1. 16:24 21st Mar 2013

    Notes: 22

    Reblogged from maudnewton

    Tags: Maud Newtonwhat my mother gave mebooks

    maudnewton: whatmymothergaveme: Maud Newton’s mother gave her books: “I remember watching her, bored and wistful, jealous of the book because it had my mother’s attention and jealous of her because she knew how to disappear into the book … When I could read for myself, she said, I would understand everything differently.”  That’s my mom and me, Christmas 1971.  The essay I contributed to What My Mother Gave Me is (predictably) about books. When the editor asked for some photos for the anthology’s Tumblr, I sent in a few.  My favorite, this November 1960 caricature of her driving by a fraternity house in her convertible, is the only likeness I’ve ever seen that captures the intensity of her focus. She didn’t marry the guy whose leg is shown. These Hemingway and Faulkner story collections were hers in grad school. 

    maudnewton:

    whatmymothergaveme:

    Maud Newton’s mother gave her books:

    “I remember watching her, bored and wistful, jealous of the book because it had my mother’s attention and jealous of her because she knew how to disappear into the book … When I could read for myself, she said, I would understand everything differently.” 

    That’s my mom and me, Christmas 1971.  The essay I contributed to What My Mother Gave Me is (predictably) about books. When the editor asked for some photos for the anthology’s Tumblr, I sent in a few. 

    My favorite, this November 1960 caricature of her driving by a fraternity house in her convertible, is the only likeness I’ve ever seen that captures the intensity of her focus. She didn’t marry the guy whose leg is shown.

    image

    These Hemingway and Faulkner story collections were hers in grad school. 

    image

     

  2. 21:41 2nd Feb 2013

    Notes: 90

    Reblogged from thetinhouse

    Tags: Carl Saganwritingbooks

    Yep, it sure is.

    Yep, it sure is.

    (Source: hammermybones)

     

  3. 13:01 24th Jul 2012

    Notes: 2

    Tags: bookswriting

    image: Download

     Card game from around 1890 showing women authors. Rare Book School at the University of Virginia - NYTimes.com Link via Michael Orthofer (@MAOrthofer) of the Literary Saloon, on Twitter.

     Card game from around 1890 showing women authors.

    Rare Book School at the University of Virginia - NYTimes.com

    Link via Michael Orthofer (@MAOrthofer) of the Literary Saloon, on Twitter.

     

  4. 14:28 22nd Jul 2012

    Tags: booksart

    image: Download

     Sorted Books - Asymptote Journal presents a slideshow from the latest exhibition by Nina Katchadourian, who creates artworks (usually photographs) by arranging books so that the titles can be read in sequence, often as spine piles, rather than covers. This latest set of photographs uses volumes from the Delaware Art Museum’s M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings. The gentle reader, the curved blades, the literary guillotine is my fave, I think. Link via the Melville House blog, where you will see an example of the spine-based work as well.

     Sorted Books - Asymptote Journal presents a slideshow from the latest exhibition by Nina Katchadourian, who creates artworks (usually photographs) by arranging books so that the titles can be read in sequence, often as spine piles, rather than covers.

    This latest set of photographs uses volumes from the Delaware Art Museum’s M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings.

    The gentle reader, the curved blades, the literary guillotine is my fave, I think.

    Link via the Melville House blog, where you will see an example of the spine-based work as well.

     

  5. 19:45 13th Jul 2012

    Notes: 50

    Reblogged from mythologyofblue

    Tags: books

    Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark … I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship. It will keep the vultures at bay.
    — Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (via mythologyofblue)
     

  6. 12:38 11th Jul 2012

    Tags: newshumourtechsocialmediabooks

    a pile of stuff #26

    At Granta Online, six poets are interviewed about Poetry Parnassus, an enormous poetry love-in happening at Southbank in London this week.

    Susan Hawthorne reviews Robyn Rowland’s Seasons of doubt and burning: New and Selected Poems at Cordite.

    Jerry Seinfeld’s new web comedy, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, premieres online on July 19.

    How to sort out Facebook and those tiresome not-so-new email addresses they have lumbered some of us with. (Apparently they may have synced with your friends’ email on your phone as well! Who knew?) From ReadWriteWeb.

    Finally, a 76-strong booklist of upcoming titles for the second half of the year from The Millions.

    And the Complete Review reports on the rentrée littéraire in France. Not the Tour. Just for a change.

    And yes, this is crossposted at Reeling and Writhing, my old Oz book blog.

     

  7. 19:34 10th Jul 2012

    Notes: 11

    Reblogged from lareviewofbooks

    Tags: booksreading

    Still More #OccupyGaddis

    lareviewofbooks:

    As the fourth week of #OccupyGaddis begins, the conversation about J R continues around the Web. Most of the action is happening on Twitter, under the hashtag #OccupyGaddis, and on blogs. Infinite Zombies remains the indispensable resource apart from Twitter. Our Goodreads group and Facebook group are relatively quiet – pay us a visit!

    One of the themes of our conversation so far has been the relationship between Gaddis’s life and his art. We don’t have a full biography of Gaddis at the moment, but Sonia Johnson reports that Joseph Tabbi is working on one that’s supposed to see daylight in 2014. Steve Moore, meanwhile, is working on a huge edited collection of Gaddis letters, which is coming out from Dalkey Archive in 2013. In the absence of these resources, much of the conversation has taken on a speculative quality.

    Read More

     

  8. 18:49 22nd Jun 2012

    Tags: booksbooksellingFrance

    “There are two things you don’t throw out in France — bread and books,” said Bernard Fixot, owner and publisher of XO, a small publishing house dedicated to churning out best sellers. “In Germany the most important creative social status is given to the musician. In Italy it’s the painter. Who’s the most important creator in France? It’s the writer.”

    A more compelling reason is the intervention of the state. In the Anglophone book world the free market reigns; here it is trumped by price fixing. Since 1981 the “Lang law,” named after its promoter, Jack Lang, the culture minister at the time, has fixed prices for French-language books. Booksellers — even Amazon — may not discount books more than 5 percent below the publisher’s list price, although Amazon fought for and won the right to provide free delivery.

    Last year as French publishers watched in horror as e-books ate away at the printed book market in the United States, they successfully lobbied the government to fix prices for e-books too. Now publishers themselves decide the price of e-books; any other discounting is forbidden.

    There are also government-financed institutions that offer grants and interest-free loans to would-be bookstore owners.

    — 

    French Bookstores Are Still Prospering - NYTimes.com

    The second half of this article is somewhat less optimistic, so read on. Via @MargaretAtwood on Twitter.

    I was in a graveyard for books last night at a large shopping centre, where all the books were five dollars. It is the biggest remainders depot I have ever seen.

     

  9. 19:07 25th May 2012

    Notes: 1511

    Reblogged from schoenermann

    Tags: bookssculptureart

    devidsketchbook:

    Book Igloo

    Home is a recent sculptural installation by Colombian artist Miler Lagos. The piece was constructed at MagnanMetz Gallery late last year using carefully stacked books to create a compact dome that is entirely self-supporting. 

     

  10. 10:55 1st May 2012

    Notes: 25

    Reblogged from explore-blog

    Tags: designbookspublishingartists' books

    explore-blog:

    The latest episode of PBS’s excellent Off Book series explores the art of film and TV title design. Previous episodes have explored typography, product design, art in the age of the internet, book art and papercraft, generative art, and the explosion of animated GIFs.

    Also see this brief animated history of the title sequence and 25 iconic title sequences by the great Saul Bass in 100 seconds.