Of the Making of Many Books....

Having just posted some observations about local and regional history on "Letters from Lyonesse", I thought I'd continue the subject here.
"Of the making of many books there is no end," the Bible tells us; and I am sure the writer of this particular proverb had local and regional histories in mind. In the other blog post I told how reading the work of Fred Brenckmann, the old-line historian of my native county, likely led to my writing my own Carbon County history, "Smokestacks and Black Diamonds", many years later.
A friend of mine, the accomplished journalist Len Barcousky, recently became the author of an interesting book, "Remembering Pittsburgh", of which more later. For all I know, Len might have been inspired in part by me, because "Smokestacks and Black Diamonds" came before his entry in the local/regional field; but it doesn't matter.
Len tells me that not long ago he found himself at a book signing which featured a great number of local and regional historians--enough to fill a room the size of two basketball courts, to be exact. Each had his or her own book to sign and sell. It must have been an impressive sight. And the best part of it is, I'll bet a lot of those books had interesting and useful information to offer. I know Len's did.