Getting the flavor of...

A book lover’s favorite weekend

When you walk into the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, “you may initially feel dizzy,” said Paula Marantz Cohen in The Smart Set. More than 150 vendors from around the world gather at the Park Avenue Armory, and their priceless wares touch on “every conceivable genre and subject.” The fair, which this year runs April 27–30, is one of my favorite events. The stalls showcase many rare and beautiful books, which visitors can generally handle freely. Also for sale are maps, posters, photographs, letters, historical documents, old board games, pulp paperbacks, and other printed ephemera, and the vendors, who “range from young and hip to old and snooty,” are eager to talk about their objets d’art. “I find these little lectures delightful.” And when a seller is short on information, a knowledgeable customer often fills in the gaps. Standing in the cavernous armory, the only question is what to look at first. “An illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages? An original George Gershwin score with his notations? A first edition of Jack

Kerouac’s On the Road?”

Fossil hunting in New Brunswick

Deep history is emerging from the shores of New Brunswick, said Robin Catalano in National Geographic. The Canadian province, which shares its Bay of Fundy coastline with Maine, sees the world’s highest tides rush in and recede twice a day, and the dramatic low tides are revealing “one of the richest caches of fossils in the

Western Hemisphere.” Until recently, neighboring Nova Scotia was more famous for its fossils. But as erosion continues, the less-visited province on the bay is turning up even older paleontological treasures. During the Carboniferous Period, New Brunswick was a biodiverse rain forest where dragonflies the size of falcons flew between giant lycopods and ferns. Citizen scientists have recently made significant discoveries, including footprints left by tiny protodinosaurs. The UNESCO Fundy Biosphere Region offers good beachcombing, as do the red cliffs at Dennis Beach and Waterside Beach. Farther north, Hopewell Rocks is popular for its sea stacks. Any discovery must be reported to the New Brunswick Museum. If you find something significant, “you might see your name recorded in the museum.”