One month from today, the New York Public Library will be launching its first ever permanent exhibition. Treasures will offer rotating highlights from the NYPL’s collection of 56 million items spanning 4,000 years of history.
For more than 125 years, The New York Public Library has collected, preserved, and made accessible the world’s knowledge. Now, for the first time, the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures showcases some of the most extraordinary items from the 56 million in our collections, inspiring and empowering visitors to discover, learn, and create new knowledge—today and in the years ahead.
Located at the iconic 5th Avenue main library Schwarzman Building, the NYPL’s Treasures Exhibition, opening on September 24, will offer a permanent, in-person, and free look at the Library’s treasures, featuring over 250 items. Exhibits will rotate over time and the ongoing show will aim to “spark further thought, curiosity, investigation, and research.”
Visitors will be able to view items such as Charles Dickens’ cat’s paw letter opener, an original copy of the Bill of Rights; manuscripts of classic works by Virginia Woolf, Maya Angelou, Malcolm X; the original dolls owned by the real-life Christopher Robin that inspired the Winnie The Pooh stories; Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Declaration of Independence; and many of old photos, historical documents, and artwork.
This week has left many of us wondering how we can help folks caught up in the many current crises around the world. The wonderful organization Miles4Migrants, a non-profit founded back in 2016, has been using donated frequent flyer miles to provide people impacted by war, violence, persecution and disaster with the opportunity to migrate safely. The group works with individuals and families who are legally allowed to travel, but can’t afford airfares. Miles4Migrants relies on public donations and also collaborates with other non-profits to make these difficult journeys a little easier. This past week the organization received 52 million frequent flyer miles and credit card points, $15,000 in travel vouchers and $100,000 in cash donations. If you’d like to donate and want to find out more about the project visit Miles4Migrants right here.
The recent United Nation’s report on climate change should be a wake-up call to humanity. But we have been warned about these challenges for decades and have done little about them. Way back in 1988, the great writer Kurt Vonnegut wrote a letter to the people of 2088 addressing these self-same issues. In the video below, everybody’s favorite Sherlock Holmes reads Vonnegut’s missive to the future to a contemporary audience.
It’s a straightforward message:
1. Reduce and stabilize your population.
2. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.
3. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.
4. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.
5. Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.
6. Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.
7. And so on. Or else.
NB: If the video does not appear on your version of TBTP, please click on the short url at the bottom of your email.
I love these chalkboards from the folks at Barnes & Noble bookstores and the nook e-reader.
If you regularly visit Travel Between The Pages you will know that I am a life-long LOTR fan and that I love a good travel poster. This beautiful set of Tolkien themed travel posters is the work of LA-based artist and designer Beverly Arce. You can see the entire series and more right here. Why not purchase a poster or two from her shop while you’re at it.
I imagine that most folks are well acquainted with the iconic series of Japanese woodblock prints titled Thirty -Six Views of Mount Fuji. Even those who are unfamiliar with the work of Katsushika Hokusai who was a 19th century Japanese ukiyo-e painter and printmaker know the iconic print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Two centuries after Hokusai, his sublime prints continue to inspire. London-based artist Edward Luper grew up looking at one of his city’s landmarks: the BT Tower and his life-long love for Japanese woodblock prints eventually led him to create an homage to the master of the art form with his own series 36 Views of BT Tower.
Luper’s prints capture London’s BT Tower from various vantage points and throughout different weather patterns and seasons. And while these types of projects are often cartoony and derivative, Luper has transcended with his detailed and atmospheric work. I loved each of the thirty-six views.
Luper’s prints are available for purchase through the curated art platform Your Art Home where you can see the entire series.
When you are a bookseller potentially everything can remind you of a book that you’ve sold. Not long ago I saw a story online about the recent release of a new film adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . Naturally it reminded me of an illustrated copy of the the book that I sold many years ago. That edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was published by the Limited Editions Club in 1971. The publisher’s announcement describes the book in detail:
“…twelve full-page ‘resist’ drawings, a two-page drawing for the title spread, and numerous tailpieces and incidental decorations, all printed in Sepia. Frank Lieberman designed the volume and drew the large initials which open each stanza. He chose Goudy ‘Thirty’ type for the Middle English text and Poliphilus for the modern English, both in the sixteen-point size… The light tan Arak paper is a rag wove watermarked stock made specially for this edition at the Curtis Paper Mill… The text was set by Westcott & Thomson in Philadelphia… The binding is in natural coarse Irish linen, stamped on the shelf-back with the title and a series of decorations reflecting the medieval text.”
This terrific edition was printed by the Meriden Gravure Company, with illustrations by Cyril Satorsky The book was published in an edition of 1500 copies signed by Satorsky.
Travel Between The Pages 