Thoughts and experiences of those tactile, lasting, beautiful, timeless objects called ‘books’, including their ownership, production, sale, theft and loss. See also our sister page on book design and illustration, here.
My publisher, falsely so called…
Listening time: under 3 minutes.I loved this drawn out account of Thoreau's dealings with a publisher wanting to clear out his cellar of Thoreau's unsold books, which Thoreau had in any case had to pay for. So he gets them sent to his house, schleps them up several...
A capacious book thief
Steinbeck and Robert Capa spent a month in the Soviet Union. It took some time for Steinbeck to cotton on to the fact that his travelling companion was a closet biblioklept. I love the blithe insistence of innocence in Capa, even when caught book-handed, with that...
The history of books
An idea so intrinsic to reading books, particularly those you love and remember, that I had never consciously thought of it. Here, Michael Rosen describes his first encounter with a children's classic, and it made me recall early encounters with some...
A wilderness of books
This vast languishing resource was first brought home to me in Erik Reinert's How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, which highlighted a lemming-level of group-think compounded by ignorance of an entire 'other canon' of economic...
‘Do you prefer reading to cards?’ said he; ‘that is rather singular’.
Jane Austen – Pride & Prejudice
Publishers, monkeys, monkeys, publishers
I love the way Captain Flint sees his mission to find a monkey for the children as a refreshing change from tramping around London looking for a publisher for his...
Arthur Ransome – beautiful cover illustrations
If you've been following WritingRedux, you may have noticed a number of pawky playful gems from Arthur Ransome's children's books. While I have (so far) only read three of the many...
Culling of books …
I sometimes feel like this when we go to the flea market in Geneva and survey a lifetime's worth of books chucked into banana boxes by the house clearance company...
Worse than cocaine
If you were traversing the Soviet Union it was better to be caught with a kilo of cocaine than a book. Let alone a book in English.
‘Worst of all...
The delusional business of book selling
This lovely, zestful, imaginative novel has one of the protagonists finding a job in a bookshop. He tentatively shares with his boss the fact that he seems to be seeing...
Books hidden, books found
Armenians seemed to be particularly adept at averting bibliocide. Some cultures, threatened with bibliocide, committed books to memory. The Armenians, apparently successfully committed to memory the whereabouts of hidden books and...
How to speak to an editor
Clearly, authors are simply too humble in approaching editors. This is how it should be done, straight to the point and don’t forget to pay me. In this story, the...
Fuel for the body or mind?
Book burning, or bibliocide, is usually something we associate with ideologues, political or religious, fearful of the free flow of ideas. Here it is a bibliophile scholar who burns them...
Happy San Jordi’s Day!
It was for a good reason, three in fact, that I chose 23 April to launch WritingRedux last year. San Jordi's festival in Spain is a celebration of books, which...
The history of books
An idea so intrinsic to reading books, particularly those you love and remember, that I had never consciously thought of it. Here, Michael Rosen describes his first encounter with a...
Hoovering up ideas
There's such a zest to this account of the Armenian approach to dealing with invaders: translate everything you can get your hands on, regardless of your relationship with other nations...
A wilderness of books
This vast languishing resource was first brought home to me in Erik Reinert's How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, which highlighted a lemming-level of...
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