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Monthly Archives: May 2009

“Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

Friday, May 15, 2009

The National Post has done a very nice profile on Ricky Jay (via Rare Book News), one of my favourite magicians/character actors/bon vivants and an all around fascinating figure. The NP profile is about Mr. Jay as a book collector, which only further endears him to me.
“…all those years that I spent on the road [...]

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“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Guardian has posted an excellent article on the creation of one of the 20th Century’s most influential and significant novels, 1984 (via Reading Copy Book Blog).
Coincidently, I just reread 1984 last month—the first time since I was maybe thirteen years old. It retained all the power to provoke that I remembered it having. In [...]

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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

Monday, May 11, 2009


In a recent post at The Bookshop Blog, Nora O’Neill has written an impassioned plea for booksellers to consider the issue of literacy. She provides a litany of startling U.S. statistics:

“In some states they use the third grade reading proficiency scores to estimate future prison need. Why? 85% of prison inmates cannot read proficiently. Simply [...]

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