Monthly Archives: August 2025

Or so the story goes.

When the light goes out, and the book is set down by the bedside, it all comes flooding in: the story you are reading; the story of the day; the understanding that it is a story, the day now past, … Continue reading

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East of the Sun and West of the Moon

“You have traveled far, but the hardest part of a journey is always the next step.” ― Jackie Morris I grew up reading battered old copies of the fabulous early twentieth century collections of children’s stories, some of my flea market … Continue reading

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How it’s done

The 90-minute video below demonstrates the making of a batch of woodblock prints “from blank paper to finished print” from the printer’s POV. It is a fascinating look at the complex process. In the video below, Tokyo-based printmaker Dave Bull … Continue reading

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why fiction fascinates us so

Our perceptual relationship with the world works because we trust prior stories. We could not fully perceive a tree if we did not know (because others have told us) that it is the product of a long growth process and … Continue reading

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A destroyer of books

In The Book Hunter (1863), John Hill Burton identifies five types of “persons who meddle with books”: “A bibliognoste, from the Greek, is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed; the presses whence issued; … Continue reading

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There and Back Again (again)

I recently stumbled on a post from a random library blog about one of the most beloved books in the English language. The article focused on a wonderful 1966 American edition published in Boston by Houghton Mifflin. It includes Tolkien’s own … Continue reading

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Es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit.

“It’s Just a Matter of Time,” a simple yet evocative phrase, appears on standard billboards in white Gothic typeface on a black background, disrupting the typical flow of commercial information. When the work was first installed in 1992 in Hamburg, … Continue reading

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Peace, Love & Books

If you are a regular visitor here, then you know that I love an inspiring narrative about the power of literature and reading. For Californian Davina Agudelo-Ferreira, her personal story about the life-changing influence of the written word is especially … Continue reading

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The world in verse

Every city, every forest, mountain, and every river has its own poem waiting to be discovered. You can uncover that geographic poetry on the MultiVerse – an interactive map where a single click anywhere in the world generates a unique … Continue reading

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August Bonfires

Gozan Okuribi (bonfires) held on the evening of August 16 is one of Kyoto’s many popular and symbolic religious ceremonies in summer. Okuribi (bonfires) are said to send off ancestors’ spirits to the other side. People believe ancestral spirits come … Continue reading

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