Picture this:It is 1969. The American Counterculture is peaking. Woodstock, Flower Power, and the Beats are upending the stale establishment. You're high as a kite walking around the streets of Boston and you see a covered wagon coming down the street. Horses, cowboys and the whole bit. From the covered wagon books are being thrown freely. On the side of the wagon it said: "Go West, Booklovers -- Go to 5 West Street -- Brattle Book Shop."Some people might not have recovered.This was the work of George Gloss, the owner of the Brattle Book Shop. A bookshop "As powerful a...
Breaking the Book Collector Stereotype
It is time to give up the image. Book Collecting is no longer a pursuit confined mostly to rich middle-aged white men.The picture above is of Sophie Dahl and appears in her piece for Men's Vogue titled book lust. On Sept. 11, 2001 when evacuating her NY apartment Dahl says "I took a small bag and filled it with my grandmother's jewelry, childhood letters from my parents, a toothbrush, and a pair of jeans. But the lumpy bulk of it was incurred by my books." This solidifies Dahl's place with the most ardent and true collectors."Miss Dahl is, after all,...
Bookshop Nightmare!
A Bookseller's PrayerPlease God don't make me go in here.I promise to take care of all my booksand be as nice as possible to all my customers.I promise to treat each book and each customer asa special gift from you.Please God don't make me go in there.Flickr set from mistermajik2000Thanks to Library Stuff for the lead
Books in Pictures
This is the dust jacket of the first English language edition of Stefan Bollmann's Reading Women. It was published last year by Merrell with a foreword by Karen Jay Fowler. It is the first book devoted to the history of women reading in art. With one hundred color illustrations ranging from Simone Martini's Annunciation, 1333 which shows Jesus's mom Mary being a bit startled at having her reading interrupted by a golden angel, to Eve Arnold's photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses. Each image is accompanied by a paragraph or two placing it in its...
E-Books Stink
No, really.CafeScribe, a new website devoted to the digital delivery of textbooks for students, announced plans yesterday to launch "the world's first smelly e-book."They commissioned Zogby to undertake a survey of 600 college students and this is what they found:43% identified smell –- either new book smell or old -- as the thing they most love about books as physical objects.3 in 10 of the surveyed students associated “mustiness” with the books they most loved, although 16% -- possibly those most likely to hit the books early in the day – associated best-loved books with the smell of “freshly-ground coffee.”Oh...