Images found in: How To Measure (1920)
Filed under Books …
Correct Keyboard Fingering
Images found in: The practice of typography: modern methods of book composition (1904)
Beautiful Beautiful Google Books.
Harvard Bookstore has been in the news a lot lately. Why, you ask? Because of our awesome book machine.
Check it:
Wired Article
So basically we have this machine that can print any public domain book on Google books. And since google has been scanning books like mad, there’s a lot out there. I’ve been doing searches to find cool books that I personally want to print and figured I would share them. These books, most of which sell for a pretty penny for the originals, can be printed for a mere $8.00.
So without further ado…
A book of Cheerful Cats & Other Animated Tales by: Joseph Greene Francis (1903)
Chris found this copy of Pilgrim’s Progress By: John Bunyan, illustrated by the brother’s Rhead. This book is beautiful. Every spread has a different beautiful border.
I have had animals on my mind a lot, which is probably why a lot of this post is books related to them, but here’s yet another for the pet lover. Book of Cats & Dogs: and Other Friends, for Little Folks By: James Johonnot (1888)
I really love tea. Thanks to googlebooks, I can now buy The Little Book of Tea By: Arthur Gray (1903)
Chris really loves beer, and I really like learning about beer. What better than to read The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: an Entertaining History By: John Bickerdyke (1886)
Engravings of the Bones, Muscles and Joints By: John Bell (1804)
Really awesome woodblock prints in Just so Stories for Little Children By: Rudyard Kipling (1902)
You have to scroll down to the end of this one in order to get to the awesomeness. But it’s totally worth it. De Tweede grote vier omnibus
By Marie Joseph Brusse, Herman Heijermans, Frans Masereel, Gerard Walschap (?)
A collection of short stories… that also have amazing old advertisements and weird kitten art. The Black Cat: a Monthly Magazine of Original Short Stories, Issue 28 (1898)
Sadly, the book machine does not print color pages (yet) but the following books are still pretty awesome to look at.
So beautiful, albeit completely politically incorrect. The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog By: Bertha Upton & Florence Kate Upton
Cute and weird cats & kittens can be found in Mee-a-ow! Of Good Advice to Cats & Kittens By: Robert Michael Ballantyne (1859)
This is really just scraping the top of what is offered. When I find more, I’ll post em.
Milk & Toast’s Tentative Top 20
I was asked to make a list of my Top 20 books of all time for the Harvard Book Store’s Top 100 books list.
I made it kind of quick (and without looking at my bookshelf at home) so it’s tentative. But here it is!
1. Breakfast of Champions By: Kurt Vonnegut
2. The Watchmen By: Alan Moore
3. 1984 By: George Orwell
4. Botany of Desire By: Michael Pollan
5. Cat’s Cradle By: Kurt Vonnegut
6. Harry Potter By: J.K. Rowling
7. Silent Spring By: Rachel Carson
8. Farenheit 451 By: Ray Bradbury
9. The Great Gatsby By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
10. The Giver By: Lois Lowry
11. Winnie the Pooh By: AA Milne
12. Sophie’s World By: Jostein Gaarder
13. V for Vendetta By: Alan Moore
14. To Kill a Mockingbird By: Harper Lee
15. Hamlet By: Shakespeare
16. Animal Farm By: George Orwell
17. Grimm’s Fairy Tales By: Wilhelm & Jacob Grimm
18. Invisible Cities By: Italo Calvino
19. A People’s History By: Howard Zinn
20. BFG By: Roald Dahl
The Angel Maker
The Angel Maker by: Stefan Brijs
I can’t stop thinking about this book. It’s a haunting tale, and one could claim it to be a postmodern Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I guess that’s a good comparison, but the comparison to classics doesn’t account for why I can’t stop thinking about it. I still can’t determine how I feel about the events that took place. Every event has two sides a positive and a negative… or a black and a white. Eventually most people realize that nothing is so simple… so right or so wrong. The world becomes a gray zone. This novel is no different except for the fact that the main character only understands the two ends of the spectrum and absolutely no shades of gray. Yet he is the ultimate morally, ethically, religiously, scientifically gray. This makes him creepy, scary, sad and unforgettable.
If you get a chance, pick this book up… and if possible, pick it up at the Harvard Bookstore! (I just have to plug where I work).
Hey Book!
I have been on a semi-book buying rampage. This is also leading to a book cleaning rampage… as I am quickly losing space on my bookshelves. Instead of listing off the books I am deciding to execute (which would be boring) I will list the books ready to replace them.
Recent Purchases:
Marcel Dzama’s “The Berliner Ensemble Thanks You All”
I bought after I opened one that we were about to return at work. The prints are actually of pretty high quality, for being mass produced and all. I might have wanted to think this purchase through a little bit more beforehand, but I’m a little too late on that now. I guess you can’t fully call this a book either, since it’s really an envelope with images that are not bound in any way. But then we have to discuss what is and is not considered a book. It’s still pretty cool, and is on sale on the McSweeney’s website right now.
This issue of McSweeney’s is of special interest for me. I recently realized just how into fairy/folk tales I am. I guess I should have figured it out after my Grimm’s Class at Tufts, or my previous class on Greek and Roman Comedies (which I wouldn’t call fairy tales, but they do have that quality when reading them now, maybe because of their age, or because of how many changes have been made to them… I’m not sure, it’s been awhile, and as I said it’s a recent discovery, so I haven’t thought it all the way through). I was also heavily obsessed with Mythic tales when I was little. To the point of printing out all of the information I could find on my 90′s edition of Encarta and making a little book of my own. So anyway, this edition of McSweeney’s is based on fables. There are 8 total tales in this collection, they are individually bound as little books. I don’t actually like the design that much (which is weird for my and McSweeney’s) but I liked the stories.
Calla Edition’s Hans Christian Anderson
Most people know Dover… they are the one’s that make the super cheap, not so pretty editions of basically everything. Dover is pretty cool, they are able to provide purchasable books for a few dollars. Calla Editions is basically like their new line of Fanciness. Calla is new as of this year. They are using works from the Dover Publications Archive to produce artistic “old style” beautiful books. They really are beautiful. At work we got the Hans Christian Anderson, Edgar Allen Poe and East of the Sun and West of the Moon. I bought the Hans edition, because of the aforementioned fairy tale obsession, and because I don’t have any Hans Christian Anderson, I do have Perrault and Grimm’s (and a new Grimm’s that I have yet to buy, that is also pretty and sitting under my desk at work). Calla is also trying to be environmentally conscience. On their website they state:
“You may also take satisfaction from knowing that we create Calla Editions with the least possible impact to our threatened ecosystem. These books are manufactured in the United States under strict environmental controls utilizing earth-friendly papers from carefully managed forests.”
Jeffrey Brown’s “Cat Getting Out of a Bag”
The first time I picked up this book I couldn’t stop giggling. I bought a copy for my mom, though I don’t think she’s really looked through it. The book went on remainder, so I picked it up… for myself this time. Last night I read it again. Still giggled. It’s that good.
The story of a bunny who doesn’t believe he’s a bunny. Who has a human dad living in London who visits his family in Sicily. Narrated at times by a dust particle. This story is cute, sad and altogether adorable. Fluffy is a very adorable bunny.
Jordan Crane’s “The Clouds Above”
Adorable story of a boy and his cat… avoiding school, birds and scary clouds? It’s drawn very well, and the fat cat Jack has a really awesomely long tail. If it isn’t overly obvious. I like cats.
Brian Greene’s “Icarus at the Edge of Time”
(on the back cover) “Icarus at the edge of time is a futuristic reimagining of the classic Greek myth. This time, rather than wax wings and a journey too near the Sun, a boy ventures through deep space and challenges the awesome power of black holes. The fable dramatizes the startling implications of what is perhaps Einstein’s greatest insight.” – Brian Greene
First off, this book is incredible to handle. The designer of Icarus at the Edge of Time was none other than Chip Kidd. I have no idea how it took me so long to discover Chip Kidd, and now that I have, he seems to be everywhere. I guess it’s not hard for him to be everywhere when you work in a bookstore, but I swear, when I first looked at his website, all of the covers that he designed, are the ones that keep catching my eye, even if I am not the least bit interested in it… like the biography of Paul Simon. I’ve read the back a few times, and I flip it over and am like, “damn. Chip did it again” (I don’t really say that… even in the slightest…)
So Icarus at the Edge of Time, is not only beautiful, it includes my other interest of fables and tales (I swear I want to stick to one word, but it never seems to work… so fables, tales, fairy tales, folk lore… whatev.) It doesn’t take too long to read, so if you have a chance, see if a neighboring bookstore has it, sit down and admire it… and if you love it, buy it… it’s perty.
Gian Berto Vanni’s “Love”
I found this awesome little guy in the used book department. I first just thought the cover was cute, but when I opened it up, I was amazed. Every page has a section cut out, showing a portion of the next page. A lot of kid’s books do this, but this isn’t a kid’s book and it’s not as simple as a lot of the kid’s books I have seen. Oh right, and the story… pretty sad.
Henri Matisse’s “Jazz”
Twice I have seen the real copy of what this little book was based on. The larger, Jazz is pretty amazing. I say large, because it really is large. Matisse cut out all of the shapes with bright paper… which made reprinting this beast a bitch. I can’t remember exactly how they printed them, Peter Scott (my printing teacher from SMFA) told our class when we visited the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard. I remember it being very intense.
Anyway, the book that I bought is very small… and it is all in French (because Matisse was French, and wrote it in French) and it was printed in Germany. So basically, I have no idea what any of it says.
Books!
Books!
I work in a bookstore. Supposedly the 3rd largest independent bookstore. (The first and obviously the best being Powell’s Books in Portland Oregon) I always dreamed of working in Powell’s, the dreamland of books, but when you no longer live in Oregon, working at Powell’s becomes a little difficult. So instead I work at the closest independent bookstore… The Harvard Bookstore . I started shopping at the HBS before being on the payroll, so I can honestly say it’s an awesome bookstore. Please do not get it confused with the Harvard Coop … which is a fancier way of saying Barnes & Noble. I’m sure it was an awesome place before it sold out, but the sad thing is… it has. I realize that corporations are obviously everywhere and they are doubtlessly easy, but I don’t know about you, but I feel a certain level of happiness when I give my money to a business whose owner is a regular. The Harvard bookstore was recently sold, and since then the new owner, Jeff Mayersohn can be seen shelving books. I don’t know how common it is for a owner to fall into the trenches with the soldiers, but I’m sure if it happened more frequently, the world would be a better place. This is my long-winded way of saying support your local businesses. P.S. The Harvard Bookstore is located next to the Adidas Store on Mass ave in Cambridge (in Harvard Square).
So anyway… books.
I have noticed a couple of cool ones as of late…
The first is called Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin You can read my review of it here.
The second is a really sweet pop-up ABC book called ABC3D by: Marion Battaile. This amazing little book (that is way cheaper than it should be) also has a youtube video!
Both of these two amazing books you can buy at the Harvard Bookstore (currently they are both 20% off) You can also buy them online through the Harvard Bookstore, or through Powell’s Books. Support independent bookstores YAY!
Sidenote: My job at the bookstore is mainly overstock returns. This means I see a lot of books before they get sent back to the publishers. I created a goodreads “bookshelf” called Because I Work in a Bookstore . It mainly includes funny covers and somewhat ridiculous books. Probably because I am both funny and ridiculous.
Book.
