January 2011
66 posts
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The Maldive Shark, by Herman Melville
About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, How alert in attendance be. From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw They have nothing of harm to dread, But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank Or before his Gorgonian head; Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth In white triple tiers of glittering gates, And there find...
McNally Jackson Bookmongers: That said →
marcthesharc:
mcnallyjackson:
Here are some recent memoirs (or near-memoirs) that might change Genzlinger’s mind:
Elif Batuman’s The Possessed
Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage mostly counts (or, if not that, then the personal chunk of Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, his collection…
Doesn’t this list just confirm his point? That there are a few memoirs,...
That said
Here are some recent memoirs (or near-memoirs) that might change Genzlinger’s mind:
Elif Batuman’s The Possessed
Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage mostly counts (or, if not that, then the personal chunk of Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, his collection of essays coming soon from Graywolf)
The last chapter of Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives
...
“But then came our current age of oversharing, and all heck broke loose. These...”
– My hypothetical panties remain unbunched by this piece in the Times by Neil Genzlinger about memoir, because why bother, but:
That first sentence is a nightmare about sentences.
I hope you have you have a comfortable chair if you plan on browsing (but buying at your local independent bookseller!)...
theparisreview:
“There was deep snow on the ground. I was in a sleigh, wearing my red wool hat and wrapped in my fur cloak. I had lost my boots that day, on my way to see an exhibition of savages from Africa. All the windows were open, and I was smoking my pipe. The river was dark. The trees were dark. The moon shone on the fields of snow: they looked as smooth as satin. The snow-covered houses...
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An email from the bosslady to the staff, presented...
We have the best selection of Valentine’s Day cards in our short but illustrious history. The entire first spinner is devoted to love.
Now you know.
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housingworksbookstore:
“Art is not a religion, but the making of it and the reception of it can both qualify as devotional acts. The earliest draft of this novel, which was really more like a long short story (twenty thousand words, give or take) was written in one sitting in a cafe in the East Village. This was about four years ago, on a snowy day around Christmas. It took ten hours and a whole...
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I'm listed in Tumblweeds under books, literature,...
I’m listed in Tumblweeds, a user-generated community directory that rates Tumblr bloggers by their number of followers. Find me listed in #books, #literature, #newyorkcity
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HMH Literature in Translation: The longlist for... →
hmhlit:
The longlist for 2011 Best Translated Book was announced today by Three Percent.
The 2011 BTBA Fiction Longlist (in alphabetical order by author):
The Literary Conference by César Aira, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver (New Directions)
The Golden Age by Michal…
Aira, Ajvaz’s The Golden Age, and Walser’s Microscripts were all store favorites.
towirr:
“And though the calendar appeared to be continuing its slow plod whenever she checked it, Margaret was dogged by a peculiar sensation. She felt that somehow, somewhere along the way when she had not been paying careful attention (and how could she have been so heedless?), time had come to an end. Now it was only a matter of a short interval before the world faded out entirely. Sometimes...
It is the Medium's Fault When Communication Fails
wwnorton:
The life span of black ink in disposable plastic pens is estimated to be about four and a half years. The blue ink in plastic pens starts to fade away in two. And newsprint is only intended to last for a day.
Already, scientists are experiencing difficulty in deciphering the technology that’s used in Univac, the earliest working computer from the late 1960s.
And even the...
Friends
I have a job. And my job is to be the tumblr for this bookstore. Or, you know, that’s not actually my job, but it’s part of it. Mostly I do it from home so I don’t “get paid” for it—besides the point.
Listen, what I’m trying to say here is I do this for work and as part of my job I am going to ask you recommend this tumblr if you like when I reblog my...
“Baudelaire sensed the increased intimacy of a house when it is besieged by...”
– So Gaston Bachelard writes in The Poetics of Space as another three inches of snow falls on Cambridge. (via carpentrix)
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