DUANE MICHALS, Homage to Cavafy. Danberry, NH: Addison House, 1978.
Every book it’s story. This one I foolishly gave an unrequited—hopes it would offer some glimpse into my pining (alas, that never works). Finally, the book itself (my first love) has returned to me. It’s remains a great source of pleasure.
We love our physical media. Chapbooks are the vinyl of literature. That we can print books on acid free paper, bound with waxed thread (in lieu of staples that will eventually rust) wrapped in thick covers that protect the more delicate pages allows us to make objects that unlike the vast majority of the original chapbooks will have a chance at lasting hundreds of years in physical form.
ISOL It’s Useful to Have a Duck Groundwood Books
“bookshelfporn.com has dissuaded me completely from buying a kindle. thank you.” via twitter
“This could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird…”
Really?!
(Kirby begs to differ.)
OPL OPEN BOOK CLUB NIGHT
THE HELP by KATHRYN SOCKETT
TONIGHT CENTRAL BRANCH AUDITORIUM
7PM SOLD OUT
JOAN DIDION • IFOA Toronto • Brigantine Room, Harbourfront Centre
Photos: KIRBY
JOAN DIDION reads from Blue Nights (in bookstores now)
Read an excerpt
See/hear JOAN DIDION at IFOA November 8th / $10
*see also: In Loss, a Mother Explores Dark Questions and Bright Memories
J.-C. C. | Let’s pose ourselves a classic dilemma: the world is under threat, and we can only safeguard a few cultural objects. Civilisation might be wiped out, perhaps by a massive environmental catastrophe. We have to act fast. We cannot protect or save everything. So what do we choose? And in which media?
U. E. | We have already talked about how modern media formats quickly become obsolete. Why run the risk of choosing objects that may become mute and indecipherable? It is proven that books are superior to every other object that our cultural industries have put on the market in recent years. So, wanting to choose something easily transportable and that has shown itself equal to the ravages of time, I choose the book.
[Eco then goes on to say]: Having spoken so passionately in favour of books, I had better admit that the first thing I would save is my 250-gigabyte hard drive, which contains all my writing from the last thirty years. After that, if there were still time…
Jean-Claude Carrière & Umberto Eco, This is Not the End of the Book. London : Harvill Secker, 2011. p 31-3.
see also: Umberto Eco: ‘I’m a writer not a reader’
Photo source: The End — a set on Flickr
[thx T.]
