Library in Necklace Form

"Etsy seller TheBlackSpotBooks sells a library in necklace form -- a collection of 11 miniature blank-books bound in scrap and antique leather". You need to check this out!

Make sure to read some of the comments on Boing Boing.

The House on Fortune Street (2008)

The House on Fortune Street: A Novel by Margot Livesey


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Everyone has a book or a writer who's the key to their life". Keats, Lewis Carroll, Jane Eyre and Great Expectations each have a subtle influence on one of the four sections through which this novel is told (Dara, Sean, Cameron, and Abigail).

The reader gets to reconstruct and ponder how luck and chance drive life stories. Is truth freeing or does it destroy? A reviewer pointed out that none of the houses in the book including the house on Fortune Street are safe in a way needed by the characters that inhabit them.

Beautifully written, Margot Livesey explores the interweaving of the lives of friends, lovers and family that leaves you pondering your own relationships with those you love.

Here is another of the best ten books of 2008 as determined by the staff at Entertainment Weekly. I have not be disappointed with the choices.

View all my reviews >>

If Literary Classics Had Been Titled Today!

Here's an amusing game if a little on the esoteric side for some of us. Check out this post where people are proposing new titles for literary classics via Boing Boing, my favorite site for discovering oddness.

Free Library of Philadelphia Set to Close

I grew up in Philadelphia and the branch of the library where my father and I went every couple of weeks is no longer active. In its place are the Roxborough and Andorra Branches. Not for long though. On October 2nd the entire library system that allowed me to develop a love of books and reading is poised to close. Of course, hopefully the legislators in the state will pass a budget which includes public libraries, but what if they don't?

What have we come to that we can no longer support our great public institutions of learning?

Read more here at Boing Boing and the Philadelphia Free Library site itself.