1. Here’s a fascinating tidbit I just ran across in a review of Michael D. Gordin’s “Einstein in Bohemia” (Princeton): “On May 24, 1911, Einstein gave a brief talk on his theory of relativity to a gathering of germanophobe intellectuals that met at the home of Berta Fanta (‘an erudite, philosophically ambitious, and well-connected woman’), […]
Author: manhattanrarebooks
BIBLIOPHILIC TASTING NOTES – PART 1
Having written three posts in this space, and having run out of good ideas for more, I decided to dip into my email files and recycle some desultory exchanges about books and related topics. Yes – I know; it’s the lazy man’s solution, but HL Mencken did it all the time (except, of course, for […]
Books through College; or, College through Books
by Abigail Haber Note: The summer after my first year at Brown, I had the wonderful privilege of working at Manhattan Rare Books. Learning through, photographing, thinking and writing about rare books stoked an interest in them, one that’s been important to my growth during college. As a recent graduate, I look back on my […]
CAPTURING PLENITUDE, OR NOTES TOWARDS A KAMA SUTRA OF WRITING
Note: This is a blog post from a guest contributor – a long-time collector of many subjects. He would like to remain anonymous, but so you may recognize future posts by him, we’ll call him “Prospero”. Isn’t this striking? [See illustration on left.] It’s from an early nineteenth-century translation of the New Testament into the […]
What Tom Wolfe Means to Me
––––In honor of the second anniversary of Tom Wolfe’s death: May 14, 2018–––– Note: This is a blog post from a guest contributor – a long-time collector of many subjects. He would like to remain anonymous, but so you may recognize future posts by him, we’ll call him “Prospero”. I was inspired to write this […]
A Millennial’s Discovery at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair
By Gillian Gold In my sophomore year of high school, I listened with wonderment as my global history teacher explained the discovery of an underground city in Turkey. While a man was renovating his house in Cappadocia, he was shocked to find an entire room behind a wall he knocked down. Little did […]
Beyond the Page: Resolving a Shakespearian “Crux”; or Fighting on Sleds
Note: This is a blog post from a guest contributor – a long-time collector of many subjects. He would like to remain anonymous, but so you may recognize future posts by him, we’ll call him “Prospero”. RESOLVING A SHAKESPEARIAN “CRUX”, OR, FIGHTING ON SLEDS Shakespeare is full of wonderful puzzles, particularly those textual conundrums […]
Beyond the Page: Finally, the Perfect Gift
I have to get this out of the way: I am not a great gift-giver. When there is an important occasion that requires a gift I start to fret about it weeks before the date. The fretting, however, does no good – it usually just morphs into last-minute panic as the day approaches and I […]
Hungry Tulips: Reflections on the Writings of Sylvia Plath
I remember the first time I read Ariel. I remember the way in which the rented library book felt on my hands: too sticky, not dusty enough, cold. To this day, it is the the final four lines of its titular poem that ring in my head: The dew that flies Suicidal, at one […]
Understanding the Civil War: The Bad Guys, The Brave ones, and the Belligerents
The Civil War, The War of Northern Aggression, War Between the States: no matter what you may call it, the Civil War was a brutal conflict that tore deep holes in our national fabric. Moreover, it is these same Civil War-era questions–ones of equity, economy, and injustice–that are still hot-button topics in modern political discourse. […]