Tag: Book

Quote of the Day: Churchill on Government

On By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium Gatherum, WorldLeave a comment

churchill1In 1906, Winston Churchill was a mere Undersecretary of State for the Colonies. By that point, the 32-year-old had already been taken prisoner as a journalist during the Boer War and published four of the books that would later win him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

That year, the future Prime Minister gave a speech in Glasgow where he laid out a philosophy of what liberal government means.

We want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons to live and labor, yet above which they may compete with all the strength of their manhood. We want to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free competition downwards. We do not want to tear down the structure of science and civilization but to spread a net on the abyss.

It’s an eloquently stated argument, given the current debates over what exactly government is for.

Judging Books by Their Covers

On By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

To some extent, we all place judgments on a book’s contents based on the cover design. It’s inevitable and expected—if it wasn’t the case, then publishers would just print books with plain bindings with the titles laid out in sans-serif type. (Sometimes they do just that and it’s called minimalist, so go figure.)

Another pleasing aspect of book cover design is that they allow one to painlessly peruse the works of many authors without having to actually, you know, read anything.

To that end, the good folks at Jacket Copy put together a nifty gallery of some of their favorite new book covers. Some of the selections are less than inspired (the cover for Daniel Smith’s Monkey Mind seems far too obvious, for one), but at least three or four are nothing short of incredible.

 

Bookseller’s Corner: Lonesome Pine Used Books

On By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

 

Care to run a bookstore for a couple months? That’s the question being asked right now by Wendy Welch and Jack Beck, co-owners of Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books, located in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Welch has written a book, The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book, and the two of them are going to be away on a promotional tour.

Welch told Fresh Eyes Now:

It’s ironic that it’s a book about independent bookstores that’s got me in this position, but I cannot close our community bookstore to gallivant off and have fun with other bookstores…. Our shop is in a small rural community of 5,400 and it doesn’t do enough trade to hire someone in at a living wage. Plus we have two dogs and three cats on staff. So what we’re offering is complete room and board for a person or couple (from laundry soap to the occasional pizza delivery) in return for him/her/them watching the shop for October and November, when most of the ‘road trip’ activities for the book take place.

Think of it: Worse employment offers are made every minute of every day, and they never involve dogs, cats, or books, much all three together. (h/t Jacket Copy)