Going once

Robert Woolley has established himself as one of America's preeminent auctioneers in his twenty-seven years at Sotheby's - a legend in the field. In Going Once, he provides an elegant, brutally accurate, and often irreverent account of what really goes on under the roof of the world's foremost auction house.

Going Once is also the very personal story of Woolley's life with Jeffrey Childs, an antiques dealer, and of how the shadow of AIDS fell over their lives with Jeffrey's illness and death. Woolley, who is now living with AIDS, has dedicated these past ten years to fund-raising for the epidemic, often by employing the art of auctioneering to sell fantasy items and unusual opportunities.