Paper assets

There`s an infection so rare that it affects only two percent of the American population, and even fewer people in Africa. Bibliophilia is the love of books - "funny little portable pieces of thought", as Susan Sontag called them. Books can be seductive, and they do furnish a room, there`s no getting away from it.

Robin Fryde began as a collector; in 1962, he purchased the eponymous rare book emporium founded in 1904 by Frank Thorold. Nico Israel, who was then a leading European dealer, gave him a stern warning: "You may succeed as a dealer, or as a collector, but you cannot do both. The dealer cannot compete with his customers."