Category: words

“She loved clothes; I think she would have enjoyed Bloomingdales.”

Small, independent publishers “can also move much quicker and with less bureaucracy.”

“The dirty secret of poetry is that it is loved by some, loathed by many, and bought by almost no one.”

Charles Wright: “I will not be an activist laureate, I don’t think, the way Natasha [Trethewey] was … and certainly not the way Billy Collins was, or Bob Hass, or Rita Dove, or Robert Pinsky; you know, they had programs. I have no program.”

“By now, purchasing print books in a brick-and-mortar building is something of a lost art, like taking snuff or drinking brandy after dinner. Which is not to say that it’s not worth doing. Quite the opposite.”

“In the past, having satisfied myself that the postman really had come and gone, the day then presented itself as an undisturbed ocean of potential—for writing (by hand), reading (on paper), and, to pay the bills, translating (on a manual typewriter). It was even possible in those days to see reading as a resource to fill time that hung heavy when rain or asphyxiating heat forced one to stay indoors. Now, on the contrary, every moment of serious reading has to be fought for, planned for.”

“Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez today emerged as the 2014 winner with the third of his novels to appear in English, The Sound of Things Falling, translated by Canadian Anne McLean.”

“In this 1922 letter, the British Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Archibald Bodkin, issued an official opinion on James Joyce’s book Ulysses: ‘In my opinion, there is more, and a great deal more than mere vulgarity or coarseness, there is a great deal of unmitigated filth and obscenity.'”

These amazing stores celebrate books in unique ways. The experience of being in them changes how you think about the books you buy.

“Charles Wright once said, ‘I want to be the anonymous author.’ But for 44 years this modest Southerner has been publishing poetry, and the accolades have kept arriving: a National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Bollingen Prize.” And now the biggest honor an American poet can have.