When I have trouble falling asleep, I count animals marching into Noah’s ark. After three hours, I still have beasts to account for, long after sheep have schelepped into the cargo hold.I have no idea what Athanasius Kircher, the 17th century polymath, did when he needed to inspire the sandman; it appears that he was kept up all night speculating about everything concerning Noah.The procession of life into the Ark.He published the results of his obsession with Noah in 1675. Arca Noe was and remains the most detailed account of Noah and his ark from that period in scientific inquiry,...
The Ballad of No Book Stores on the Streets of Laredo
Moonrise over Laredo, Texas as the sun sets over its book trade.Recent events in Laredo, Texas have compelled Tex Rex, King of the Singing Cowboys, to step out of retirement from his home on the range and croon the ballad of sad book-café about a big American city now scandalously - incredibly - without a single book shop; unbelievable but true.As I walked out on the streets of LaredoAs I walked out on Laredo one dayI spied an old book shop all shuttered and closed downShuttered and closed down all night and all day.I see by this closing that books...
Skirts In Dust Jackets: Indie Women, Wayward Wives, Soiled Damsels, Sassy Lassies, and Hard-Boiled Dames
Meherin, Elenore. "Sandy." Gosset & Dunlap, 1926."She defied life's Conventions in her search for THRILLS!"Photoplay edition.Women on the move, on the make, on the day shift, on the night shift, on their feet, on their backs, on the go, on their way, onward and upward.Sometimes a rare book catalog is organized like a library exhibition, the dealer/cataloger as curator to a wide variety of books that when grouped together tell a compelling story.West, Mae. The Constant Sinner (Babe Gordon). Macaulay, 1931.4th printing, first with ths title and dust jacket.The story of a dope-dealing prostitute who has anaffair with a black...
Prozac on Every Page, Please: “I Need Happy Books!”
It’s a rough world out there. Read enough about it and reach for an anti-depressant. As often as not, readers head for the books to take them out of this world into another, if only for a little while.What happens when even books suck you into the muck of human existence? Is there no escape?“Hi. I have been reading about a book every other week for the last couple of years and it seems that most of the books I end up reading are sad and make me more cynical about the world, such as books by Kafka, Orwell, Dostoyevsky,...
The World’s Largest Private Collection of Rare Books on Haiti
Later edition of one of the strangest, God-awful books on Haiti ever written.In 1983, Robert Corbett, a philosophy professor at Webster University, and his wife, Jane, visited Haiti for the first time to do service work. By 2007, he had amassed a collection of 2600 books and 5000 journal articles on Haiti.He is currently in the process of selling the collection in its entirety.I asked Bob to share with Book Patrol readers his thoughts about the collection in general, Haiti, and his book collecting strategy.BP: What made you decide to start the collection?I started the library in 1983 after the...