Tag Archives: History
Knowledge for knowledge’s sake?
In this post: Thoughts on Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss [jump to A], and on Mrs. Beeton’s Household Book edited by Kay Fairfax [jump to B]—eventual reading in my quest to sustain Dorkus Randomicus status. Because, ya know: There comes a time in a young woman’s life when she’ll hunger for a book […]
Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading, and our “essential function”
There is nowhere to begin with A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel when you’ve got a mind as speckle-y and inane as mine. Faced with this kind of book-dorkery-in-a-book, the tendency is to quote long passages from each of the chapters, and [over-] share personal experience that basically says, “I agree, I agree!” [I […]
The Büchernarr
In the chapter “The Book Fool,” of A History of Reading, author Alberto Manguel cites a small volume of allegorical verse by one Sebastian Brant, published in February 1494 called The Ship of Fools — with illustrations by a young Albrecht Dürer. Yes, the book fool is the main attraction. “Brant,” Manguel shares, “had meticulously […]
“. . .a species of covetousness unlike any other”
. . . no curses seem to deter those readers who, like crazed lovers, are determined to make a certain book theirs. The urge to possess a book, to be its sole owner, is a species of covetousness unlike any other. “A book reads the better,” confessed Charles Lamb . . . “which is our […]
On The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
I don’t think I’ve ever had any interest in the Puritans. But Nick Hornby kept going on and on about Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates that when I saw it half-buried in a BookSale, priced PhP45 [about a dollar], I had to buy it. Curiosity, you see. Although it wasn’t until I got home and […]
