…okay, it’s Thursday, but with Spring Break upon us (yah!) what better time to get in the recreational reading that so often goes by the wayside during the semester. And what better reading, than contemplating the very medium through which so much of university work is still done: books. Collected here is a sampling of books about books in our happening Browsing Collection–our recreational reading collection shelved just outside Special Collections, near the Word Studio and computer labs. I haven’t read all of these, but they constitute the newest titles we have on stuff bibliographical:
- Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde by Thomas Wright
- The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
- Books for Sale: The Advertising and Promotion of Print Since the Fifteenth Century Eds. Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote
- The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Danton
- Books as History: The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts by David Pearson
- Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
- Theories of Reading: Books, Bodies, and Bibliomania by Karin Littau
All very new, and, having read the Danton, that text is excellent. With these books in hand Odyssey Online is going to take a week or so break, be back in Middle-March!