Category Archives: Books

A Series of Headaches

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

A Series of Headaches is a marvelous video from the London Review of Books documenting letterpress printer Nick Hand as he prints a page from the magazine using methods as close as he can get to those used to print … Continue reading →

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Of myths and legends

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I always experience a frisson of nostalgia whenever I stumble upon a memorable book from my childhood library. It’s been a long, long time, but I still remember my battered copy of of The Wonder Book of Myths and Legends that I … Continue reading →

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Free Comic Book Day

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Today is Free Comic Book Day, in which you can go to any participating comic book store and get certain designated comic books, absolutely free. Enter your zip code at this website and you can find the participating comics shop nearest … Continue reading →

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Literary Leviathan

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I was saddened to read about the death of the great American writer Paul Auster, who succumbed due to complications arising from lung cancer, aged 77. Auster, who has been celebrated as one of the most important American authors of … Continue reading →

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Dracula Returns (daily)

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Dracula Daily Returning May 3 You may remember DraculaDaily, which has been an annual paean to the beloved Gothic vampire classic first published in 1897. The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker unfolds over the course of six months, from May … Continue reading →

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Bookstore Tourism : Iceland

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

About seven ago while visiting Iceland’s underappreciated northern town Akureyri, I stumbled across a charming used bookshop called Fróði fornbókabúð. The owner at the time told me that the name meant something like “learned bookstore”. The shop was a bit … Continue reading →

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Biblio Trivia

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

  1. The rarest book in the world is a 1593 first edition of Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare. The Bodleian’s copy “is the only known copy of this book in existence.” 2. The first book ordered on Amazon was a scientific tome called Fluid Concepts … Continue reading →

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The Dwindleberry Zoo

Posted on April 26, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I was today years old when I discovered THE DWINDLEBERRY ZOO by G.E. Farrow (London/Glasgow/Dublin/Bombay: Blackie, 1909) Illustrated by Gordon Browne.  It seems that G.E. Farrow was one of the masters of the Victorian fantasy genre. In this tale a boy eats a … Continue reading →

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Many years later, as he faced the firing squad…

Posted on April 25, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude during my first year at university when I … Continue reading →

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Emulating Books

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I look forward to visiting the upcoming Emulating Books: Book Objects from the Lynn and Bruce Heckman Gift which is an intriguing new exhibition that features a wide range of items which look like books but aren’t. Running through July … Continue reading →

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