Monthly Archives: September 2010

Wallace Stevens has the final word

Posted on September 30, 2010 by

Piled on a chair in front of me is a stack of books about 2.5 feet tall. The topics in these books range from Nuclear Engineering to Great Speeches in History—the former being about the principals of nuclear reactors and … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, Poetry | Leave a comment

Art, Zen and Self-help

Posted on September 29, 2010 by

Continuing the project of cleaning up my library, I begin sorting out some of the art and self-help books. (Self-help is another class of books that should do well in the eBook market). One of the first books I notice … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, eBook, Non-fiction | Leave a comment

Animal Spirits Rule

Posted on September 28, 2010 by

The conservatives had their Voodoo Economics and now liberals have Animal Spirits. The term Animal Spirits, as an economic concept, originated in the works of John Maynard Keynes in the 1936. Keynes argued that private-sector decisions sometimes produced inefficient outcomes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, eBook, Non-fiction | Leave a comment

Beautiful Books are Exciting

Posted on September 27, 2010 by

Reviewing the books in my library as part of this downsizing project has reacquainted me with several of my books that I had not picked up in quite a while. I am looking now at three hardbound volumes by historian Barbara … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, History, Non-fiction | Leave a comment

Scholars, Spain and the Americas

Posted on September 26, 2010 by

Once, while studying the expansion of Spain’s empire and the conquest of the Americas, I accumulated a hodgepodge of books that included several scholarly tomes about Spain and Latin America. These books, in general, seemed to be written to satisfy … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, eBook, History | Leave a comment

The Impenetrable Umberto Eco

Posted on September 25, 2010 by

In general I’m all for a novel that presents difficulty for a reader, but the novels of Umberto Eco seem to raise obscurity to a new level. I’ve enjoyed and continue to enjoy complex novels by García Marqués (A Thousand … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, History, Mystery, Translation | Leave a comment

Too Many Birding Guides

Posted on September 24, 2010 by

Today I tackled the shelves containing my birding field guides and the stacks of travel guides that I usually consult before a birding trip to another country. Other than actually being in the field looking at birds, here is nothing … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, eBook, Nature | Leave a comment

Reading in Bangkok

Posted on September 23, 2010 by

Removing the several C. P. Snow novels from my library uncovered a tall stack of paperbacks from the days when The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by Le Carré sold for 75¢. Included in the stack were several … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics, Deaccession, Fiction | Leave a comment

Avoid Boring Conversation

Posted on September 22, 2010 by

While going through a stack of C. P. Snow’s novels to pick some to remove from my library I came across a bookmark: “Old Chinese Proverb—ABC, Avoid Boring Conversation”. Good advice. However, conversation was often hard to come by when … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, Fiction | Leave a comment

Grimpow in Translation

Posted on September 22, 2010 by

The medieval adventures of the teen-aged Grimpow tapped into the potentially vast bonanza of sales to Young Adults that was created by the Harry Potter series. But, the first volume of the Grimpow series, Grimpow—The Invisible Road, didn’t quite measure … Continue reading →

Posted in Deaccession, Fantasy/Adventure, Harry Potter, Translation | Leave a comment