Category: words

Min Kym: “I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt as though I was just a sort of shell of a person. … You know, when it’s a human relationship, it’s something that everybody can relate to and understand. But I think as a violinist, as a musician, as an artist, when you know the relationship that you have with your particular art, it’s something that lives inside you and has a life of its own.”

“In their 2015 public tax returns, the city’s three independent library systems, the New York Public Library, the Queens Library and the Brooklyn Public Library, reported collecting a total of $5.5 million in fines. Just as adults discover they cannot renew their driving licenses if they have too many unpaid tickets, children discover that they lose library privileges if they rack up more than $15 in late fees. The library is the Department of Motor Vehicles on training wheels.”

“Libraries will often have a restricted collection—a locked case, a unit of shelving behind the circulation desk, or a special room—that requires readers to obtain permission from a librarian to view the books within. Very often the restricted materials contain explicit adult content or valuable illustrations. During and after World War II the Library of Congress held one of the largest collections in the world of this kind, composed mostly of erotica and items considered to be pornographic or obscene.”

“This is the tale of how Tennessee literature was saved from a fate closely resembling oblivion by an unlikely hero: the United States government. Specifically, it was saved by the tiny portion of the US federal budget allocated to the National Endowment for the Humanities. More specifically, by the even tinier part of the federal budget that the NEH budget disburses to Humanities Tennessee, an independent affiliate of the national agency. The knight in shining armor who swooped in to save literature, it turns out, was Uncle Sam.”

“The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, launched in January 2016 with an endowment of $20 million from philanthropist Gerry Lenfest, announced today it has raised $26.5 million in additional gifts from a variety of sources. Impressed by the response, Lenfest says he’s ponying up another $40 million, an amount that will have to be matched.”

“How can a writer situated in one culture communicate its truth to readers in very different places?”

“A slave who ran away from Maryland, was drunk when the crime was committed. Thinks his confinement will promote the welfare of his soul.” Rebecca Onion, Slate‘s history maven, looks at these documents from the Eastern State Penitentiary, now a monument just down Fairmount Avenue from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Sure, Railroad qualifies: it’s a historical novel, but it’s also a steampunk fantasy. The nominee authors are an unusually diverse lot: in addition to Whitehead (an African-American male), there are three (white) females, an Israeli male, and a transgender Korean-American.

“School officials say it’s the result of drastic budget cuts as the district scrapes around to make up for a $60 million shortfall next year. The changes will save $2 million. No librarians will be laid off. Instead, they will be shuffled to fill vacant positions at other schools, leaving 11 campuses without librarians for the 2017-18 school year.”

Collecting modern first editions or antiquarian books is a fun pursuit. It can be exciting and compulsive and, contrary to some critics, it is not a dreary bookish endeavour, followed only by the status-conscious rich. Anyone can collect first editions and, taking taste and pocket into account, the collector’s choice is limitless.