click to enlargeEach Halloween Americans spend $950 million on candy; we buy 20 million pounds of candy corn alone. Beside the dress up and the pumpkins many of our kids experience their biggest sugar rush and crash of the year. And as fun as trick or treating is Halloween night often ends ugly for them and for us! The sugar meltdowns wipe out all the fun we had getting ready for the big night.Well, there might be a better way.Since Halloween 2001 Book for Treats has given away thousands of used books each year to kids in the San Jose,...
A "Witch" So Rare It’s Scary
Yes, some water-stains; it's a maritime novel, what'd you expect?This copy, apparently, skimmed the seas.Some days I wake up lucky. I now have before me one of the great rarities in American literature, the true first edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Water Witch. Published no later than September 18, 1830, the London edition followed in October, and the Philadelphia edition in the the Spring of 1831.Only sixteen copies of this, the Dresden edition, are known to exist: OCLC and KVK locate twelve copies in institutional collections worldwide, and ABPC records only four copies at auction within the last thirty-five...
Glamorous Ghost Haunts Louisiana Library
Perhaps it is the quiet that draws them in. Or the musty scent of aging leather bindings and brittle pages. Or maybe it's the all too rare reverence those who frequent them have for history and literature. Whatever their reasons, ghosts are especially fond of libraries. One librarian has documented haunted libraries in 44 of the 50 states, with most claiming more than one poltergeist-plagued public institution. Whether or not one swears by the mantra of the Cowardly Lion of Oz, ("I do believe in ghosts, I do believe in ghosts, I do, I do, I do, I doooo.") these...
A Big Book. A VERY Big Book.
Welcome to my book. Please, step inside.Oh, to curl up in bed with a good book! But not this book.Measuring more than 5 x 7 feet and weighing in at 133 pounds, Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest published book in the world. At this size, it may qualify for its own zip code.Production of the book stretched image-processing systems to their limits. The life-size portraits of people and the panoramas convey some of the staggering sweep of the mountains and the ancient architecture in Bhutan, the...
O. Henry’s Morphine Overdose, Pay-Scale, and Advice to Writers
Recently, while on recon for Book Patrol, I discovered Fog in Santone, a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) set in San Antonio Texas and loaded with morphine. In it, O. Henry limns the nexus of tuberculosis, desperate sufferers, and drug addiction amongst the sick and “sporting class" with lighthearted morbidity.In contrast to Fog in Santone, At Arms With Morpheus takes place in turn-of the-century New York City boarding house. From clues in the narrative, it is the boarding house located off Madison Square where Porter lived.In At Arms With Morpheus, which first appeared in the October,...