Category Archives: Books

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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On a quiet day…

Posted on December 16, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

“The system will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling…their ideas, their version of history, their wars…their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We may be many and they be few… Another world is not only possible, she … Continue reading →

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Not another Book of the Year List

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

It’s that time of the year when the “Best Books of the Year” lists come out. While I mine the lists for reading recommendations, I hesitate to generate my own list. Reading tastes are so subjective. In fact, I frequently … Continue reading →

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Library of Mistakes

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

The new Library of Mistakes opened in Edinburgh, Scotland in April of this year, moving to larger and more felicitous premises from its previous location. Like many barely financially literate folks, I would value access to a library that could potentially … Continue reading →

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The Answer is Still 42

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Although the wildely popular comic sci-fi novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was published in the UK in 1979, it wasn’t released in the colonies until 1980. This year, legions of fans in North America are celebrating the 42nd anniversary … Continue reading →

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Book of the Year

Posted on December 10, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

 

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