A New Read on Book Collecting : Leisure: Often perceived as a pursuit of wealthy insiders, the hobby is becoming more accessible to newcomers with varying tastes and budgets.

If you love the smell of old books and library-like quiet, then collecting books could be the hobby for you.

From the serious investor to the weekend collector, from medieval manuscripts to the works of Agatha Christie, there are books for every taste and every budget.

“It’s not necessarily a rich person’s hobby,” said antiquarian bookseller Laurence Worms, who has been in the book trade for 24 years. His bookshop, Ash Rare Books, in London’s financial district, stocks books priced from 20 pounds to 5,000 pounds.

Getting started may seem daunting. Cole’s Register of British Second-Hand and Antiquarian Booksellers lists 2,600 outlets for collectible books. The best start is to pick a subject or theme for the collection, book collectors and booksellers agree.

Some areas, such as modern first editions--written since the turn of the century--and children’s books, are popular, so competition for the good stuff may be fierce. Prices could be higher than someone new to collecting is willing to pay.

“The thing to collect is what other people don’t collect,” said Frank Herrmann, director of London-based Bloomsbury Book Auctions and himself an author and publisher.

There are books in almost any subject area a collector chooses: fishing in Norway, the history of world economics, ship building or Indian poetry.

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For some, book collecting complements another collection. For others, book collecting centers on an author, time period or artist.

“They start collecting books because there’s an author or an illustrator that they like,” said collector Humphrey Barclay. “Then they’ll branch off, their interest will spread. . . . But everybody’s got a starting point.”

Many people hesitate to collect books, discouraged by what they perceive as a technical insiders market, booksellers said. Yet some booksellers are working to make collecting more accessible.

Worms sells two books on the terminology and ins and outs of book collecting. He also prints a free pamphlet that defines commonly used terms and abbreviations so newcomers are not deterred by the lingo.

“We are always pleased to see people just beginning,” Worms said.

Although booksellers are a good place for beginners to start, because they can take their time to learn about subjects and build a relationship with the shop owner, shop prices could be double an auction price for a book.

Like many bookshops, auction houses provide catalogues listing the books on sale, with details such as their condition and estimated price.

At an auction, new collectors have relatively less time to investigate what they might buy. Viewing times are offered before the auction for those who want to see what they are bidding on, and catalogues are published before the sale and distributed worldwide.

Some books are auctioned solo, although books are usually grouped by subject or author and sold in lots of just a few to as many as 50 or 100.

This could encumber book collectors with boxes of unwanted books to sell and require time and research to sort out what they want and what they don’t want.

Bloomsbury Book Auctions, founded more than 12 years ago by Herrmann, Lord John Kerr and David Stagg, holds biweekly auctions and draws clients from around the world.

About 20% of the buyers at his auction house are private collectors, Herrmann said. Most are in the book trade.

How valuable a book is depends on its rarity, condition, age and author. From there, “it all reduces to a straightforward supply-and-demand situation,” Worms said. “It is about availability.”

Some older books may be expensive because there are fewer of them; yet some may cost less than a newer book in demand.

A first-edition volume of Winston Churchill’s war speeches published in 1941 was recently priced at just 25 pounds, while a 1971 first edition of modern author Frederick Forsyth’s novel “The Day of the Jackal” sells for more than twice that.

Price discrepancies even exist among books by the same author, Worms said.

Most of Charles Dickens’ works can be purchased for less than 500 pounds for a first edition, some for as little as 150 pounds. Even though he wrote 150 years ago, Dickens was a popular author and his books were published in great numbers.

Yet his novel “Great Expectations” was printed in far fewer numbers than most of his books and is harder to find. A collector would have to pay as much as 25,000 pounds to get his hands on a good first edition of this work.

Some books become collectible after demand suddenly picks up.

Herrmann tells of a fine-arts book whose value rose after an art exhibition at a London museum featured works by the artists featured in the book. Public interest was piqued, demand increased, and the price rose.

Similarly, books by authors who are later awarded the Nobel Prize or otherwise gain fame may rise in value.

Booksellers caution that there are no absolutes and that collectors should regard books as a fascinating place to put their money and not as an investment for profit.

“Do it for the enjoyment of it,” Worms said.

Collectors agree. Book collectors are often more interested in keeping a book they have worked hard to find than in selling it for a profit. The goal, after all, is to collect books.