May 08, 2008
Guernica
An extensive cover gallery of the French ”Saint” novels
- - - - - - - - -
A 3D Exploration of Picasso's Guernica. Background music is the song Nana, part of Manuel de Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas, arranged by Ana Ruth Bermúdez and Rene Izquierdo for cello and guitar
Previously posted: CG Guernica (YT) by Marcelo Ricardo Ortiz
- - - - - - - - -
The dictator novel (novela del dictador) is a genre of Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society. The theme of caudillismo—the charismatic authoritarian "strongman"—is addressed by examining the relationship between power, dictatorship, and writing, and is used as an allegory for the role of the Latin American writer in society
A fan site dedicated to the notorious rascal Frank Harris (1856-1931), author of that most lascivious and lying autobiography My Life and Loves
A newly-discovered document that might be of interest to other fans of Israeli author Pinhas sadeh. It’s from June 1955, when Sadeh (then 26) helped his mother fill out 29 forms at the Yad Vashem museum. In this one, they declare the last known address of her mother who perished at the Lwów Ghetto in Poland in 1942
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
May 8, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 01, 2008
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity
It seems that some Toronto taggers are no longer content to scrawl their own names on blank concrete canvases around the city and are trying instead to make more of a cultural statement. Last year, references to composer Gustav Mahler popped up in several places around town.
This year, a more cryptic stencil has appeared on the Humber Bay Arch Bridge, boldly proclaiming "ISBN 486-28495-6" for all to see and ponder. This International Standard Book Number turns out to be a paperback edition of Henry David Thoreau's Walden; Or, Life in the Woods.
In Walden, Thoreau wrote, "A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
May 1, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 07, 2008
GB Shaw anecdote
George Bernard Shaw once came across one of his own books in a used bookstore in London. He was surprised to find his own inscription inside — he had presented the book "with esteem" to a friend. He immediately bought the book and had it wrapped and delivered again, after adding a second inscription: "With renewed esteem, George Bernard Shaw."
More at Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
An anecdote from the life of Sylvestre Matuschka. (From Half a Canuck)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
March 7, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 22, 2008
A Supermarket in California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
February 22, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 17, 2008
Let us go then, you and I
T.S. Eliot reads "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". (YT)
“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me…”
This page contains the 1928 commentary of Dr. Marc Edmund Jones, founder of the Sabian Assembly, on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass illustrated by John Tenniel
Reversible Verse
Also, "I see you get a dollar a word for your writing. I enclose a check for one dollar. Please send me a sample." (Both from Futility Closet, the most recent pick of Grow-a-brain's Blog of the day)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
February 17, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 07, 2008
Mark Twain at Stormfield, 1909, filmed by Edison
(Film above by Smashing Telly. Previously, Mark Twain in Colour)
“…These last few days I have been thinking and thinking of the Nordland summer, with its endless day. Sitting here thinking of that, and of a hut I lived in, and of the woods behind the hut. And writing things down, by way of passing the time; to amuse myself, no more. The time goes very slowly; I cannot get it to pass as quickly as I would, though I have nothing to sorrow for, and live as pleasantly as could be. I am well content withal, and my thirty years are no age to speak of …”
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
February 7, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2008
Henry Miller’s Bathroom monologue
(2 more videos at Wes Unruh’s home)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
January 29, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 14, 2008
…As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect
This is an original post, exclusive for “Grow-a-Brain”.
Borger Mogron, mysterious Seattle Eminence Gris and publisher of Blue Guitar Press, interviews Dex Quire, author of The Transformations, A Tale of Modern Sin. In The Transformations a young man applies penis enlargement ointment to himself and promptly turns into a donkey. He goes through many tumultuous and wild adventures before happening upon the antidote that turns him back into himself.
Borger Mogron: I don't believe your book, the Transformations is fiction. It is too realistic, too graphic in so many ways. I think you really rubbed on penis enlarging ointment and turned into a donkey and had lots of adventures and then wrote about it. I'm like Oprah. I don't like my authors lying to me: if you're lying to me I'm going to cry.
Dex Quire: No. Save the tears. I really made it up. It's a pure work of the imagination. I felt I was channeling the spirit of Apuleius when I wrote it.
BM: Who's Apuleius?
DQ: He was a North African writer in Roman times; he wrote the original comic novel about a guy who turns into a donkey. Look him up on Google.
BM: Hmm. I'm skeptical. How did you come up with the formula of penis ointment leading to donkey transformation?
DQ: It was lying on the ground. I picked it up and ran with it. I mean, I was living in a downtown Seattle high rise and my neighbor, a terrifically wrinkled 80 year-old lady who walked with a cane, one morning, instead of greeting me with "Good Morning, Dex," scowled and shook her cane at me crying out, "My inbox is filled with penis enlarging spam!" I didn't know what to say but I remember thinking, "penis enlargement has gone mainstream."
BM: What about the drug trade? Actual drug smuggling. You seem to intimate more than a casual knowledge of. Confess!
DQ: Nope. Newspaper clippings, evening news, men's adventure magazines.
BM: What was your MAIN motivation in writing this book?
DQ: I thought, "Why should readers of Harry Potter – the kids – have all the fun? Why shouldn't adults have something fun and absorbing and racy to read?"
BN: I thought you were going to say to consume coffee in amazing quantities, to attain certain leisure and standing among the literati of your fair, rain speckled city, to run with the winds, to float on azured, mirrored seas while opium smoke dances around in grey-blue columns, hanging and nether-descending or ascending, for all time, ceaselessly.
DQ: Ah, no. That doesn't sound like me, does it?
BM: True, no it doesn't. What about Art – with a capital "A?" The Transformations seems to me a very Arty book.
DQ: None whatsoever I'm afraid. "Vast amusement." Put that down. I did try, a la Harold Rosenberg, to take a leap towards the Marvelous. That and the seduction of the grown-up, post-collegiate Harry Potter set, to my world of sex and fantasy. It is the untouched anus that tells no tales.
BM: Right. So this is gay erotica?
DQ: I wouldn't say that. In places, slightly gay, in a brutal sort of way though I think the newly-outed Dumbledore might be put off by the antics of the gay police stallions. But then we have the donkey lusting after all things female, females in love with donkeys, elephants pining for giraffes, you get the idea. I give the reader a range of options, to take away what they will. The reader may wish to dress in drag while reading my book, spinning about in nothing but a tutu, or nudely carrying it to their local teahouse, oblivious to the stares of the common street pedestrian.
BM: What about Canada? Will Canadians ever understand The Transformations?
DQ: Dubious. An entire nation exempt from the collective unconscious. Rumor has it you surrender it at customs before entering the country.
BM: How does one become a Human Being, Dex?
DQ: Read The Transformations. It is available at Amazon. It's also an ebook on Kindle, Mobipocket, Lulu and other ebook dealers…
(Thank you, Dex, for the book & for this post)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
January 14, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 12, 2008
Vladimir and Estragon at the Ninth Ward
The Pelican project at “Things Magazine”
There is perhaps no more fitting backdrop for Becket’s production of Waiting for Godot than New Orleans
Bukowski Reference Database. Also, Apartment Complex Where Bukowski Wrote "Post Office" For Sale, Could Be Leveled. Yep, 9 other Drunk American Writers
A new set of extra-long British stamps featuring covers from the James Bond novels has been issued by the Royal Mail
Pulp Fiction pop-ups by Thomas Allen
A Warm & Fuzzy Feeling. Warning! this is strange, NSFW & very WRONG
Re-post: It’s been 50 years since the publication of my all-time favorite book, Pinhas Sadeh’s Life as a parable. Here is an original page from the chapter Marian, with the inscription: 4 8 1957: "I finished writing Life as a Parable tonight at 12:30"
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
January 12, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 14, 2007
There were only six words left
It’s time to sell your books when it’s less painful to just re-buy it on Amazon than go down to the basement and dig it out
Works from Kubach-Wilmsen
“I had to run a few errands downtown, but I hesitated to go.
What if I ran into bloggers?...”
Brother, Can You Spare a Hyperlink? by Paul Di Filippo
Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves. Very short stories
(Book above from Poe Stories)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
December 14, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 29, 2007
Unusual books
Nietzsche et les fascistes. From Songs by Nietzsche: Lebensregeln
Cut thistles in May,
They'll grow in a day;
Cut them in June,
That is too soon;
Cut them in July,
Then they will die.
Mother Goose Alphabetical index
10 Book Titles That Have The Fockers In Them
The Most Unusual Books of the World
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
November 29, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 20, 2007
“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
Young Foucault reader
The Early American editions of The Hobbit are collectors items because of their printing differences. (Wikipedia)
Walk around the Dublin of Ulysses
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
645 works of mathematical fiction
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
November 20, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 12, 2007
Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt
Short slideshow of small town libraries in Massachusetts. (From Information Junk)
“My mother and Norman Mailer were longtime friends. So it made sense that Betsy Mailer and I were roommates in our first year of college. On the big moving day, out of NYC to Princeton, Norman and Norris (Betsy's stepmother) and my mother Jean rented a car, packed us up and drove us the hour or so down the Jersey turnpike…”
"If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who." Vonnegut Tattoos: So it Goes. (Also there: Connect the dots)
How to Identify First Edition Pulitzer Prize Books. (Thank you, Tom K.)
Pulp fiction is perhaps the only genre as beloved for its cover art as for its prose
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
November 12, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 26, 2007
"F1" Is for Help
Possible Titles for Future Sue Grafton Novels After She Runs Out of Letters
The 1943 first edition dust jacket for The Fountainhead. From “How to Identify Modern First Edition Books”
Books Written by Kurt Vonnegut While Hungry
When Legends Gather #207
City of Churches by Donald Barthelme (Both in Chinese & in English)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
October 26, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 09, 2007
What should I read next?
A nice collection of vintage endpapers
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night...
Books by the Foot for decoration purposes only. (From Global Nerdy)
What should I read next for book recommendations. The concept is simple: Enter a title you like, and you'll instantly receive a list of other books you may enjoy
My virtual library. (From Eyebeam blog)
Curiosities of Literature of Isaac D’Israeli (1766-1848)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
October 9, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 19, 2007
Just like my school books
Gallery of Book Trade Labels. (From Daily Jive)
Enhanced Russian Biology Textbook
How to cover a textbook. (From Coudal)
Dostoyevsky comics, originally printed in Drawn and Quarterly #3 (2000) - Now I’ve seen it all!
TS Eliot reads The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (MP3)
The power of books
LOLTHULHU Lovecraftian macros
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
September 19, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 30, 2007
70 b3, 0r N07 70 B3–7h@7 Iz tHe Qu357i0n
hamlet’s soliloquy in 13375p34k
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
You can join the Shakespeare Sonnet-a-Day mailing list
The John Galt Corporation of the Bronx, hired last year for the dangerous and complex job of demolishing the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, where two firefighters died last Saturday, has apparently never done any work like it. Indeed, Galt does not seem to have done much of anything since it was incorporated in 1983
This note on the fridge is to say
That those ripe plums that you put away
Well, I ate them last night
They tasted all right
Plus I slept with your sister. M'kay?
(From an excellent literary limerick-off at MeFi. The original William Carlos Williams)
LEGO creation inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s story “Little Ida’s Flowers”
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
August 30, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2007
Portrait of My Mother
In August 2006 my mother in Germany was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As soon as I could I flew over to be with her. From the day of my arrival in Germany she had six more weeks to live which we spent together.
She always had been an avid reader and literature played an important part in both of our lives. I had previously often thought about a project involving her library and I soon embarked on the idea to photograph all her books, one after the other in one long row. It quickly became our joint project. Joachim Froese’s Portrait of My Mother. (From Gordon Coale)
The signature of Kahlil Gibran, as well as many other writers
Ephraim Rubenstein is an artist whose still life paintings predominantly feature books. (From Fade Theory)
You’ll know the spoilers are true when…
Update: Jack Kerouac used different names to refer to his friends in his books, varying the aliases from book to book. Here's a list of some of the people, and their fictional counterparts. Jack Kerouac characters, Real names and their aliases, alphabetically
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
August 5, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 17, 2007
Back to Kirrin Island
"Dear Writer, Rejected: You seem cool, but you need to rewrite. I don't know why or how, but if you sit in a quiet place for about a week, or on top of a mountain briefly, it will come to you. I'm pretty sure. Yours, Rejecting Agent". Literary rejection letters. (From Daniel Silliman)
Monster Island and Plague Zone are serialized online novels by David Wellington
By one measure, Enid Blyton is the fifth most popular author worldwide: over 3400 of translations her books are available in 2007; she is behind Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare. Similarities & contrasts between Enid Blyton and JK Rowling
Fake book covers to hide that you're reading Harry Potter
1001 Books You Have to Read Before You Die. (From Cogmios)
/// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
July 17, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 02, 2007
Zeus lies in Ceres' bosom
Ezra Pound's recorded readings
The care of old books. (From Hanuman)
An ad for Norman Podhoretz's memoir “Making It” (1968). The Golden Age Of Book Ads: 1962-73
How much are we paid, up front, to write our books?
Pile O'Books Skull, by Daily skulls
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page, the most comprehensive collection of Samuel Johnson quotations on the web
Stevengraphs bookmarks & postmarks. (From Fed by Birds)
/// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
July 2, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 08, 2007
Commedia
Decorative bookbindings produced in Scotland during the last five centuries. (From Plep)
We do things my way or the Hemingway T-shirt
A tour through Dante’s Inferno. (From Incoming Signals)
Fill In The Cat bookshelves
/// Fark it /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
June 8, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 15, 2007
Fat Man On A Bicycle
Scrap book of Russian book jackets, 1917-1942
Do you have a stack of books to read? A new flickr pool
Please Plant This Book by Richard Brautigan
Harland Miller paints fake Penguin paperbacks
Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie
Re-post: Judge a Book by its Cover; I work in a public library. I see literally thousands of books every week; the good, the bad, and the truly hideous. This blog is about the covers from the latter category
Salman Rushdie's wife. July 6, 2007 update: No more!
Liar's Dice, by Cece Chapman
The Harry-est Town in America from Amazon
Amazon Special Of The Day - Get Stuffed: 24 Projects for the Bereaved Pet Owner
/// Fark it /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
May 15, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 23, 2007
Dinosauria, we
We are born into this
into these carefully mad wars
into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
into bars where people no longer speak to each other
into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Green Nazis and Tattooed Mountain Women compete for Oddest Titles prize. The winner: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification
What's the Creepiest Thing Writer's Block Has Caused Someone to Do?
A suggestion a day from the Williamsburg Regional Library - Blogging for a Good Book
Creative uses of a fridge and stove: No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July
Classic novels penned by young authors
/// Fark it /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
April 23, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 04, 2007
Pynchon Completist Located After Long Search
“Please do not return this to me as I do not want it back”
After a protracted search, Silvia Garmon, a 23-year-old former grad student, has been discovered to be the only person in the United States to have finished reading Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day
Bookie sculpture
Once upon a time there was a little girl in India, and her name was Mary. And she was very fond of poking fires… The Story of Little Kettlehead. (From Presurfer)
J K Rowling official site
No time to blog tonight. Sorry!
/// Reddit it /// Add it to your del.icio.us /// Fark it /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
April 4, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 23, 2007
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
33 writers. 5 designers. 6-word science fiction: Very Short Stories
In 1968 various branches of the U.S. government performed an investigation into the background of civil servant Charles Bukowski. Apparently the FBI took offense to some of his writing (mainly the notes of a dirty old man column he wrote for the Los Angeles hippie tabloid Open City), and had their 'informants' report Bukowski to higher-ups in the post office: The FBI files of Charles Bukowski
The autographs of Jules Verne. (From Quartz City)
The Electronic Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
The infamous Proust Questionnaire
Text Collage and other methods of Curing writer's block
Barbara Yates’s Wooden Book Covers
/// Reddit it /// Add it to your del.icio.us /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
March 23, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2007
Also sprach Zarathustra
A wonderful Literary Stamps blog
What seven Writers’ Rooms look like. (From Bibliophile Bullpen)
A gallery of unusual book titles
Dostoevsky's notes for Chapter 5 of The Brothers Karamazov
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Free mp3 audio downloads Narrated by Michael Scott. Oil paintings to Zarathustra cycle by Lena Hades. (Pix of Nietzsche above from K-Punk - Click to biggify)
Thomas Pynchon in defense of Ian McEwan's alleged plagiarism
Hortus deliciarum (Garden of Delights) is a medieval manuscript compiled by Herrad of Landsberg at the Hohenburg Abbey in Alsace. It was an illuminated encyclopedia, begun in 1167 as a pedagogical tool for young novices at the convent. It was finished in 1185, and was one of the most celebrated illuminated manuscripts of the period
By the way, here is my anthem (turn up your speakers, but not too loud. From Norman Roberts)
/// Reddit it /// Add it to your del.icio.us /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
February 20, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2007
Every Book I've Ever Read
"For the longest time, I've had a vague but persistent compulsion to make a list of every book I've ever read…
Frankly, 750 books is a lot less than what I figured the total would be at the outset. I'm 25, and I've been reading since I was about 6, f you're counting pop-up books and such, which I am, so that works out to roughly 39.5 books a year. That's respectable, it just seems like there should be more, given how much of a giant nerd I am…
While I was actually compiling the list, I decided I wanted to make something tangible out of it. I decided I would make a poster Showing Every Book I've Ever Read..."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Jungle Book
Employees sorts through books at Amazon UK warehouse on November 17, 2006
LA Times reporter finds fluctuating costs for his obscure chosen titles - Amazon book price mystery
Book Mooch is a community for exchanging used books. It lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want
Curiosities of Literature by Isaac D’Israeli (1766-1848)
/// Add it to your del.icio.us /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
January 21, 2007 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack