In the late 1980s, the British music critic Simon Reynolds coined the term “miserabilism” to describe Morrissey and the numerous Manchester bands spreading their very personal gloom across the globe. The word could also be applied to the “Merritt Parkway Novel,” Gerald Howard’s…
Omnivoracious: Summer Reading Lists Are Here -
- The New York Times offers an eclectic list of books to read, ranging from an autobiographical pop culture read to a serious history of digital computers.
- NPR did something interesting with their summer reading list. They had indie booksellers make the picks.
- USA Today goes interactive with their picks.
- The Wall Street Journal put out a well-chosen summer reading list.
- USA Today goes interactive with their picks.
- Entertainment Weekly had perennial best seller Jennifer Wiener pick the list.
- Huffington Post suggested summer books for kids.
- The Chicago Tribune offers thrillers for standing in line at Six Flags Great America .
- The Birmingham News went literary.
Last summer my eyes were bigger than my tote bag and it took me the rest of the seasons to get through my own list. These will definitely help when I have to pick-and-choose.
(Source: peterwknox, via penamerican)
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Susie’s Personal Library.
Santa Barbara’s Rare Booksellers Show and Tell
Pia Oliver holds open a first edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Inside is a supposed signature by the author. “We know it’s fake, probably by Eugene Field’s son, but,” says Oliver, turning a few pages and indicating ink illustrations of children that are not in any other copies, “who drew these? Field? Stevenson? There’s some detective work involved too.”
I am standing in Randall House Rare Books, tucked away in an old adobe building known as the Gonzales-Ramirez House on the corner of Laguna and Canon Perdido streets. Ten minutes ago I asked the obvious question, “Why do people collect rare books?” After all, when a new hardcover edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses sells for $19.95 at Amazon, why pay a bookseller $3,500 for a copy with a forged signature and the “Lower portion of spine leather split over hinge?”
Book Hoarding.
Library at Googleplex, The Google Headquarters. {Not necessarily the library, just a library.}
Unknown French Bookshop.
