quartos archive

Love old books, incunabula or otherwise? A whole collection of early Shakespeare works--hard bound and beautiful--are now all available for perusal online. You can read about the volume itself, read the text in HTML or XML, or you can look at wonderful, high-resolution photographic images of the actual volume, page-by-page.

This image is from another site. Hamlet; 1st quarto 1603; C.34.k.1; Provenance: Halliwell-Phillipps

Each of these 32 editions is a pre-1642 Shakespearean quarto of Hamlet. Hamlet was chosen as the inaugural play for the Shakespeare Quartos Archive project, but they have plans to add more in the future. A quarto is a book printing technique: a large piece of paper is printed with four pages on one side, and four pages on the other, and then folded twice to make 4 double-sided leaves of a book.

These volumes aren't incunabular, they're too late, but boy are they handsome. The pictures are really high quality. If you're planning to take a look, you're going to need a fat connection.

Mmm juicy.

putterham branch

Check it out! If I'm reading this right, this is a bookmark is from 1971. I went to the Putterham Branch of the Brookline Public Library today to take a look around, and meet the representatives from the city. This was the first step in a potential new project. The city wants to put a new roof on the building, and they have some grant money to put photovoltaic panels on the roof as part of the project.

I counted 11 other potential designers, builders, or other interested parties. The building looks like late '60s architecture, and they're just finishing renovating the HVAC system. The building was mostly closed, the bookstacks were gone, the circulation desk was gone, and there were bunch of boxes and some other items draped with plastic. On the floor in a pile of sweepings was this bookmark.

The paper has a leather embossing that reminds me of elementary school in the 70s. The corner was ton away at some point in the past, and it faded along the right edge, as if it was sticking out of a book or something, and more exposed there. As always, if you click on the image, you'll get a closer look.

Looks like the standard issue, donated library bookmark hasn't changed much in nearly 40 years.

kitchen confidential - i

Kitchen Confidential is written by Anthony Bourdain, now host of the Travel Channel Show, No Reservations. I've never seen that show, but I did see him a few times in his Food Network show called A Cook's Tour, which is also the name of a book published in 2001. I gather he wrote that book while on the tour filming the TV show.

This the first book I've read by Bourdain, but he's written a few. Amazon lists 9 titles. Bourdain's writing style is infectious and fun. He talks to his readers like we're all standing next to him at a barbecue, and he's telling war stories. His advise is the kind you'd give a friend, the kind of friend who can take a joke, absorb the criticism and see the value and humor borne by years of experience. You know what they say about the heat in the kitchen.

My first job was in a mid-sized, family owed restaurant in my hometown. My second job was cooking for worldwide burger chain, whose logo wasn't for Mmm good. My third job was at the Hilltop Steak House, when Frank Giuffrida was still the owner. All three of these jobs were eye-opening experiences, and while I can't pretend to know what its like to cook for a profession, I do know that Bourdain tells it like it is in the kitchen.

In the intro, he tells us that this book is for the cooks, and so he hasn't provided definitions for terms like chiffonaded parsley, boudin noir and soufflé blah blah blah, that dot his stories, but it doesn't detract from the pleasure of reading them. I have this feeling, that if I could understand all these terms (I looked a bunch of them up, and got nowhere with my dictionary) I'd learn a lot about cooking, but as he says: tant pis, man.

I'm about a third of the way through this one, and I'm thinking about what else of his to read. And I've GOT to get my brother and his wife to read this, if they haven't already.

More soon!

PS: Between the three, eat at the Hilltop.

damp squid

Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare is written by Jeremy Butterfield, editor of the Oxford A-Z of English Usage. Butterfield writes in a scholarly, but natural style that is easy to read, and its clear that he knows the subject. The book is set up in a series of chapters that could probably stand alone as essays on the oddities of English, and how it evolves, contrary to those who would lock the language in a state of dormancy, if they could.

Butterfield bases his reasoning and his conclusions on research. He argues that usage guides and dictionaries can only guide writers and speakers of English, but never restrain them from using language as they see fit to express themselves. There are a numbers of processes by which the language evolves,

steven schuyler bookmark

This bookmark is a gift from a friend who heard that I collect these funny little things. Its an advertising marker from Steven Schuyler Bookseller, in North Reading, Massachusetts. According to Dr. Schuyler's website, he specializes in materials for design/building professionals and in "things German".

Given that designing building is what I do, maybe I should go and check out this guy's shop. They also carry maps, prints, art and letters. And ephemera! Bookmarks are ephemera, but I don't think that the kind of thing they mean.

If I go and check it out, I'll let you know how it is. If you've been, write me a comment.

What the heck, even if you haven't been, write me a comment anyway, and I'll write back.

gardner museum

This bookmark is from a friend who is a member of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and along with the monthly mailer comes a beautiful bookmark, with the month's happenings recorded on the reverse. The image on the obverse was done, according to the credits on the reverse, by Gardner Museum Artists-in-Residence Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey, St. John the Baptist, negative 2003 (detail).

I received three of these monthly bookmarks. Its nearly enough to make me join up. That, and the wonderful collection they have at the Gardner, not to mention the building itself. Its just a fun place to go, and if your name is Isabella, I think you get in for free. And they have a special event every third Thursday of the month.

This bookmark is this month's (November), the other two are from October and September, and each offers an intriguing slice of artwork from the Gardner. They're so pretty, that I'll probably post them all.

the lost symbol - ii

So I finished The Lost Symbol, and at the end, there were some surprises, but others I nailed earlier on in the book. Its a fast read, even though there is lots of new vocabulary, Brown works the definitions into the dialog pretty well in most cases. When he can't, there is a fair amount of mind reading going on, which seems a little lame.

Dan Brown hasn't gone far afield for this story, either its setting, or its subject matter. There were a lot of interesting facts, and given the book I just read, it was fun to hear about some of the same things, from a completely different perspective.

So it was fun. Not the greatest book, but you know, better than television. I guess I'd have to put this one third in the Dan Brown line up for Langdon Stories, but not by much. It wasn't as good as Angels and Demons, but nearly as good as The DaVinci Code. If you've read and enjoyed the others, I'd recommend reading this one too.

the lost symbol - i

I'm about half way through Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol. I read The DaVinci Code when it was all the rage, and I later read Angels and Demons. I came out of the two earlier books feeling like a lot of other folks I've spoken to about it: Angels and Demons was a better book, but I can see the popular allure of The DaVinci Code.

Both earlier books include a romp through Europe's history, art and architecture, with a conspiracy theorist's eye on the secret societies that helped to make Europe what it is today, unbeknownst to us. They both followed much the same same story arc

elvis

The die cut Elvis bookmark, courtesy of my daughter. If you look real close, someone has penciled in "Sexy Beast" just above the name on the bottom. I wonder who that was? Elvis can still do to the ladies after all these years. Go Elvis.

Good news for the pocketbook on the home front. My daughter went to the library today and renewed her library card. She paid an old fine, for some books she borrowed, and we returned late, years ago. She hasn't been back since. She likes to own her books, she has explained numerous times. That's sweet. Maybe you should get a job honey, and own all kinds of things. In the meantime, the library is the best solution for a book hound like her. GO LIBRARY!