DATE: Sunday, September 28, 1997            TAG: 9709180490

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

DON'T FILE BOOK NUTS UNDER ``NARROW''

The bookperson has been traditionally regarded by unenlightened others as something of a bloodless creature - antisocial, distracted, redolent of must, quintessentially unhip.

Four-eyed and dog-eared; rabble without a clue.

Dust-rappers.

That's a dead-wrong rep for a global community of enormously varied individuals with a switched-on fascination for the printed page - and if you don't think they're a passionate bunch, try asking any one of them what's so interesting about his or her specialty.

``An old book has a life of its own,'' maintains Carol Conway, 53, owner of Odyssey Books in Hampton. ``When I hold in my hand a leather-bound prayer book printed in 1790 and think of the other hands that it has been in, I'm fascinated. It may have been in the front row at Westminster Abbey at one time, as well as some village country church, and I feel honored to have it in my care.

``You don't own old books - you just look after them for a while and then pass them on.''

She and her friend Tonya Yonkos, 55, owner of Old Village Books in Hampton, are particularly good bibliostewards. Both of their businesses are located in the 5,000-square-foot Blue Skies Gallery at 26 S. King St. And they have teamed up outside the premises as well for the second consecutive year to provide an extraordinary opportunity for Hampton Roads bookfolk.

They have organized the Antiquarian Book Fair, to be held at Williamsburg's Patrick Henry Conference Center on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 10 and 11.

There will be 45 booksellers from throughout Virginia and eight neighboring states who will provide antique books, volumes by noted illustrators, fine bindings, modern first editions and other irresistible occasions for browsing.

Alan and Pat Fitch of Blenheim Books will be there - all the way from Prospect, Ky. - to share their specialty in the Bronte sisters, Charlotte and Emily.

Also present will be Virginia cartographic experts Luke and Patricia Vavra with a profusion of antiquarian maps and books about maps.

And Mary Haskell of Astor House in Williamsburg will emphasize cookbooks, food and beverage books and gastronomic history.

Extra bookings: K. Franklin Spoor of Newport News will demonstrate the fine art of endpaper marbling, and Whitney Lynn of Williamsburg will accompany the proceedings with harp music.

The hours of the fair are 5 to 9 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday; call 877-0474 for further information.

If Conway's focus has been on old prayer books and bibles, Yonkos' has been on the illustrated children's books of British artists Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac.

``I like picture books,'' she notes. ``It's a beautiful art. I've been buying books in England for 20 years; they have a lot of nice ones and take good care of them.

``Somehow the English don't let children who have books have crayons at the same time.''

Conway and Yonkos are nobody's idea of narrow. Both are successful, married working women who have raised four demonstrably book-affected children between them - a maritime attorney, a commercial banker, an architect and a marine biologist. Assuredly, their grandchildren will read books.

It would seem the best way to get bibliophiles Conway and Yonkos to do something is to tell them they can't.

``We've been informed you cannot sell books south of Washington, D.C.,'' says Yonkos, ``but we do.''

``There are few book fairs in Virginia,'' says Conway. ``Charlottesville has a small one in March, and there are several in D.C. It seemed to us that Williamsburg was a logical site for ours.

``We've tried to be business-smart as well as book-smart.

``Colonial Williamsburg is a draw. The second weekend of October is the long Columbus Day weekend - and time for the Anheuser-Busch Golf Classic. After they get off the links Friday, everybody can come to our book fair.'' MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia

Wesleyan College.

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