Coming Events
Gently Mad
Nick’s Picks for the Holidays
Looking for a gift book this holiday season? Take a peek at some of my top choices this year, all of them newly issued, and all worthy of your attention.
By Nicholas A. Basbanes
Nicholas A. Basbanes recently received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to work on his book on paper, which is forthcoming from Knopf. His most recent book is Editions & Impressions, a collection of essays. His other works include the acclaimed A Gentle Madness, Every Book Its Reader, Patience & Fortitude, Among the Gently Mad, and A Splendor of Letters.
By Nicholas A. Basbanes
Nicholas A. Basbanes recently received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to work on his book on paper, which is forthcoming from Knopf. His most recent book is Editions & Impressions, a collection of essays. His other works include the acclaimed A Gentle Madness, Every Book Its Reader, Patience & Fortitude, Among the Gently Mad, and A Splendor of Letters.Living With Books
by Dominique Dupuich
photographs by Roland Beaufre
published by Thames & Hudson
hardcover, 192 pages
225 color illustrations. $45
Too bad for the authors of this handsome effort that Anthony Powell used Books Do Furnish a Room for the title of his 1971 novel, as it would have been perfect for this lavish examination of the creative ways people come up with to make books a part of their living spaces. “All long-term love affairs require a little organization, and relationships between people and books are no different,” Dupuich and Beaufre note. Wisely, they profile by category—collectors, designers, writer, artists, fashion designers, and what they call “connoisseurs”—noting a few eccentricities along the way that make for great pictures, and provide a number of useful solutions. You’ll find yourself dipping into this volume often for fresh ideas.
Among the new releases from the Library of America this year are these two boxed sets that demonstrate, in a strikingly expressive way, the richness and diversity of our literary heritage. For the six graphic novels executed in woodcuts by the artist Lynd Ward (1905-1985) in the 1930s, the only text to be found appears in the introduction by Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist who provides a superb overview of Ward’s pioneering work. At the other extreme is a body of timeless writing in which a panoply of social, literary, and political issues are addressed incisively by Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956), the legendary “sage of Baltimore.” Published between 1919 and 1927, the six volumes of Prejudices comprise an unparalleled commentary on cultural life in the United States during the years immediately following World War I, and leading up to the Great Depression.
Comments