Next time you impatiently yank an over-sized envelope emblazoned with the words: "You May Have Already Won 10 Million Dollars!!!" out of your junk-filled mailbox, take a moment to say: "Thanks." Without Publisher's Clearing House, the New York Botanical Garden might not havea library.The Botanical Garden's LuEsther T. Mertz Library is named for its largest benefactor, the genius behind the concept of the mass market mailing of multiple magazine subscription offers. Founded in 1953 by former librarian Mertz, her husband, and their daughter, Publisher's Clearing House became the largest and most profitable magazine circulation agency in the world. (And this...
One Hell of a Book Store – Or the Wrong One?
From Book Patrol's International Book Shops We'd Like To Visit Department. This one in Hong Kong.Thanks to LISNews for the lead.
Gen. McChrystal’s "Bad Habit": He Loves Old Book Shops
(I wish I was home, relaxing in my library, reading a good book)During the 1960s, the phrase “military intelligence” was considered an oxymoron. In the midst of the Vietnam war it was a darkly glib joke, defensible only because of the series of strategic blunders that were made; it certainly seemed to be true that military officers were not the brightest candles in the chandelier and disdained expressions of intellect.It wasn’t true then, it isn’t true now. Buried within Dexter Filken’s New York Times magazine feature last Sunday profiling Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of allied military operations in Afghanistan, is...
73 Interpretations of Tristram Shandy’s Infamous Black Page
Black Page 73 by Patrick HughesIn celebration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of Tristram Shandy, Shandy Hall, author Laurence Sterne’s former home in Coxwold, U.K, has mounted an exhibition, The Black Page.Seventy-three artists, composers and writers have created their own interpretations of the infamous Black Page, using a sheet of A4 handmade Somerset paper that Incline Press has printed with the outline of the original page in true proportion and the number “73.”“At the end of volume 1, chapter 12 [pp. 73] of his comic masterpiece, Laurence Sterne famously confronts his readers with a...
The Beat of the Bullet, The Rhythm of the Book
The Associated Press recently reported a story that’s positively biblical, with a good beat, and that you can dance to:Dad, 83, Accused of Opening Fire on Drumming Son Oct 16th, 2009 | SAN ANTONIO -- San Antonio police are investigating the wounding of a man after his elderly father allegedly opened fire when the victim refused to stop drumming. Police said the son, in his 50s, suffered a non-life threatening head wound early Friday while at the home the men share. Police said his 83-year-old father was detained on an aggravated assault charge.They’ll wind up throwing the book at this...