Category Archives: Books

Mystery of the Big Book

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Over the years, the photograph above has appeared on numerous blogs and websites, usually captioned as “man with large book at Prague Castle, 1940s” or “c. 1940s: Man with books.” However, bibliophiles and antiquarians have long questioned the image’s description … Continue reading →

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Breaking the Dickens Code

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

An international campaign to decipher the complex code that Charles Dickens used to write his notes has won a Times Higher Education Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in UK Higher Education. The University of Leicester, in collaboration with … Continue reading →

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Very, very bad reviews

Posted on December 27, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

I am a staunch adherent to the notion that all art and literature is subjective. The works that I enjoy, you might hate and vice versa. So, I am generally hesitant to comment negatively or post bad reviews. However, I … Continue reading →

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Keep Books Alive In Ukraine

Posted on December 26, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

A group of writers and booksellers (Carolyn Forche, Mitchell Kaplan, Christopher Merrill, Askold Melnyczuk, and Jane Unrue) have partnered with the Coral Gables Foundation to raise funds for direct support to booksellers, editors, printers, warehouse workers, libraries and librarians, and … Continue reading →

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

   

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a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

“The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one that looks as though they were designed by M. Escher on … Continue reading →

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Is Santa from Oz

Posted on December 22, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

The Life and Adventures Of Santa Claus by author of The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, with its elaborations and much added detail went a long way to popularizing the legend of Santa Claus in North America. However, in the cover … Continue reading →

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I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it;

Posted on December 21, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing … Continue reading →

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“It was a dark and stormy night.”

Posted on December 20, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write a truly awful opening sentence to the worst novel never written. The whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It … Continue reading →

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A Ghost Story of Christmas

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and … Continue reading →

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