Garrison, NY, and Antipodean Books

Today [Friday 5th October] Jane and Gary took the train down the Hudson to New York, while I headed up river for a second look at Antipodean Books. Yesterday we had called in at the book shop on the way to our hotel. Unfortunately, the owners David and Cathy Lilburne we away in New York city, hence the second visit.

We all went to the railway station and took our separate trains.


After a 36 minute.   s I got off the train at Garrison. A small town on the north side of the Hudson, across the river from West Point which Gary described the day before as "a large structure with small windows, possibly a prison".


The book shop, less than five minute walk from the station, has an extensive collection of Antarctic books--some in the shop and some in their house.


After mentally deciding on some books in the shop we headed up hill to the house. Here were shelves that were three books deep, downstairs, and another lot of books, upstairs. Time was limited as there was to be a wedding latter in the day in the viewing room at the shop. I selected a couple of books and while having a cup-of-tea upstairs found two more I could not do without. Back at the shop I added another book making five in all. Now having spent a tenth of the price of the book I really would have liked I called it day. Paid for my books, arranged to have them posted back to New Zealand, then caught the train back to Tarrytown.

This bookshop is a must for any serious collector of Antarctic books. I found it surprising, here in the Northern Hemisphere, to have Antarctic books not crowded out by Arctic books. Maybe it is because David is an Australian. If you cannot visit the shop you can find a catalogue at www.antipodean.com

The night before visiting I browsed some of the catalogue and was surprised to see how many copies of original Griffith Taylor, Cherry-Garrard, and Priestley books had been recently sold.

Take my word, if you are interested in Antarctic books take a look at the online catalogue or, better still, visit the shop at 29 Garrison Landing, Garrison, NY.

For those curious the books I bought were:

-- Rosove, Micheal - Antarctica 1772-1990 bibliography
-- Evans - Evans of the Broke
-- Borchgrevink - First on the Antarctic Continent (facsimile copy)
-- Markham - The Life of Sir Clements Markham
-- Bernacchi, Louis - To the South Polar Regions (facsimile copy)

- Posted Don