A Lovely Prospect

My fellow Mary Louis Academy alumna, Brenda Becker, photographed Prospect Park in the course of a year and created this beautiful calendar for 2009:


I lived in Queens, New York, from the time I was born until I was 26. I regret now that I never visited that park. It is an oversight I plan to rectify on my next trip back. I'm grateful to Brenda for showing me what I missed.

Book Larnin'

The serious student of the book arts will pay a visit to the website of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The school, founded in 1983, provides courses, lectures, and online information about printing, binding, identification, bibliography, and other essential knowledge about books for the collector and dealer.

If you can't afford the tuition or the time to attend the school, you can take advantage of the reading lists for the various courses. They're an education in themselves.

The Ironic Catholic ...

... has a subtitle that is da bomb! It's from one of my favorite authors:

"You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you odd."

-- Flannery O'Connor

Forgotten Classics

Reader Julie D. has a blog and podcast, Forgotten Classics, wherein she brings attention to authors who are not as well known to the public as, say, J. K. Rowling, but who deserve to be. I was happy to see Rumer Godden mentioned, as well as Terry Pratchett. Take a listen!

LibraryThing Rocks!

LibraryThing is a free service for storing information about your personal library. It's the best thing to come along for collectors since the death of the card catalog.

You can download generic information about your books by performing an ISBN search in the "Add Books" section, which draws on book information stored by Amazon.com and libraries from around the world. You can add cover pictures from various uploaded user files or from Amazon. There are spaces for Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal System numbers, just in case you're as obsessive as I am about shelving your books.

The tagging feature allows you to categorize your books your own way, an especially handy feature for collectors. You're not limited to the old standbys like "History" and "Fine Arts"; you can group your books by "Red covers" or "Aunt Muzzy's Legacy," if you like.

You'll also find out how (un)common you are. The books listed also have notes attached telling you who else shares your passion for Jane Austen or books on prunes.

And no, they're not paying me to say this. It's just incredibly useful. I recommend it highly.