Welcome to our community blog–“Down the Rabbit Hole” Thanks for visiting us!

At Grinning Cat Books, we’re all mad about rare and unique books, storytelling, and learning. Just like you. Our mission is to make rare book collecting an engaging, fun, and accessible experience for everyone. All too often collecting can be an intimidating, bewildering, and “exclusive” endeavor, or perceived as such. It shouldn't be! So, we’re striving to curate a community that is as relevant and welcoming to curious first-time buyers as to avid collectors alike.

As such, our “Down the Rabbit Hole” blog is really all about you. The world of rare book collecting is wonderfully vast and complex, reflecting the interests of readers, authors, storytellers, artists, learners, and dealers around the world. There’s a lot of learning involved and mistakes can be frustrating and quite costly as well.

Indeed, when my wife Alison and I began our collecting adventures decades ago, we each longed for guidance and resources to help us frame and focus our efforts, understand what we didn’t know we didn’t know, and to distill the complexity of collecting with practical, easy-to-digest, insider tips and ideas. Although we had great fun, we often learned the hard way and believe we could have avoided many missteps had access to information and seasoned advice been more readily available and approachable. We haven’t forgotten those times.

“Down the Rabbit Hole” will attempt to address this by fostering community dialogue and learning around the many facets of rare book collecting. It will speak equally to those just beginning to collect, experienced buyers, investors, and those shopping for gifts and personal pleasure. If we get the mix right, you'll enjoy erudite discussions on Don Quixote alongside practical conversations around buying and selling. 

To that end, a great many topics of interest will be taken from your input and collecting experiences, As part of this, we will showcase “Collector Stories,” where community members will share tales and tips from their collecting journeys. Moreover, our Grinning Cat team has unabashedly eclectic tastes. Consequently, our collection is quite broad and will support discussions across an array of subjects that we believe will nicely reflect the diversity and interests of our community. And, we will absolutely include other dealers, collectors, and experts as well.    

So please register and join the party! And when you do, you'll be automatically enrolled in our Cheshire Rewards Club as well. We’re excited about the Cheshire Club—yet another way we’re looking to show our appreciation in recognition of your active participation with us. 

We also ask that you take the time to respond to our periodic surveys and not hesitate to reach out with constructive comments and ideas on our blog topics, website, learning resources, and overall shopping experience. We thrive on feedback and welcome it. And, we and promise to listen and do our best to make your time spent at Grinning Cat Books both fun and worthwhile!

In closing, we'd like to share a major goal with you. For Alison and me, the exploration for great books and art has taken us on exciting journeys locally and the world over across a vibrant community of amazing bookshops and sellers, book fairs large and small, top-tier auctions, regional and local auction houses, estate sales, antique dealers, personal libraries, and encounters with people like you from all walks of life. Exploring these venues and getting to know the wonderful people and organizations involved has been a joy, long before we decided to participate in this world more deeply by becoming dealers ourselves and sharing our expertise and experience with others.

Our sincere hope is that you find mentors, trusted sources of advice, and friends through our community. Please consider us one! This is the easily one of the most rewarding aspects of collecting at any level.

As you go, please enjoy our first Down the Rabbit Hole blog: “7 Tips for an Awesome Rare Book Collecting Adventure!” It’s chock full of real-world experiences and no-nonsense advice that we hope you find helpful and entertaining. If you like it, please share it and spread the word!

Warm regards from a fellow Mad Hatter,

Paul