax Prize Recipients

Friday October 1, 2021

Parenthesis: The Journal of the Fine Press Book Association — Where are the young women collectors, and what are they acquiring? These are the questions that led antiquarian booksellers Heather O'Donnell and Rebecca Romney to establish the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize in 2017...

 

Own a Complete Set of the Paperback Experiment that Paved the Way for Penguin

Monday February 22, 2021

LitHub —  In the early 1930s, a bookshop window would have displayed the pretty, pictorial dust jackets of the latest bestsellers, say Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. A compact wooden bookshelf stuffed with colorful paperbacks might also have commanded space and attention, its slightly off-kilter sign in all caps reading: 50¢ BONIBOOKS...

Catalogue in Focus: CTRL+P

Wednesday October 14, 2020

The Book Collector — You may remember that the beginning of COVID lockdown saw a fair few joint catalogues appear in the rare book world . . . 

The Secret and Surprising World of Rare Books

Monday April 27, 2020

The Economist — They are hunters and pack-rats, guardians of the unusual and obscure. Rare-book dealers sound like an obsessive breed you might have thought was long extinct (inevitably, the phrase conjures an image of a pipe-smoking gentleman in tweed). Yet as a delightful new documentary makes clear, today’s dealers and collectors are much livelier than the stereotype...

A Mysterious Corpus at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair

Friday March 6, 2020

The Magazine Antiques — More than two hundred dealers in rare books, maps, photos, memorabilia, and such have gathered for the sixtieth annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair—the most important event on international book dealers’ calendar—at the Park Avenue Armory...

Peeking into the World of Rare Books

Thursday March 5, 2020

New York Times — The New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, held every March at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, is the world’s premier gathering of buyers, sellers and lovers of rare books...

A Bookseller Grows in Brooklyn

Friday September 27, 2019

LetterShop Books  —  Tucked away between Whole Foods and a craft microbrewery, I found Heather in the office and bookroom of her business of eight years, Honey & Wax . . . 

Booksellers' Best 2019

Sunday September 1, 2019

Fine Books and Collections —  Earlier this year, we invited hundreds of antiquarian and rare book dealers to tell us about a unique or noteworthy recent sale. Here’s an illustrated sampling of their submissions . . . 

The Right and Wrong Ways to Collect

Tuesday August 6, 2019

The Book Collector —  The Sol. M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture on 10 July 2019 saw Heather O'Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers and Rebecca Romney of Type Punch Matrix speaking on “The Right and Wrong Ways to Collect” . . . 

You're a Book Collector and You Probably Don't Even Know It

Wednesday May 1, 2019

Seattle Review of Books —  Three years ago, antiquarian bookstore Honey & Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn founded the Honey & Wax Prize, which Rebecca Romney, over the phone, explains is “an annual award for an outstanding book collection that was formed by a woman in the United States, age 30 or younger” . . .  

Are Your Used Books Worth Anything?

Tuesday March 12, 2019

Forbes —  On Sunday, I took a break from my regular sports collectibles beat and spent two-and-a-half hours at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair's Discovery Day. The hosts invited guests to “bring up to five treasures to be evaluated by our experts"...

Honey & Wax Q&A

Monday October 15, 2018

Journal of the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies  —  Back in June, we had the opportunity to interview booksellers Heather O'Donnell and Rebecca Romney about the Honey & Wax Prize, engaging young collectors, and what's next for the Brooklyn bookselling firm . . . 

Honey & Wax Champions Equal Representation in Rare Book Trade

Tuesday August 7, 2018

Book and Paper Fairs Blog —  Heather O’Donnell and Rebecca Romney of Brooklyn-based Honey & Wax feel the historically male-dominated profession of antiquarian bookselling needs to be more welcoming to women and have suggested a few ways such change could come about...

 

The Rare Women in the Rare-Book Trade

Thursday July 5, 2018

The Paris Review —  In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway picks up the phone and receives a solo lunch-party invite intended for her husband, from another woman...

This Is Not Your Typical Summer Beach Reads List

Thursday June 21, 2018

CNN Travel —  In a world filled with never-ending conflict and bad news, it's no surprise that many people want to stick their heads in the sand this summer. But I can't stop thinking about the injustices that have been dominating the news cycle...

13 Secrets of Rare Book Dealers

Wednesday November 1, 2017

Mental Floss — Rebecca Romney, a rare book dealer based in Brooklyn, shares some secrets and surprises of this quirky corner of book culture...

21 Items for the Boston Book Fair

Wednesday November 1, 2017

The New Antiquarian — We asked ABAA members to let us know which items they were particulaly excited about bringing to the upcoming Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair and they responded with a breath-taking selection of truly spectacular association copies, signed books, art, and idiosyncratic ephemera from all corners of the globe . . . 

10 U.S. Bookstores You Can Visit Right Now

Wednesday October 18, 2017

Book Riot — Sure, you can research and buy rare books online, but if you’re itching to browse and discover something truly special (or prefer an in-person chat with an expert while looking for something specific) there are plenty of wonderful antiquarian bookstores all over the United States...

 

2017 Honey & Wax Prize Announcement

Tuesday September 19, 2017

The Paris Review —  Imagine a book collector, a person who has devoted their life to seeking out rare tomes in dusty shops, who arranges their finds, these prized possessions, purposefully and carefully, on a shelf just out of reach. Chances are you will have imagined a man . . .

The Book Huntresses: Women Bibliophiles

Monday July 17, 2017

International League of Antiquarian Booksellers —  In his 1930 work on book collecting, Anatomy of Bibliomania, Holbrook Jackson claimed that “book love is as masculine (although not as common) as growing a beard.” Times have changed...

Bright Young Booksellers: Rebecca Romney

Thursday March 9, 2017

Fine Books and Collections  — Our Bright Young Booksellers series continues today with Rebecca Romney, of Honey & Wax Booksellers, and author of Printer's Error, out next week from HarperCollins...

How Much Is This Old Thing Worth?

Wednesday December 30, 2015

New York Times — My mother said the book would be valuable one day. Her only regret was that over the years of reading it to me and my sister, she had been careless about pulling it off the shelf and had torn the delicate red leather of the spine...

Books of Gold

Tuesday December 1, 2015

Esquire Holiday Gift Guide — A book can withstand the test of time in two ways: content and construction. Honey & Wax Booksellers specializes in ones that do both...

The Gatsby Index

Thursday April 9, 2015

Lapham's Quarterly — This week marks the ninetieth anniversary of The Great Gatsby... 

Catalogue Review: Honey & Wax No. 3

Friday March 27, 2015

The Book Collector — More discreet, more elegant, and just as convincing -- but without the taurine testosterone element -- is the pretty, small-format third catalog from Honey & Wax...

Honey & Wax at Ash Rare Books

Thursday December 4, 2014

The Bookhunter on Safari — It may strike you as curious, as it certainly strikes me, that in over three years of blogging about visits to other booksellers, I have never yet had occasion to describe this operation in reverse...

Interview: Bookish Brooklyn

Saturday November 1, 2014

Americana Exchange — A few years ago Heather O’Donnell left her job selling rare books on Madison Avenue to launch Honey & Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn... 

NY Rare Book Week: Highlights

Monday March 24, 2014

Fine Books & Collections — From Honey & Wax Booksellers, this extraordinary, fine first edition of À la recherche du temps perdu, inscribed by Marcel Proust to fellow writer Marcel Prévost, includes the scarce first issue of the first volume...

Does Social Media Sell Books?

Tuesday October 1, 2013

Americana Exchange — Last month I found myself reporting on a local event, and noticed I was the only member of the press with a pen and pad...

How Walker Evans Read T.S. Eliot

Wednesday September 25, 2013

Designers & Books — A touchstone for two titans of American modernism, Walker Evans’s personal copy of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” testifies to the special connection between the photographer and the poet...

Bookseller Profile: Honey & Wax Booksellers

Wednesday May 15, 2013
Antiquarianation — A few weeks ago, while shopping at The Manhattan Vintage Book and Ephemera Fair (a.k.a. the Shadow Show), I came across a relatively new antiquarian bookseller -- Honey & Wax Booksellers -- and was blown away...

What Makes A Book Rare -- And Do You Have One?

Saturday January 19, 2013
Brooklyn Artisan — On Thursday night at the Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue, Heather O’Donnell set out to shine a little light on the subject of rare and collectible books for more than a dozen of her Park Slope neighbors...

Catalogue Review: Honey & Wax No. 1

Wednesday October 24, 2012
Fine Books and Collections — In his 84th "Moral Letter", the philosopher Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius one of the earliest, most in-depth descriptions of why we should use books as bees use flowers...

The Subconscious Landscape of the Printed Book

Wednesday October 24, 2012
Hyperallergic — As book lovers mourn the dematerialization of the printed word, rare booksellers like Heather O’Donnell remain upbeat. She’s part of an ardent group of believers — a new generation of flame-tenders who are dedicated to keeping books safe...

Bright Young Things: Heather O'Donnell

Tuesday October 2, 2012
Fine Books and Collections — Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Heather O'Donnell, proprietor of Honey and Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn...