June 2012
1 post
Summer Must-Read for Kids →
May 2012
8 posts
The Stone: Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Philosopher,... →
He was one of the most influential science fiction writers of the 20th century, but few people consider him a thinker. That would be a mistake.
Graeme Base's classic children's book Animalia has... →
I have never before considered buying an iPad.
Not even once.
Until now.
Animalia is (in my opinion) one of the best children’s books of past decades, and I can only imagine that it’d be a great interactive app. Very cool!
"Marginalised Marginalia" by ilovetypography.com →
April 2012
1 post
At Brooklyn’s I.S. 318, the Cool Kids Are the... →
teachingliteracy:
The school’s conquering heroes — its chess players — were blowing off steam. On Sunday, in Minneapolis, they became the first middle school team to win the United States Chess Federation’s national high school championship. The team, mostly eighth graders, beat out top high schools like Stuyvesant in Manhattan and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria, Va.
The victory burnishes what...
March 2012
16 posts
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Lost Type Co-Op: Awesome "pay-what-you-want" Type... →
Lord knows, we love our funky fonts here at Shakespeare and Co. I feel like I’m constantly searching for a cool new font to use in our next display. A friend sent this to me - and I can’t help but pass the word along!
“Berkeley - Nov 18, 2011
Ever since the new manager has taken over the store...”
– This is a review that Jon, the owner of our store, found on Google Maps this week. This year, we’ve been working so hard to renovate and refresh the store, without changing the lovely, old-fashioned used bookstore feel. Jon and Stephanie have been buying nicer quality books and sorting and...
czarmonger asked: One of the best window displays I've ever seen!
The Art of Journal Keeping
A customer came into the store yesterday looking for books on illuminated manuscripts, typography and bookmaking. This subject being a favorite of mine, I showed her five sections in the store she might like: medieval art, books on books, calligraphy, typography and medieval studies. After awhile, she came up to the counter with a few books in hand - including her own sketchbook, which was one of...
The New Yorker: Takes: Happy 85th Birthday,... →
That was how the first of seven boys and four girls was born in Aracataca on March 6, 1927, in an unseasonable torrential downpour, while the sky of Taurus rose on the horizon. I was almost strangled by the umbilical cord, because the family midwife, Santos Villero, lost her mastery of her art…
August 2011
9 posts
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The Atlantic says The Help softens segregation
In a tough review of the film based on Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, the Atlantic’s Alyssa Rosenberg writes that the book exchanges the harsh realities of segregation for a feel-good narrative about a progressive white woman.
Have any of you read the book? Do you agree? Disagree?
Read the review here.
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Marvel unveils new, multiracial Spiderman →
publicradiointernational:
Marvel unveils new, multiracial Spiderman:
Miles Morales takes over as Spidey for Peter Parker. He definitely has
big shoes to fill, but is that cliche applicable…
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Was Albert Camus Killed by the KGB? →
msodradek:
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has now suggested that Soviet spies might have been behind the crash. The theory is based on remarks by Giovanni Catelli, an Italian academic and poet, who noted that a passage in a diary written by the celebrated Czech poet and translator Jan Zábrana, and published as a book entitled Celý život, was missing from the Italian translation.
In...
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Local Buying Karma
“I’ve been looking for this book for years,” a customer told me this morning. “I was just going to buy it on Amazon, but I happened to be over here for a meeting and thought I’d stop in,” she said, clinging happily to the book. “I love it when stuff like this happens.”
July 2011
6 posts
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Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
Here is an interesting experiment of essays. Queneau describes a scene observed on a bus and writes about it in ninety-nine different styles. Some excerpts from his enterprise:
Negativities
It was neither a boat, nor an aeroplane, but a terrestrial means of transport. It was neither morning, nor the evening, but midday…
Dream
I had the impression that everything was misty and nacreous...
Watchemily-loftis:
Nathan Englander on writing and roasting coffee, via McSweeney’s
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June 2011
8 posts
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“I sit
Sunday
not meditating on
people clapping
shouting
meek
shall...”
– “Sunday” from It A Come: Poems by Michael Smith
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Sheet music
We just cleaned up our sheet music section. It’s all in order and ready to be browsed. A few teasers:
Time and the Flying Snow (folk songs by Gordon Bok)
Tori Amos’ MTV Unplugged
Carole King
Metallica Garage, Inc.
Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
Music Ritual:International Order of Job’s Daughters
The Cure
Thelonious Monk Play Along Book and CD Set
and a lot more…
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The Rare Book Project: Here, Have Some Poem →
rarebookproject:
Before I go to lunch, have another Bukowski poem from that little chapbook I did the other day:
It’s Nothing to Laugh About
there’s not color like the color of an orange,
and the mountains were a sad smokey purple like
old curtains in some cheap burlesque house;
and the…
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from Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse
Author Suraya Sadeed was stuck in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, while trying to cross the Afghan border. To keep herself amused, she visited a tiny bookstore in hopes of finding some Dari titles. She found Tajer Venicei (The Merchant of Venice) and a philosophical Sufi book. Here’s an excerpt from her visit:
Without asking, the shopkeeper brought over another stack of Dari volumes. I smiled my...
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WatchBill Moyers’s collection of interviews is just out. Jon Stewart interviews him on interviewing.
futurejournalismproject:
Stewart and Bill Moyers on the art of the interview, part 02.
In which Stewart discusses his inability to interview Donald Rumsfeld and Moyers talks about the difference between narrating and reporting, and why he doesn’t want to interview politicians because their...
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A newish bookstore in the Berkeley family.
Berkeleyside reports on the shifting comic book scene in Berkeley as of late. There’s a new, airy, store in the ‘hood. And we approve. After you swing by Fantastic Comics, on Shattuck stop over at Shakespeare & Company at Dwight and Telegraph.
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New Sale Table
We’ve been very busy at Shakespeare & Company, since our new manager Stephanie Vela has begun sprucing up the place.
Vela is going through the literature section, book by book, lowering prices, pulling out older books, and putting them on our new stock-full sale table. Come around to check out our discounted titles, and eye-pleasing literature collection.
May 2011
3 posts
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Just in: A huge collection of Rudolph Steiner...
That’s right. We had to shift over a couple of shelves to fit them all in. Some common, some rare. Pictures to come…
