Flickr user Sweet Juniper posted a stunning set of photos taken in a Detroit warehouse filled with rotting textbooks.
The books are about half-way back to soil, sprouting mushrooms and (I can only imagine) host to millions of roaches, earwigs, and silverfish.
This is probably the most interesting and educational that these texts have ever been.
Link via Boingboing via Making Light.
I recently went through my book database looking for notations of bookplates entered before I started collecting. I extracted a few nice ones:
First, from the “East Hampton Free Library, Marjorie Woodhouse Memorial Collection, 1935”. a beautifully detailed plate by designer George Wharton Edwards, 1859-1950. (click for larger version).
Edwards was an American Impressionist painter, and the art director for Collier’s Magazine from 1898-1903. While at Collier’s he worked with Maxfield Parrish, Remington, Jessie Willcox Smith and others.
Next this attractive German-language pastoral plate “Mein Buch, Herma Lang” found in a volume from 1924.
Next this personal bookplate from Frances Steloff, founder of the late, lamented Gotham Book Mart:
And lastly two bookseller tickets: “H. Tuchner, Buchhandlung” from a 1924 volume and this beautiful, two-tone medallion from booksellers and publishers “The Sunwise Turn Inc, 51 East 44th Street, NYC”. An interesting sounding book titled Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling was written about this shop by Madge Jenison in 1923.
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Flickr user Marcus has a great set of men’s magazine scans from various eras (not work safe…unless you happen to be a go-go dancer or something).
He also has some other photosets of hi-fi porn, record covers, typewriter ribbon tins, and more. Definitely something for everyone–or at least lots of things for me.
Link via Bedazzled.
This hilarious, vengeful bookplate was recently posted by Lewis Jaffe on his blog Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie (together with a set of “special occasion” plates).
This is negative feedback for the ages.
I found a pile of these very sf-looking decals of the old National Education Association (NEA) Pi logo stuffed into a book.
Looks like a Vulcan merit badge.
And this substitution announcement saying that actress Guylaine Guy will assume the role of La Mome Pistache.
I think this was from a 1950s production of Cole Porter’s Can-Can. There’s a picture of her on a French-language site devoted to French-Canadian performers here.
I found this bookplate–“Ex-libris Geoffrey Winthrop Young”–in a copy of Tudor Tracts 1532-1588, Archibald Constable and Co, 1903. I was tempted to remove it for my collection but I did a little googling first and it turns out Young was a famous mountaineer, author and poet.
Excerpted from wikipedia:
“Young made many new and difficult ascents in the Alps, including noted routes on the Zermatt Breithorn (the “Younggrat”), the west ridge of the Gspaltenhorn, on the west face of the Weisshorn, and a dangerous and rarely repeated route on the south face of the Täschhorn. His finest rock climb was the Mer de Glace face of the Grépon. In 1911, with H O Jones, he ascended the Brouillard ridge of Mont Blanc and made the first complete traverse of the west ridge of the Grandes Jorasses, and the first decent of the ridge to the Col des Hirondelles….He was elected president of the Climbers’ Club in 1913…and later president of the Alpine Club.”
He published numerous collections of verse, books on mountaineering and the very entertaining sounding The Roof Climbers Guide to Trinity, “a satirical parody of pompous early alpine guides”.
The book also contains a bookseller ticket from “Spottiswoode & Co., Ltd., 17 High Street Elton” and vocabulary notes on the rear endpaper (possibly in Young’s hand).
Quite a cool find.
Last week’s NYT Book Review contained an interesting essay on the history of (mostly) cigarette advertising in pocket paperbacks of the 1950s-early 80s. The results of the campaign were mixed. The authors hated them (and weren’t cut in on the profits), they ended up in the hands of children when the affordable editions were picked for school reading lists and–it turns out–most Americans don’t read anyway.
Though ugly and annoying, these ads were at least less insidious than the rash of product placement in novels that started a few years back. Is this still happening? or did bad publicity trump greed?
In the process of moving, I unearthed a c1900 scrapbook that I acquired several years ago. It’s a technical engineering text with miscellaneous clippings pasted over most of the pages. I had put it aside, intending to conduct “further research” but you know how those things work…
Turns out that it wasn’t very interesting, but I did find a handful of peculiar newspaper clippings that I thought I’d share.
I just found this order sheet for 1961 Dover new releases folded in a book (click on image for larger version). Dover was the first publisher I learned to watch for in my early reading career–and with such diverse offerings as Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes and Finger Prints, Palms and Soles, it’s easy to see why they made an impression.
For those who don’t know, Dover specialized in obscure public domain titles that hadn’t seen print for decades. The books were chosen from widely varied fields and many were offered in facsimile editions including the original type design and illustrations. This definitely awakened a taste for out-of-the-way books to which I owe my present livelihood (okay, maybe it’s a more of a lethargihood).
Print-on-demand, Project Gutenberg, Google Books and other digital delivery systems have put a hurt on this business model and Dover’s current focus is on clip art (with CD-roms), beautiful ethnographic and mythological coloring books and thrift editions of staple reading-list novellas.
I started to compile a scouting list of Dover books that have a decent resale value ($20 and up) but I stalled since the market is in such flux. Maybe, I’ll get back to it after the holiday.
I just purchased several boxes of books and ephemera from the combined estate of a 60s fashion-plate, champion Siamese cat fancier and her husband, an award-winning toast-master. A VERY interesting mix of material that I’ll be listing and hi-lighting over the next few weeks.
I also found a basketful of vintage matchbooks that I couldn’t resist. Here’s a few:
I don’t know much about them but the graphics are beautiful. I never knew that print advertising could be done on the matchsticks themselves.
So, I get the cross-promotion with bowling and steak but fresh milk and nicotine? Doesn’t seem like a taste sensation.
It occurs to me that the smoking ban in restaurants must have been devastating to this hobby. Makes me want to do Hang Fire Books matches…maybe with a bookshelf design on the sticks…. Probably not a good idea though. They might combust in transit.
Now I have some suitable matches for my pin-up girl ashtray.
Hang Fire Books 
