Reviews

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.” — “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” Photo by Napoleon Sarony Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3. Published by London Leonard Smithers 1898, First edition, one of 800 copies printed on handmade paper. Buy. Oscar Wilde was our first literary rock star whose work continues to be widely read and his plays regularly produced. His epic 1882 tour of America has been referred to as…

A Salute to Winnie-the-Pooh October 14, 2014 – Posted in: Content, Of Interest: Featured Books / Reviews

Winnie-the-Pooh’s arrival as it appeared in the December 24, 1925 issue of the London Evening News. It was on this day in 1926 that the world was first introduced in book form to everybody’s favorite teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh. To celebrate here is a sampling of A.A. Milne’s most famous creation. Here’s an interesting fact about the book. We all know the character of Pooh has been a big player in the Disney Universe since the early 1960’s but did…

Five Book Salute to Halloween October 10, 2014 – Posted in: Content, Of Interest: Featured Books / Reviews

Are you ready to get your spook on? October is here and that can only mean that Halloween is right around the corner. Here are a few bookish goodies to help you get in the mood. The Penguin Book of Witches. Edited by Katherine Howe, 2014. Who better to give us a bit of witch history than Katherine Howe, a direct descendant of three accused Salem witches. Starting with the few scant mentions of witches…

Five Book (and one record) Birthday Salute to Wallace Stevens October 2, 2014 – Posted in: Content, Of Interest: Featured Books / Reviews

Harmonium (First Edition, first issue, signed). The poet’s first collection, published when he was 44 years old, after almost a decade of appearances only in magazines. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Soldier, there is a war between the mind And sky, between thought and day and night. It is For that the poet is always in the sun, Patches the moon together in his room to his Virgilian cadences, up down, Up down. It…

A five book (one letter and one record) birthday salute to william carlos williams September 17, 2014 – Posted in: Content, Of Interest: Featured Books / Reviews

Paterson. Published by New Directions, 1946-58. Williams’s magnum opus. Today is the birthday of the influential American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). From the Poetry Foundation: William Carlos Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than…