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.
Now we are six
As we approach the 6th birthday of WritingRedux, I've cast my mind back to the year I turned six and the books I was given and reading at that time. We had several Christopher Robin books at home and so Now We Are Six was a permanent presence. In addition, in 1970,...
The Magic Ink-Pot
Always on the hunt for treasures among forgotten children's books, I came across this one by chance when I was rather looking at glorious buildings and libraries stashed around the National Trust. It seems The Magic Ink-Pot was born out of a mother writing...
Second hand books
Virginia Woolf's comment on second hand books is for all those of you who love the look and feel of them, the randomness and surprise of finding them in old boxes, or lined up in a charming bookshop. I hope that, like me, you also enjoy second guessing the history of...
Shelebrate with a shelfie
With a nod to the British Library which introduced me to the idea of the 'shelfie', a photo featuring a shelf's worth of books, here is one to celebrate the 5th anniversary of WritingRedux. It features most of the books I've celebrated on WritingRedux over the last...
‘Do you prefer reading to cards?’ said he; ‘that is rather singular’.
Jane Austen –Â Pride & Prejudice
On the culling of books
I have long put off writing this post because I have an aversion to it. Â A while back I bought a second hand book by Italo Calvino, Six Memos for...
Department of Exceptions
‘All good publishers have a department of exceptions.’
Perhaps any institution worth its salt should have a department of exceptions: schools admissions offices, human resources departments, government ministries.
Trouble is,...
Stash it in the safe
The business model of publishing doesn't seem to have been very attractive then, whatever you think of it now. Thoreau makes several comments about dealing with publishers. Imagine a stack...
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...
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...
Shelebrate with a shelfie
With a nod to the British Library which introduced me to the idea of the 'shelfie', a photo featuring a shelf's worth of books, here is one to celebrate 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...
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...
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...
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...
Wishing you a happy jólabókaflóð!
This lovely word is Icelandic for 'Christmas book flood'. As you may know, Iceland is home to the world's most committed readers and it has long been a tradition to...
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...
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