A Leap Into Books an Ex-Financier Finds His Real Love Is Publishing
A-lead.levy 10/5/01 2:30 PM Page 90 ALUMNI A Leap into Books An ex-financier finds his real love is publishing. or 17 years Paul eclectic mix of paperback Dry ’66 commuted reprints—fiction and to the Philadelphia nonfiction—many with F Stock Exchange, new, scholarly introduc- where he was a success- tions. Among them are a ful, if not terribly high- 1567 translation of Ovid’s rolling, stock-options Metamorphoses; a surreal- trader. The whirlwind of istic tale called His Mon- activity pleased him, as key Wife; a psychiatrist’s did the autonomy, and the study of an Italian Jewish job helped pay his family’s leader during the Holo- bills. Yet by the early caust; a biography of two 1990s a certain dissatisfac- jazz pioneers; and The Tree tion had set in, which led of Life, a fictional journal Dry to make a purchase of a frontier minister. For that he promptly stashed the most part, these are away. But sometimes his books Dry read in their mind would turn to the first editions, enjoyed, weighty cardboard box in and brought back to life. the closet: “Do I dare do “I figured if I loved them,” it?” he wondered. Filled he explains, “there must with expensive stationery be other people out there imprinted with the name who would love them, Bedrock Books, the box too.” sat in the dark for about This fall, Dry and his five years. “It was a secret business partner, John shared by me, my wife, Corenswet ’77, branched and the guy who designed out to produce one com- it,” Dry says.
[Show full text]