Category: words

“The idea of purchasing a season’s or a year’s worth of books seemed like an interesting way to structure thinking about a customer’s relationship to the store,” Haskell said recently. At Blue Hill Books, C.S.B. members can purchase a “share” for a thousand dollars—or partial shares for two hundred or five hundred dollars—and draw on that credit to buy books throughout the year. “It’s not a donation; it’s not an investment.”

Hopkins? Arguably the most fervently Catholic poet in the English language? Oh yes. “The more one reads Hopkins, the more one becomes convinced that his particular torture was to have realised the intensely carnal nature of his own spirituality.”

Fewer than 20 fluent speakers of Haida are left in the world, according to local counts. For the Haida themselves, the destruction of their language is profoundly tied to a loss of identity.

Yep, in a public space in the library: “Few things are as treasured by writers as privacy, that place where you can tune out the world and live in the alternate one on your page. I found it in one of the most public places imaginable, crowded with tour groups and class visits, a must stop in the guide books. For over twenty years I have been writing in the New York Public Library—eight novels and a ninth underway—and I can’t imagine working anywhere else.”

Alice Oswald, a British poet who won the International Griffin poetry prize for her collection Falling Awake, said, “Most of my favourite poets (both dead and alive) have never won prizes. However, in the spirit of carnival, it’s important for all people to wear a crown and ride on a float for a day – as long as they don’t turn up for work in it.”

Sure, some nonfiction addresses the impact of Occupy (remember “the 99%”?), but there is also fiction, poetry, and more that describes, pictures, and sums up the legacy (at least so far) of the very large social movement.

A handful of writers who top the Kindle charts, including LJ Ross and Rachel Abbott, have defied rejections from publishers and agents to knock out seven-figure sales for their brand of crime and thriller writing. This, in a market where it only takes around 3,000 sales to top the hardback charts.

Now the shop boasts an advertised “18 miles” of new, used and rare books, many of which Fred Bass himself has procured through private estates and overseas sales. “Part of my job is going out to look at estates — it’s a treasure hunt,” Bass told NY Mag in 2014, describing New York as “an incredible source — a highly educated group of people in a concentrated area, with universities and Wall Street wealth. The libraries are here.”

“Recently, advocates who have been establishing means of revitalizing Alaska Native languages have created new opportunities for the preservation of Tlingit. Perhaps the most creative effort has been that of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, a non-profit based in Juneau that promotes understanding of Southeastern Alaska Native cultures. In late 2016, it produced two phone applications and a podcast that aim to teach users the Tlingit language.”

Nick Douglas explains why the seemingly unserious speech tic can be crucial for keeping a listener’s attention.