San Antonio, TX. This burg will never be accused of being a book town. Visiting the city - which possesses one of the loveliest downtown areas in the country - only one rare book shop was found: The History Shop, located across the street from the Alamo. It was not impressive; concentrating on weapons, maps and some books, its diorama of the Alamo is about the best that can be said for it. The Antiquarian Book Mart is located outside the downtown area; I did not have an opportunity to check it out. As far as new book shops, the...
This Is Your Brain On Books
There has been a spate of recent books covering new research upon how our brains work and the human decision-making process. Madeleine Bunting, at the Guardian, nicely sums up the science and its implications. It turns out that just about all of our assumptions about free-will, autonomy, and rationality in our choices and decisions are chimerical.I was reminded of this just the other day when I received the following note from a close friend and rare book collector with a Ph.D,, and who has been certified as sane. His first note limns an extraordinary find in which serendipity smiled upon...
Edgar Allan Poe Lights Up The Ransom Center
Break out a cask of amontillado and let the pale sherry flow. Fans of Edgar Allan Poe are in for a treat this year, the bicentennial of the American poet, critic and inventor of the detective story’s birth.The Harry Ransom Center, the humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, is commemorating the two-hundreth birthday of Poe with the exhibition From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe.The exhibition is based upon the extensive holdings of the Ransom Center and the Harrison Institute/ Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the...