Like 84, Charing Cross Road, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern's charming bibliocentric memoir is as much about relationships as it is about books. Charing Cross chronicled the decades-long epistolary friendship between American book lover Helene Hanff and Frank Doel, the equally devoted British bookseller in the London shop from whom she bought many of her treasures. Rostenberg and Stern's book once again proves how a passion for great literature can make for fast friends. And in their case, these two octogenarians occupy the same geographical space, sharing both their professional and private lives.

In their introduction, Rostenberg and Stern write: "Several readers inferred ... that our relationship was a Lesbian one. This was a misconception. The 'deep, deep love' that existed and exists between us ... has no bearing upon sex." With that out of the way early on, the two recount the stories of their lives in alternating sections. And oh, what lives they've had! From identifying some of Louisa May Alcott's previously anonymous early writings to traveling the world in search of rare volumes and pamphlets, they have done and seen it all. Successful antiquarian book dealers Rostenberg and Stern undoubtedly are, but as this memoir makes clear, their greatest accomplishment just might be that rarer commodity of friendship that lasts a lifetime. --Alix Wilber


The New York Times Book Review, Margot Peters
Like most memoirs, Old Books, Rare Friends is a success story--in this case a double success. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern had the persistence and talent to convert their passion for old books into distinguished careers; they also forged a personal union that has lasted more than 60 years. The relationship (platonic, they insist) that they portray in this joint memoir is enviably productive and harmonious.


From Booklist
This small volume is so rich in anecdote, so warm with a loving friendship of many decades, so precise in its evocative descriptions of the rare-book trade from the 1930s to the present, that it is hard to imagine any reader who would not find pleasure in it. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, who are the firm of Leona Rostenberg Rare Books, are now in their 80s, but their elegant writing and limpid descriptions of growing up in Manhattan and the Bronx, studying at Barnard, NYU, and Columbia, and touring Europe as young women show no signs of age. It is to Stern's scholarship that we owe the current rage for the non^-Little Women writings of Louisa May Alcott; it is to Rostenberg that we owe the notion that early printer-publishers influenced scholarship. Her adviser at Columbia had rejected her dissertation upon that topic: she was only granted her degree 30 years later. Their individual voices make both harmony and counterpoint in this joint autobiography; we are wiser and more blessed for the words and journeys they have shared. GraceAnne A. DeCandido


From Kirkus Reviews
This breezy dual autobiography of two writers and antiquarian- book dealers points up their extraordinary accomplishment in spheres of endeavor long dominated by men. Octogenarian New Yorkers Rostenberg, a historian of early printers and commentator on bibliographical subjects, and Stern, biographer and unmasker of Louisa May Alcott as the unknown writer of ``blood-and-thunder'' thrillers, have been friends since they were students at Columbia University and Barnard College, respectively. In alternating chapters the two detail their early lives, educations, and experiences as innocents abroad, but their story doesn't really heat up until the young Stern, with the economic freedom of a Guggenheim Foundation grant, begins working with clues from Little Women and other sources, as well as some key help from her friend Leona, to lay out the record of Alcott's ``deviational narratives,'' written pseudonymously for the pulp magazines of her day. For Rostenberg, with her academic background in 15th-century books, or incunabula, professional appreciation of vellum, morocco, and calfskin was a natural path. Descriptions of their publications and the growth of their joint business are coupled with firsthand accounts of rare book and pamphlet discoveries abroad and sales to US libraries and academic institutions. Highlights include the sale in the 1960s of several en bloc collections, such as that of the inimitable 16th-century imprint the Aldine Press, Venice, and a marvelous subject collection on Florence with more than 300 works, including Medici family histories, papal bulls, and an illustrated first edition Vasari Lives of the Artists (both collections went to the University of Texas). Of interest for the Alcott material alone, but the light-handed, nontechnical accounts of the uncommon duo's experiences as women antiquarians also make pleasurable reading for anyone immersed in the world of books. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
When their friendship and business partnership began in the 1940s, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern were pioneers in a man's world. Now approaching their nineties, the duo, who -- among their many discoveries -- unearthed Louisa May Alcott's pseudonymous blood-and-thunder stories, remain a vibrant institution in the rare book trade, even as the Internet changes their field -- and their community -- forever.After publishing Old Books, Rare Friends, Rostenberg and Stern received a flood of fan mail asking about their personal lives, and they have responded with rare honesty and warmth as they reflect on their lives and their remarkable partnership. Bookends recounts their fascinating histories -- family backgrounds, business adventures, the men they did not marry, and their approach to the bittersweet trials of aging. Yet, more than just a dual memoir, Bookends is also a chronicle of the cultural changes of twentieth-century American life, and a loving farewell to the golden age of book collecting. Filled with wisdom and humor, this volume is a tribute to Rostenberg and Stern's passion for the written word, and for life itself. Above all it is a heart-touching testament to enduring human friendship.


From the Publisher
Louisa May Alcott once wrote that she had taken her pen for a bridegroom. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, friends and business partners for fifty years, have in many ways taken up their pens and passion for literature in much the same way. The "Holmes & Watson" of the rare book business, Rostenberg and Stern unlocked the hidden secret of Louisa May Alcott's life when they discovered her pseudonym, A.M. Barnard, along with her anonymously published "blood and thunder" stories on subjects like transvestitism, hashish smoking, and feminism. Old Books, Rare Friends describes their mutual passion for books and literary sleuthing as they take us on their earliest European book buying jaunts. Using what they call ""Finger-spitzengefuhl,"" the art of evaluating antiquarian books by handling, experience, and instinct, they treat us to some of their greatest discoveries amid the mildewed basements of London's booksellers after the Blitz. We experience the thrill of finding one of the earliest known books printed in America between 1617-1619 by the Pilgrim Press and learn about the influential role of publisher-printers from the 15th century.Like a precious gem, Old Books, Rare Friends is a book to treasure about the companionship of two rare friends and their shared passion for old books.


From the Inside Flap
Louisa May Alcott once wrote that she had taken her pen for a bridegroom. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, friends and business partners for fifty years, have in many ways taken up their pens and passion for literature much in the same way. The "Holmes & Watson" of the rare book business, Rostenberg and Stern are renowned for unlocking the hidden secret of Louisa May Alcott's life when they discovered her pseudonym, A.M. Barnard, along with her anonymously published "blood and thunder" stories on subjects like transvestitism, hashish smoking, and feminism.

Old Books, Rare Friends describes their mutual passion for books and literary sleuthing as they take us on their earliest European book buying jaunts. Using what they call Finger-spitzengefühl, the art of evaluating antiquarian books by handling, experience, and instinct, we are treated to some of their greatest discoveries amid the mildewed basements of London's booksellers after the Blitz. We experience the thrill of finding one of the earliest known books printed in America between 1617-1619 by the Pilgrim Press and learn about the influential role of publisher-printers from the fifteenth century.

Like a precious gem, Old Books, Rare Friends is a book to treasure about the companionship of two rare friends and their shared passion for old books.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Here's a book about two forthright women who share a passion for literature and who know the true meaning of a lifelong friendship. It's a book to treasure.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Fifty years is a long time to be friends, let alone business partners, and this joint memoir by Stern and Rostenberg, legends in the antiquarian book scene for most of those years as well as prolific authors, is a treat for rare-book lovers. Devotion to the printed page began young for both. Rostenberg remembers as a child "sniffing the musty odor of books, a smell that was somehow warm and comforting." The authors met at the Hebrew Technical School for Girls in Manhattan and have stayed together ever since. (It is a measure of our age that they feel compelled to assert that speculations about a lesbian relationship are "a misconception.") They started their business in Rostenberg's family home in the Bronx but acquired their stock from dealers around the world. Stern's best-known discovery, made while she was working on her biography of Louisa May Alcott, was of Alcott's pseudonymous and racy writing for 19th-century tabloids. Her find resulted in several published collections of previously unknown Alcott stories. Rostenberg and Stern, now 84 and 87, respectively, here chronicle the thrill and intrigue of book collecting, trails pursued and trophies secured. They have also shared the rewards of friendship, mutual support and delight in each other's company.

Washington Post

Reflecting on the fascinating literary discoveries they have unearthed over the years together, the two rare book dealers write with a sense of humor and a load of wisdom. Old Books, Rare Friends is for everyone who dreams of making a career out of collecting exceptional literature.

San Francisco Chronicle

You'd think a book about antiquarian bookselling wouldn't be loaded with suspense or keep us laughing or make us shake our heads in wonder at the adventures of its 87-year-old authors . . . But Old Books, Rare Friends does that and more . . .

NY Times Book Review

Their story is irresistible to anyone in love with books.

LA Times Book Review