birthdays •
1890 – H. P. Lovecraft, American writer (d. 1937)
1918 – Jacqueline Susann, American novelist (d. 1974)
readables –
• Chicago Tribune’s Mary Schmich- ” Lending a book unsolicited is different from merely recommending it. A book loan can be an act of aggression posing as goodwill. . . . .”
• Mark Hare columnist for the Democrat and Chronicle – “Since my last vacation a year ago, the stack of books has grown tall on the table next to my recliner. I think I have discovered thus the real purpose to vacation — freeing up space on the table next to the recliner. . . “
worth reading • from the Boston Globe, David Mehegan gives us a great feature on what’s in a name when it comes to peddling books.
audio • NPR’s Studio 360 gives us a marvelous feature on the still resonating influence of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. — the complete work online.
some new things
• Dennis Lythgoe at the Deseret Morning News reviews The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have To Say About The Stages Of Life, by Edward Mendelson.
• Jim Higgins at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviews What It Used To Be Like: A Portrait Of My Marriage To Raymond Carver by Maryann Burk Carver.
rehabilitation • This fall, after a $4 million renovation the Carnegie Library in Jeffersonville, KY will be home to the Remnant Trust’s collection of 850 rare documents, including a page of a 1250 Bible and a 1350 edition of the Magna Carta.
event • The annual East Texas Fall Festival of Poetry, sponsored by the Rusk County Poetry Society and the Rose Garden Poetry Society, is scheduled for Oct. 14.
talking head • from the Guardian Sean O’Hagan interviews Joan Didion as she adapts her acclaimed memoir for Broadway, she reflects on a life lived through modern America’s defining moments.
banktoaster • a tutorial on using Photoshop to make ‘panographies’, panoramas made from mulitple images.
NON-BOOK ITEM • A celebrity of the plant world, the Amorphophallus Titanum, or “the corpse flower,” is a rare bloom that’s native to Indonesia and known for the extreme smell that it emits when it opens. Last week at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, “the Titan,” as it’s also sometimes known, bloomed for the first time in New York since 1939. Cultivated from seed for over 10 years, the plant grows at a rate of up to six inches daily in its final days, emits the infamous odor for approximately eight hours, and collapses in a matter of days. Link to video of the plant.
