Recently updated
“By the Book,” now with a link to questions and answers from another blogger.
“By the Book” for the rest of us
What books are on your nightstand?
Dover Books
The story of the publisher.
A World Book cameo
On MSNBC.
War on books
Authoritarians, at least most of them, take note of books.
Books as armor
I was accumulating books as armor, as protection, as certification that I belonged in the academic world I aspired to enter. I didn’t wear my armor: it just sat on shelves at home, where it could come in handy as needed.
Saving Barnes & Noble
The New York Times profiles James Daunt, founder of Daunt Books and managing director of the Waterstones bookstore chain. He is soon to leave London for New York to serve as the new chief executive at Barnes & Noble.
College these days
You can find nuance in this piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education if you like, but here’s the bottom line: a professor invited his students to read a book — a “physical book” — for extra credit.
Michael Seidenberg (1954–2019)
Michael Seidenberg was the proprietor of Brazenhead Books, a bookstore with several incarnations, the most famous of which was a Manhattan apartment.
NYRB sale
New York Review Books is having a twentieth-anniversary sale.
“Magnificent Nature Guides”
It’s 1952.
Amazon’s counterfeits
From Jorge Luis Borges to The Linux Command Line.
University libraries and their books
“University libraries around the world are seeing precipitous declines in the use of the books on their shelves”: Dan Cohen, Vice Provost for Information Collaboration at Northeastern University, writing in The Atlantic.
Weeding
An exceptionally good episode of the podcast 99% Invisible: “Weeding Is Fundamental,” on library deaccessioning gone wrong.
FSRC: annual report
The Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in reading, just finished its fourth year.
NYRB sale
Half off on selected books.
Books about notebooks
The promises that books about notebooks make are appealing: follow this system to greater autonomy, creativity, and peace of mind. But I balk at the idea of reading a book to learn how to keep a notebook.
“Hands off my piles”
When it comes to books, Ron Charles disagrees with Marie Kondo about tidying up.
NYRB covers
From the Los Angeles Times : Aida Ylanan analyzes the covers of 500 New York Review Books Classics.
Writing and money
“Writing has never been a lucrative career choice, but a recent study by the Authors Guild, a professional organization for book writers, shows that it may not even be a livable one anymore”: from a New York Times article about whether it pays to be a writer.
Selected titles
Some of the titles a young relation removed from a bookshelf during her visit.
Out of copyright
The challenge for many readers will be to find trustworthy non-sketchy editions. Amazon makes that task more difficult than it should be. A bookstore might be a better place to look.
P Is for Pterodactyl
Good clean fun for the nerdish young: P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever.
積ん読, Berlin
2004, 2009, 2018: it’s time to read Jason Lutes’s Berlin.
A home entertainment system
Ammon Shea: “The fact that my shelves are filled with things I haven’t yet read and want to, and things that I’ve read before and want to revisit, means I will never be at a loss for entertainment at home.”
A meeting of the minds
Another step toward what I call the reality-TV-ification of everything : today’s Donald Trump–Kanye West meeting. How glorious to have two proud non-readers of books in the Oval Office at the same time.
Balzac: books and flowers
As necessary as bread.
Book clubs and the Internets
The Economist reports on book clubs and the Internets.
FSRC: annual report
The Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in reading, just finished its third year.
Barnes & Noble & the future
“It’s in the interest of the book business for Barnes & Noble not just to survive but to thrive.”