Martha Rosler's library has landed at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), "a newly created institute dedicated to the history of art" in ParisWriting on the traveling library in the spring 2007 issue of Afterall Elena Filipovic says:[Rosler] temporarily dispossessed herself of the vast majority of her personal library so that it could be made available for consultation. No borrowing was possible, but the eclectic ensemble of books on economics, political theory, war, colonialism, poetry, feminism, science fiction, art history, mystery novels, children’s books, dictionaries, maps and travel books, as well as photo albums, posters, postcards and newspaper clippings...
Drink Books
Camper English has a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today on collectible cocktail books titled Bartenders shake and stir their way through cocktail history.English, who writes the booze blog Alcademics talks with Josey Packard, a bartender at Alembic in the Upper Haight who also studies recipe history and collector John Burton, owner and instructor of the Bartenders' School of Santa Rosa, about their interest in older cocktail booksHighlights:-The first known cocktail book is "How to Mix Drinks" by Jerry Thomas and was published 1862.-"Because of their proximity to sticky liquids, well-used cocktail books often don't hold up over time,...
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,...
The Libraries of Power
"Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power" says Harriet Rubin in her New York Times piece C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success.Some article highlights:-Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist extraordinaire, whose wife calls him "the Imelda Marcos of books."-Nike's Phil Knight's mysterious library which exists in "a room behind his formal office" and one that few people have access to.-Apple's Steve Jobs fancied William Blake.-Dee Hock, the man who founded Visa, has a 2000 square foot library in his home and who has "on his library table for daily consulting, Omar Khayyam’s Rubáiyát the Persian poem that warns of...
The "Overly Attached Syndrome"
That's the diagnosis given to many book lovers by Alina Tugend in her piece New Ways to Do It Make Giving Away Books a Bit Less Painful that appears in the New York Times today."Getting rid of books creates tension for many, although it is often one of the first things people have to do when downsizing or simply trying to organize their lives." says Tugned.For some, including the author, giving away or selling their books at the appropriate time is a liberating experience. There is little remorse. For others, the disposing of books from their library is one of...