Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion

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. (June)