Of Interest: Poetry, Poetry and more Poetry – Wessel & Lieberman & Wave Books April 3, 2014 – Posted in: bookshops, Of Interest: Featured Books / Reviews

This month Of Interest celebrates National Poetry Month by featuring select holdings from particular independent booksellers and publishers that provide a healthy offering of poetry. First up, we pair a couple of Seattle’s finest – the bookshop closest to my heart and my alma mater, Wessel & Lieberman, and one of the leading publishers of poetry, Wave Books. Enjoy! Paul Celan. Wolf’s Bean / Wolfsbohne. Translated by Michael Hamburger. New York: Delos Press / William Drenttel, 1997. One…

Of Interest : Book Burning, a Bad Library Idea, Go-Sees, Riprap, Jean Prouvé, Peking the Beautiful, Newer Book picks and more March 23, 2014 – Posted in: book arts, bookmobiles, books, Bookselling / Collecting, Of Interest: Featured Books / Reviews

This week’s Of Interest takes us from a rare book on Peking to an anthology of one line poems to a collection of songs inspired by books with a sprinkling of newer books that have caught our fancy. First a few headlines: Seems like the burning of books is a hot topic these days – Pro-Russian demonstrators are burning Ukrainian-language books “in small bonfires in the street” http://ow.ly/uRGOL In what might a first – Vandals torch a Little…

The Book Emperor of Johannesberg February 16, 2014 – Posted in: books, Bookselling / Collecting, Reading / Literacy

“This is my empire, my kingdom…Books are my wealth, my gift” says Philane Dladla His kingdom is “at a U-turn sign at an intersection in Empire Road opposite Wits University, in Johannesburg.”and his mission in life is the “reading and dispensing knowledge by selling books.” image by Daniel Born When a person his mom looked after died Philane inherited 500 books. He read and reviewed them all. Now he makes his way by reading what he gets and…

In the Stacks: Leslie Jones at the Boston Public Library December 31, 2013 – Posted in: bookshops, In the Stacks, Photography, public libraries

Gertrude Fisher takes unusual position to read the latest novel of her husband M.S. Merritt. November 26, 1932 Though he worked as staff photographer of Boston Herald-Traveler from 1917 to 1956 Leslie Jones considered himself more of a camera-man then a photo-journalist. And when all was said and done he had amassed “a stunning pictorial document of the history of Boston in the 20th century.” The Old Bookstore, Cornhill March 1930 His collection of almost 40,000 negatives…