“Symptoms included a frenzy for culling and hunting down first editions, rare copies, books of certain sizes or printed on specific paper.” Lauren Young writes in Atlas Obscura about the phenomenon of bibliomania, “a dark pseudo-psychological illness” that afflicted upper-class victims in Europe and England during the 1800s. And for a first-hand account of more contemporary book theft, read John Brandon on his high school pastime: “The first time was nerve-racking, a rush, but by the third book I was already settling in.”
Biblio-klepto-mania
The Price of Black Ambition
“I have come to realize how much I have, throughout my life, bought into the narrative of this alluring myth of personal responsibility and excellence. I realize how much I believe that all good things will come if I—if we—just work hard enough.” Year in Reading alum Roxane Gay writes for VQR Online about “The Price of Black Ambition.” Pair with our review of An Untamed State.
VIDA Shall Be Pleased
By happy accident, the third issue of Brooklyn-based lit mag Armchair/Shotgun (which uses an anonymous submissions system) is composed entirely of female writers. Issues are available for online purchase. EDIT: Following our update, the publication put out a notice on how the "all-female-writers issue" issue came to be.
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Cross Off and Move On
Equipment for today's lunch hour: 1) somewhere sunny and out-of-doors to sit; 2) failing that, a gazebo or other shelter from inclement weather; 3) a printout of Deborah Eisenberg's latest short story, from the current NYRB; 4) undivided attention.
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Michael Lewis Goes to the Movies (Again)
Michael Lewis has been tapped by Warner Brothers to adapt his first book Liar’s Poker for the big screen. This will be the third movie based on one of Lewis’ books.
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Tar Pit Blues
Recommended Reading: Alexander Aciman on Canto 22 of Dante’s Inferno. (His essay is part of a series I’ve written about before.)
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Rake Studies
In the annals of Great Ladies’ Men in History, a few names stand out: Lord Byron, Don Juan, Casanova and -- if a new biography by Alister McGrath is to be believed -- C.S. Lewis.
New from Neil Gaiman
Exciting news, Neil Gaiman fans! The author will release The View from the Cheap Seats, a collection of his non-fiction work, this May. For more Gaiman, check out our own Tess Malone's review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
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Atwood in the Twittersphere
I dare you not to be charmed by Margaret Atwood's account of becoming a Twitter user. "Despite their sometimes strange appearances, I’m well pleased with my followers." (via kottke)
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I shipped five cartons of books from San Diego (home, at the time, to some world-class secondhand book shops) to Berlin… I had some hand-trembling finds in the shops of that city. As each carton arrived I was summoned to customs. The fifth carton arrived in the form of an ominous grey sack provided by the US postal service: the carton had somehow burst en route. It wasn’t until I’d unpacked all the cartons and gotten the books on shelves, a few days later, that I noticed that nineteen or twenty books were missing… and almost all of the missing books were written by Anthony Burgess. My Burgess collection was wiped out, along with several airport-purchased paperbacks of so-so crap I’d used to get through various flights. International shipping book thief with widely variable taste!