Welcome to the first installment of Of Interest for 2015. Lots of good stuff to kick off the New Year.
Pictured above:
The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry
Published by Maclehose Press. Translated from the French by Siân Reynolds.
One morning a librarian finds a reader who has been locked in overnight. She starts to talk to him, a one-way conversation that soon gathers pace as an outpouring of frustrations, observations and anguishes. Two things shine through: her shy, unrequited passion for a quiet researcher named Martin, and an ardent and absolute love of books.
Bestseller in France.
A couple of Small Press Subscriptions
On Used Bookshops by John Beacham.
The second installment in Beacham’s The Brother In Elysium Pamphlet Series. Essay on the closing of used bookstores and the demise of browsing culture. Printed letterpress in an edition of 150 copies. One time subscription fee to the Pamphlet series is $40, never expires! Subscribe
Reading Mary Ruefle Inside Jay Ponteri by Jay Ponteri
“We carry other writers inside our minds and hearts,”
The latest from The Honest Pint series from Tavern Books features Jay Ponteri homage to Mary Ruefle.
$5 a month gets you in to this series edited by Matthew Dickman. Subscribe
Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things
by Carlos Bueno
Published by No Starch Press
A whimsical journey through Userland, a land where logic and computer science come to life. It’s never to soon to teach your kids programming skills.
X: A Novel
Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon. Published by Candlewick Press.
Cowritten by Malcolm X’s daughter, X follows then Malcolm Little from his childhood to his imprisonment for theft at age twenty, when he found the faith that would lead him to forge a new path and command a voice that still resonates today.
Draw What You See: The Life and Art of Benny Andrews by Kathleen Benson. Illustrated by Benny Andrews.
Published by Clarion Books.
Biography of this noted African American artist. “Throughout his life, his art focused on the people around him, from Chicago’s jazz musicians to New York’s civil rights activists. He also became an art teacher, fighting for equal rights for African Americans and espousing that “art is for everyone,” whether they are prison inmates or children recovering from Hurricane Katrina. There’s no better illustrator for this narrative than Andrews himself” – Booklist
Lou Reed: The Last Interview and other conversations.
Published by Melville House.
Compilation of 30+ years of interviews with the Lou Reed. Offering among other wisdom, “profound observations on the human experience, especially as he reflects on poetry and novels, the joy of live performances, and the power of sound.”
Reed studied at Syracuse University with the poet Delmore Schwartz.
Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book
Revived and Illustrated by Dusha Bateson and Weslie Janeway.
Published by Glitterati Incorporated.
Ever wonder what Charles Darwin ate when he was at home? Here are fifty-five recipes from the cookery notebook of Emma Wedgwood Darwin including one for boiling rice written in Charles Darwin’s own hand.
“What is amazing about this ‘book’ is that it was languishing in the archives of Cambridge University for more than 100 years, and the recipes in it are as fresh today as they were when Emma Darwin collected them.