Why Libraries Rock (Hint: They Don't)

*This entry is part of a "Blogathon" to benefit the flood damaged Louisville, KY Free Public Library. See the link below to donate to this effort.

The main title of this piece was chosen by the organizer of the blogathon. The subtitle is mine--all mine. You'll forgive me if I don't wax poetic on the mandated title and theme. The idea that libraries "rock" or are "awesome" or even (another variant suggested by said organizer) "kick a**" reminds me of the lame, costly, and inevitably unsuccessful marketing campaigns that public library P.R. departments love to launch in a vain attempt to up the cool factor.

The public library can do without a groovy, hip, or cutting edge image. Customers already know what the library has to offer. Non-users won't be sold on its services by slick advertising--or what passes for it in those pathetic public service announcements.

Teenagers tell each other they can stay online all afternoon at the library, catching up with pals on Facebook. Job-hunters use the same computers to apply for positions, update resumes, and check for new listings. Mothers bring in preschoolers and check out a dozen picture books. Book club members are happy to find a copy of James McBride's The Color of Water for next week's meeting. There isn't anything flashy or glitzy about these transactions, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. Without the library, all of these people would be out some serious dough. Buying computer time and books adds up fast, and superfluous scratch is in short supply these days.

Nobody cares if libraries "rock." The public library gives people what they want, and doesn't pass judgment. A young woman wanting to know how long marijuana can be detected in urine--a real reference question I answered--is treated with the same respect as the student writing a paper on Macbeth. A good librarian never asks why anyone wants to know anything. That's not our department. Our business is providing the information asked for, no ifs, ands, or buts. For free. On demand. In person. By phone. By e-mail. No strings. No exceptions. No B.S. That doesn't "rock," but where else can you get it?

I'm a subversive librarian, here to help a submerged library. The public library must not be allowed to drown in real flood waters or in a sea of red ink. Here's the link if you want to help out the water damaged Louisville Free Public Library.

If you want to help out your own local library--likely neck deep in that red ink--ask the librarian how you can assist with the bailout. It ain't glamorous, it doesn't "rock," but it is vital.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Book Store Provides Speed-Shrink Psychotherapy

Wednesday nights in lower Manhattan’s SoHo district have gotten a little saner. The Housing Works Bookshop Café, which donates 100% of its profits to Housing Works, Inc., a social enterprise, is offering psychotherapy to its customers and neighborhood denizens in three-minute doses for those whose therapists are on vacation or who require a quick jolt of personal problem advice.

You’d think that three minutes wouldn’t allow enough time for introductions much less delving into the dark recesses. But Jonathan Fast, one of the eight psychiatrists and psychologists who staff these Wednesday nights and who is also a professor at Yeshiva University, asserts that “What I have discovered is that these brief conversations absolutely turn into real therapy. You start with the classic ‘What can I help you with?’ and make a really fast assessment."

It’s a very popular event at the Housing Bookshop Café, which has established a strong neighborhood presence by providing citizens with a great deal of “value-added” to the bookstore experience. So popular, in fact, that traffic control is necessary.

The classic Waiting Room is now the Waiting Line. Lianne Stokes, a free-lance writer who is the event’s emcee and traffic cop, recently became annoyed when a session went well beyond the allotted time by an eternal, infernal thirty seconds and had to lay it on the line to those on line: “Move the line, people. Believe it or not, someone here has worse problems than you do, if you can imagine,” she announced through her microphone.

It’s like being at a book signing and the guy at the front of the line hands the author ten first edition copies for signing: a hog-like Me! Me! Me! abuse of privilege and courtesy.

Instant advantage: No browsing through eight-month old copies of Time, Field and Stream, APA journals, Penthouse, or the Daily Racing Form in the waiting room of your shrink's office. Plenty of up-to -date and actually interesting reading material abounds at the Housing Bookstore and Cafe. And the standard waiting room silent assessment of whether others are as crazy or crazier than you now becomes a festive, communal on line experience. Confidentiality? Schconfidentiality! We're all in the Mental Muck together.

It must be a bit dispiriting, though, when the Speed-Shrink inevitably declares, “Sorry, our time is up” before we’ve even finished stretching the neurotic muscles and gotten our psycho-blood freely circulating. “We’ll pick it up next session. No cutting in line, please."

Sorry, but I cannot restrain myself from imagining what these therapy sessions would be like if John Moschitta were at the therapeutic helm to pack a lifetime’s worth of problems into a neat psycho-package and keep those long-lines moving:

“Housing Works Bookstore Café has established itself as a downtown New York institution and tourist destination. Readings, concerts and a fully stocked café make the Bookstore a great place to meet friends, relax and shop the best book, movie and music selection in New York City. All merchandise is donated; we are staffed almost entirely by volunteers; and our charming, book-lined space, which features dramatic wooden staircases and balconies, is available for rental.”

Nice piece about the Housing Bookstore and Cafe in today's New York Times.

Urgent Dispatch To Oz: Emerald City Library Needs Cash

The Seattle Public Library, one of the crown jewels of "The Emerald City" will be closing its doors, both real and virtual, for an entire week beginning Monday, August 31. The fact that one of the most book-friendly cities in the United States cannot keep its libraries open due to lack of funding is distressing in the extreme, and does not bode well for other municipalities.

Nationwide, public libraries are being used more than ever according to the American Library Association. The trend is evident at the San Francisco Public Library which reports increases of 30% in customers, and 15% in circulation of materials over fiscal year 2007-2008. When asked about the surge in demand for library services, Library spokeswoman Michelle Jeffers stated that the recently unemployed make up the majority of SFPL's new clientele. "The library has always been a place to hang out when you've got nowhere else to go," she noted.

What results is a classic Catch-22: the bad economy increases the demand for free library services, but the same downturn results in cuts to library budgets. Seattle is taking a bold step by closing completely (even the website will be inaccessible) for a solid week to place the library's dire financial state front and center before its citizens. Other systems, such as Los Angeles Public Library, are discussing closing facilities two days each month to deal with shortfalls in revenue.

No matter how such closures are implemented, the unemployed using the library's resources to find work will be facing yet another roadblock. Families checking out books, DVD's, and CD's rather than buying them will have to find free entertainment elsewhere. And the homeless, steady customers at urban libraries will have to seek respite wherever they are lucky enough to find it.

Altogether a desperate predicament requiring the help of the Man Behind the Curtain. He might just be the only hope for those who already have a brain, but are seeking a place to enrich it.

More on the specifics of Seattle Public Library's week-long closure can be found by following this link from the Seattle PI.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

The Art of Vintage Booksellers' Labels

Those stamp-sized bookseller labels often found on the rear paste down end paper of old and rare books are often as artistically interesting as the books' dust jackets; high karat precious gems of graphic design in small settings.

Howard Prouty, of ReadInk Books, has been collecting vintage booksellers' labels for many years and has put together quite a lovely assemblage on the ReadInk Books website, where he writes:

"I think the pleasure I take from these little things has something to do with a certain dimensionality they add to the mostly-unknown story of a particular book's previous life. To buy a book unadorned with one of these is, often, to simply buy an "old book"; from the evidentiary front matter, one can usually divine that it was published by this or that company, in a particular year, and so what?

"But the specificity of knowing that it spent some time -- perhaps was sold for the very first time -- at the Satyr Book Shop (on Vine Street in Hollywood, California)

or The Book Shelf (in The Doctors' Building) of Cincinnati, Ohio, adds a nice geographical element to its journey to your shelves. (Previous owner's inscriptions are often good for this as well, and have their own charm -- but give me a vintage bookstore label any day!)"

Greg Kindall has an astonishing Gallery of Book Trade Labels on his Seven Roads website, which appears to be international action-central for this sub-genre of book collecting.

More than 2100 labels from all over the world are displayed, and the collection is highly organized for easy reference.

These labels are cheap to collect; they're found in the least, as well as the most, expensive of old and rare books. And there is an ocean of them out there.

Dive in.




_________

Images courtesy of Howard Prouty.

Boxers And Bookworms Battle Back

"You've been tagged in a note on Facebook."

Everyone on that social networking site--and at this point who isn't?--has read this message with a mixture of flattery ("My online friends want to know more about me!") and dread. ("Who the heck has time for this stuff?").

A popular note is entitled "The ABC's of Me," a straightforward trip through the alphabet, each successive letter revealing, theoretically, a fascinating fact about the friend. I must confess I never completed this work-out, throwing in the towel at the end of Round 2 with the letter "B."

For any librarian, of course, "B" is for for "Books." But as the careful reader will have gleaned from the sports metaphor I've chosen, for me "B" also stands for "Boxing."

This otherwise peace-loving bookworm is obsessed with the sweet science. Nothing enthralls me like the balletic beauty of the ring--the elemental battle of skill and will. Pugilists just happen to share a burden with librarians, too. Both are frequently hit below the belt with the low blow of cruel occupational stereotypes. The punch drunk fighter living on a steady diet of scrambled brains with a side of cauliflower ears may well win a decision in the battle of the bum raps over the cranky, bun sporting spinster in coke bottle glasses and cardigan. (AKA "bum wraps.")

Fortunately for both combatants, a new found sparring partner has enlisted in the ongoing fight to knock out such typecasting: Boxers and Writers Magazine. This online periodical celebrates "the arts of Boxing and Writing in a manner that proliferates the popularity of both."

The site highlights well-read, articulate, and socially responsible members of the boxing fraternity, such as former welterweight champion and two-time Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year, Sugar Ray Leonard. Mr. Leonard recommends his favorite book in an interview with editor Mark Conner. His very sophisticated choice? Kaffir Boy, the autobiography of South African writer Mark Mathabane. This hard-hitting memoir details the brutality of Mathabane's childhood and adolescence under that county's racist apartheid system. The author's eventual escape from oppression was made possible by a tireless honing of his athletic skills to a level high enough to win him a coveted tennis scholarship at a South Carolina college.

In addition to choosing that championship read, Sugar Ray also makes this observation:

"It's never too late to learn, to better yourself. Whether it's reading or whatever the case may be. I think that--I don't think, I know--education is the key, it's what brought me to where I am today. Because you need that education, I stress...that to my kids all the time."

Hardly the words of a ring-worn resident of Palookaville. One more stereotype down for the count.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

She Collects Shoes, He Collects Books

Oh, the perils of posting - and discovering that the posts are actually read.

On Tuesday, I wrote about a friend and book collector who was considering tapping into his retirement savings to buy highly desired rare books. I feared for his sanity - and that’s not all: I privately extended an invitation to him to sleep on my couch after his wife found out about the plan.

After posting the article, This Is Your Brain On Books, and alerting him to temporary room and boarding availability when his wife kicks him to the curb, I received the following response from him:

“My pension fund and life insurance are fully funded. I was referring to additional monies that [she] and I were considering to invest and/or spend. She collects shoes so why can't I collect books?”

Why not, indeed?






SHOES:

• Finely crafted
• Wrought in fine leather
• Object reflects cultural context
• Artisian-made
• Wearable art








RARE BOOKS:

• Finely crafted
• Bound in fine leather
•Object reflects cultural context
• Artisian made
• Readable art


It’s the perfect marriage of collectibles. At the end of a long day, you’ll want to get out of those shoes and into a good book. For my friend and others in similar circumstances, however, getting out of a good book and into their wife’s shoes may pose challenges.

With apologies to you-know-who-you-are for questioning your sano mentis.
________

The binding, for a copy of Manson's biography of Sir Edwin Landseer, is a full dark green levant morocco Cosway-style binding by Riviére & Sons for Sotheran & Co. The front and back covers are ruled and decoratively tooled in a gilt floral and leaf design, surrounding ten oval/round miniature paintings under glass. Nine miniatures on the front cover depict eight hunting dogs around a stag; the miniature on the back cover is a portrait of Sir Edwin Landseer. Extremities double ruled in gilt, with turn-ins ruled and decoratively tooled in gilt.

Images courtesy of Manolo Blanik and David Brass.

The Scarce First Edition in Yiddish of "Hashish" (1911)

In a recent column, This Is Your Brain On Books, I briefly discussed Fritz Lemmermayer’s Haschische (1898) and the Yiddish translation published in 1911 with its stunning and evocative cover illustration. It is the only drug-themed book to ever appear in Yiddish.


Book people of all faiths and faithful tongues have since been hounding me to reproduce that illustration. The original is in color; all I could access was an image in black and white. It remains, however, an intoxicating feast, made all the more dramatic by Yiddish's use of the Hebrew alphabet, which visually lends itself so well to this “oriental legend.”

Only four copies of this rarity are currently found in institutional collections worldwide: in the British Library; Royal Library, Denmark; University College, London; and the Library of Congress.

Transliteration of the title page into the Western alphabet:

Hashish: an Orientalische legende fun Frits Lemermayer. Ibertzetst fun R. Roker. London: Ferlag Arbeyter fraynd, 1911. [132 pp. Octavo (21cm) in illustrated wrappers].

Image courtesy of Michael Horowitz of Flashback Books.

Hats off to Hadara Graubart at Tablet Magazine, and Naomi at The Jewish Publications Society blog, for their attention.
________

In other news, Canadian author and journalist, Brian Busby, today reports on a very unusual Canadian novel, Up the Hill and Over by Isabel Ecclestone MacKay, that turns on "perhaps the most remarkable and improbable coincidence in all of Canadian literature." The author wasn't on drugs but one of the characters is.

This is Your Brain on Books

There has been a spate of recent books covering new research upon how our brains work and the human decision-making process. Madeleine Bunting, at the Guardian, nicely sums up the science and its implications. It turns out that just about all of our assumptions about free-will, autonomy, and rationality in our choices and decisions are chimerical.

I was reminded of this just the other day when I received the following note from a close friend and rare book collector with a Ph.D,, and who has been certified as sane. His first note limns an extraordinary find in which serendipity smiled upon him and became a book collector’s manna from heaven.

“The girl on the telephone told me she thought she had an ex-library copy of Haschisch (Yiddish, 1911) by Lemmermayer.* Hard bound without a cover. I described the wrapper with the partially naked Djinn emerging in the smoke of a hookah. She thought she had seen that before and would look around. Inside a storage room on a dusty shelf inside a plastic bag she found five copies with covers in various states of wear and condition. I bought them all for $12. (twelve dollars) each.

“I'm still trapped in the hookah smoke. I'll believe it when UPS delivers the books.

“Yes, I also bought the 1898 German edition (illustrated) to keep it company in my vault.”

Brothers and sisters, in thirty years I have only seen two copies of the Yiddish edition of Lemmermayer’s Haschisch, to the best of my knowledge the one and only drug-themed book ever issued in that mélange of Hebrew and Middle-German. So, I replied:

“Sacred Fornicating Manure! Five copies? $12 each? Max yikes!"

His reposte:

“Five is what she said but I don't know if she was counting the ex-library copy or not. I have sold/traded duplicates in the past but have always regretted it and continue to be haunted by the ‘loss,’ especially as the value has increased more than the interest on my money. I am anal and possessive to a fault. Now that I have [ ]’s collection, with dozens of duplicates, I want to keep everything. I am also so possessed with book scouting and acquisition now that I am seriously considering taking some of my retirement money (it ain't earning much these days) and trying to acquire [ ]’s stuff as it becomes available on the market. “

What is revealing is his firm desire to keep everything – a completist gone off the rails – and his willingness to tap his retirement savings to pursue rare books, thus providing proof-positive that we book collectors are an irrational lot no matter how sharp or wise we think ourselves to be in our acquisitions.

The rationale that his retirement income is not earning enough money and that he may do better by acquiring multiples of every book in every edition in his area of collecting is clearly one based not upon the real world but one of his own creation.

This decision comes from the amygdala, not the prefrontal cortex which, amongst other functions, is supposed to mediate amongst and temper the emotions to assist with executive functions, i.e. decision-making. But this is your brain on rare drug books. Yet it could be any genre of rare book collection. This is where Nicholas Basbane’s Gentle Madness flares into full-blown nuts.
__________

*Fritz Lemmermayer (1857-1932), Austrian journalist and novelist. The wrapper illustration to this book, as described above, is one of the most striking and evocative that I have ever seen.

Collecting Non-Existent Books

When Cynthia Gibson, a bookseller in New York, casually mentioned “non-existent books” in a recent note I presumed she was referring to deascensions from Milton Berle’s joke library:

The Old Man, the Bull, and the Boat. Hemingway’s melding of his two favorite pastimes, deep sea fishing and bullfighting, set within the confines of a small dingy. The fish are biting. The bull is charging. Drama and suspense ensue.

Tom Jones in Vegas. The sequel to Henry Fielding's novel of a foundling follows our randy hero to the nadir of his existence as a tin-eared troubador singing eighteenth century songs to highly aroused ladies-in-waiting and throwing waistcoat, scarves, and underwear to the hungry damsels. After-show under the sheets shenanigans follow in the Palace penthouse suite, ‘natch!

Alas, no. What Cynthia was referring to were real non-existent books – as opposed to phony non-existent books.

You follow?

Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov were notorious for shelving imaginary volumes within their own books. At one point in Lolita, for example, Humbert Humbert is reading a Who's Who bio of his rival, Clare Quilty, author of, among others, Fatherly Love and The Little Nymph.

These two writers created not only dozens of titles and author bios, but also the books’ plots and, in some cases, their entire printing and bibliophilic histories! Borges reports that, sadly, there are only seven extant copies of Lesbare und lesenwerthe Bemerkungen über das Land Ukkbar in Klein-Asien by Johann Valentin Andreä, a book from 1641. No such book. Nabokov even includes a completely false bibliography of his own oevre in his last published novel, Look at the Harlequins!

Let’s not forget that classic of imaginary literature, the Necronomicon, which H.P. Lovecraft nightmared up, but that other writers have cited in their own work. This has led to booksellers receiving want lists that include it from collectors who don't realize the book is a put-on and are seeking it out.

The advantages to collecting non-existent books are clear: no money, no shelf space, and no reading time required. It’s the perfect genre for the on-the-go, attention-deficient collector living in a closet.

Here’s an existing check list of non-existent books. Enjoy! (in your imagination).

Fighting Crime One Book At A Time

We are very pleased to welcome Nancy Mattoon to Booktryst with this, her first post. Nancy will be walking the library beat, covering news, issues, and human interest stories from the stacks with her thirty years of experience and perspective as a librarian.

As librarians are well aware, even in the book world no good deed goes unpunished. Getting the right book into the right hands seems innocent enough—until it isn’t. Headline hungry scribes sometimes seek to link books and crime; the permanent stain on “The Catcher in the Rye” after being found in the possession of both Mark David Chapman and John Hinkley post-crime is the most notorious example. And censors still have a field day with the “evil” items made available in the Children’s Room. Top targets on that hit parade: the “Harry Potter” series and Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy.

But what of the notion that books can actually help fight crime? Two recent stories point out how the humble book may be a useful tool for the Thin Blue Line

As Cindy Gonzalez reports in the Omaha World-Herald, Police Officers in that city who work with Project Harmony, an advocacy center that investigates child abuse and sexual assault, now come equipped with a red backpack. Inside is a variety of books ranging from the obviously bibliotherapeutic, “Hug Me” by Patti Stren; to escapist fare,“9 Magic Wishes”, the only children's book by Shirley Jackson author of “The Lottery”;to simple distractions from an agonizing reality, “NFL’s Greatest Upsets” by James Buckley, Jr.

The idea came from project coordinator Steve Countryman, who hopes the books can serve multiple purposes for the Officers. Titles will be used to keep a child occupied while others involved in the incident are interviewed. They may also serve as a means to improve community relations, the gift of a book striking a positive note during an otherwise tense contact with law enforcement. Finally it is hoped the contents of those red backpacks may actually reduce the crime rate. Countryman believes studies show that “Youths who read and do well in school get into less mischief.” No need to tell that to Philadelphia bookstore owner Hakim Hopkins. Hopkins, owner of the Black & Nobel Bookstore in the inner city neighborhood of Tioga, was in juvenile detention at age 15 when a book changed his life. Hopkins’ Mother gave him a copy of Richard Wright’s “Native Son,” and reading the tragic tale of Bigger Thomas, a young black man convicted of homicide in 1930’s Chicago, turned his life around. As Hopkins told Kia Gregory of Philly Online “That book just took me out. I didn’t know a book could be that good. I became a book lover, and a thinker.”

Hopkins was transformed into such a devoted reader that he began selling his ever-increasing collection of used books on the street. After numerous run-ins with, yes, The Law, over the lack of a business license, Hopkins found a room of his own—in a flower shop. Neighborhood business owner “Aunt Brenda” gave him a space in the front of her store, provided he was willing to “deliver funeral flowers on Saturdays” in exchange. This later gave way to the now freestanding Black & Nobel Bookstore, the name chosen as a sly change-up on competition, Barnes and Noble.

The store is now a neighborhood institution specializing in urban fiction, and such titles as “Raw Law,” a hip-hop guide to jurisprudence. There is one other specialty of note. A banner on the front of Black & Nobel reads “We Ship To Prisons.” And they do, at least 100 titles a week. Perhaps one of those titles will have the same impact on the reader that “Native Son” had on Mr. Hopkins: redirecting a traveler down the primrose path onto the straight and narrow.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Subversive Book Asserts Rule By Law, Not King

In 1644, Samuel Rutherford, a Presbyterian theologian, published Lex, Rex, the now excessively scarce, enormously important treatise on limited government and constitutionalism. Only four copies have fallen under the hammer within the last thirty-five years.

Lex, Rex is the first treatment of rule by law, not by men, based upon the separation of powers and covenant between king and subjects, (foreshadowing the social contract). It laid the foundation for the later thinking of political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. As such, this volume sowed the seeds for modern political systems, including that of the United States.

"The title, Lex, Rex, is a play on the words that convey the meaning the law is king. When theologian Samuel Rutherford published the book in 1644, on the eve of the revolutions that rocked the English nation from 1645 through 1688, it caused a sensation, and provoked a great deal of controversy. It is ostensibly an argument for limited monarchy and against absolute monarchy, but its arguments were quickly perceived as subversive of monarchy altogether, and in context, we can perceive that it provided a bridge between the earlier natural law philosophers and those who would further develop their ideas: the Leveller movement and such men as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney, which laid the basis for the American Republic.

"This book has long been undeservedly neglected by scholars, probably because it is written as a polemic in the political and sectarian controversies that are distasteful to later generations, and many of its references are somewhat obscure, but a closer reading reveals how it laid the foundation for the contractarian and libertarian ideas that came to be embodied in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

"Rutherford's main idea is that in the politic realm the real sovereign is the people, and that all officials, including monarchs, are subject to the rule of law, a phrase Rutherford uses only once, in Question 26, 'Whether the King be above the Law or no,' but this is the book that developed the contrast between the rule of law and the rule of men. He does not use the term social contract, but does develop the earlier idea of covenant in a way that leads naturally to the idea of the social contract. He also develops the idea of a separation of powers between legislative (nomothetic), executive (monarchic), and judicial functions, in a way that they can balance one another, in a mixed constitutional order that combines the best features of monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic forms of government.

"What made the book controversial was Rutherford's argument that not only does the magistrate lose his authority when he violates the law, but that it is a right, and perhaps even a duty, for the people to resist such violations" (Roland Jon. Introduction to Lex. Rex, 2002 edition).

Samuel Rutherford (c.1600–1661) "published a number of major works, including Lex, Rex, or, The Law and the Prince (1644), a lengthy and sometimes bitter defence of armed resistance to Charles I. It was written in response to Sacro-sancta regum majestas (1644) by the deposed bishop of Ross, John Maxwell, and drew on Calvinist resistance theory and the political theory of Spanish neo-scholastics. It argued that legitimate government was grounded in a covenant between king and people. Because Charles I had violated his covenant with the Scottish people by trying to force idolatry upon them, they had been duty bound to resist him by force under the authority of lesser magistrates.

"The restoration of Charles II in 1660 augured ill for Rutherford. In September the committee of estates issued a declaration against Lex, Rex and copies of the book were burned in Edinburgh and outside New College in St Andrews. Rutherford was deprived of his position in the university, his charge in the church, and his stipend, and was confined to his own house. He was cited to appear before parliament on a charge of treason and his friends feared that he might well face execution. However, early in 1661 Rutherford fell seriously ill. On 8 March he issued a last will and testimony, and near the end of the month he died, at St Mary's College, St Andrews" (Oxford Online DNB).
___________


RUTHERFORD, Samuel. Lex,Rex: The Law and the Prince. A Dispute for the just Prerogative of King and People. Containing the Reasons and Causes of the most necessary Defensive Wars of the Kingdom of Scotland, and of their expedition for the ayd and help of their dear Brethren of England. In which their Innocency is asserted, and a full Answer is given to a Seditious Pamphet, Intituled, Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, or The Sacred and Royall Prerogative of Christian Kings:... In XLIV Questions. London: Printed for John Field, and are to be sold at his house upon Addle-hill, neer Baynards-Castle, Octob. 7. 1644.

First edition. Quarto. 467 (i.e. 435) pp; (A4, a-d4, B-Z4, Aa-Ii4, Kk-Rr2, Ss-Zz4, Aaa-Nnn4, Ooo2; error in pagination: nos. 281-312 omitted).

Wing R2386.

Thanks to David Brass for title page image.

Subversive Book Asserts Rule By Law, Not King

In 1644, Samuel Rutherford, a Presbyterian theologian, published Lex, Rex, the now excessively scarce, enormously important treatise on limited government and constitutionalism. Only four copies have fallen under the hammer within the last thirty-five years.

Lex, Rex is the first treatment of rule by law, not by men, based upon the separation of powers and covenant between king and subjects, (foreshadowing the social contract). It laid the foundation for the later thinking of political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. As such, this volume sowed the seeds for modern political systems, including that of the United States.

"The title, Lex, Rex, is a play on the words that convey the meaning the law is king. When theologian Samuel Rutherford published the book in 1644, on the eve of the revolutions that rocked the English nation from 1645 through 1688, it caused a sensation, and provoked a great deal of controversy. It is ostensibly an argument for limited monarchy and against absolute monarchy, but its arguments were quickly perceived as subversive of monarchy altogether, and in context, we can perceive that it provided a bridge between the earlier natural law philosophers and those who would further develop their ideas: the Leveller movement and such men as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney, which laid the basis for the American Republic.

"This book has long been undeservedly neglected by scholars, probably because it is written as a polemic in the political and sectarian controversies that are distasteful to later generations, and many of its references are somewhat obscure, but a closer reading reveals how it laid the foundation for the contractarian and libertarian ideas that came to be embodied in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

"Rutherford's main idea is that in the politic realm the real sovereign is the people, and that all officials, including monarchs, are subject to the rule of law, a phrase Rutherford uses only once, in Question 26, 'Whether the King be above the Law or no,' but this is the book that developed the contrast between the rule of law and the rule of men. He does not use the term social contract, but does develop the earlier idea of covenant in a way that leads naturally to the idea of the social contract. He also develops the idea of a separation of powers between legislative (nomothetic), executive (monarchic), and judicial functions, in a way that they can balance one another, in a mixed constitutional order that combines the best features of monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic forms of government.

"What made the book controversial was Rutherford's argument that not only does the magistrate lose his authority when he violates the law, but that it is a right, and perhaps even a duty, for the people to resist such violations" (Roland Jon. Introduction to Lex. Rex, 2002 edition).

Samuel Rutherford (c.1600–1661) "published a number of major works, including Lex, Rex, or, The Law and the Prince (1644), a lengthy and sometimes bitter defence of armed resistance to Charles I. It was written in response to Sacro-sancta regum majestas (1644) by the deposed bishop of Ross, John Maxwell, and drew on Calvinist resistance theory and the political theory of Spanish neo-scholastics. It argued that legitimate government was grounded in a covenant between king and people. Because Charles I had violated his covenant with the Scottish people by trying to force idolatry upon them, they had been duty bound to resist him by force under the authority of lesser magistrates.

"The restoration of Charles II in 1660 augured ill for Rutherford. In September the committee of estates issued a declaration against Lex, Rex and copies of the book were burned in Edinburgh and outside New College in St Andrews. Rutherford was deprived of his position in the university, his charge in the church, and his stipend, and was confined to his own house. He was cited to appear before parliament on a charge of treason and his friends feared that he might well face execution. However, early in 1661 Rutherford fell seriously ill. On 8 March he issued a last will and testimony, and near the end of the month he died, at St Mary's College, St Andrews" (Oxford Online DNB).
___________


RUTHERFORD, Samuel. Lex,Rex: The Law and the Prince. A Dispute for the just Prerogative of King and People. Containing the Reasons and Causes of the most necessary Defensive Wars of the Kingdom of Scotland, and of their expedition for the ayd and help of their dear Brethren of England. In which their Innocency is asserted, and a full Answer is given to a Seditious Pamphet, Intituled, Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, or The Sacred and Royall Prerogative of Christian Kings:... In XLIV Questions. London: Printed for John Field, and are to be sold at his house upon Addle-hill, neer Baynards-Castle, Octob. 7. 1644.

First edition. Quarto. 467 (i.e. 435) pp; (A4, a-d4, B-Z4, Aa-Ii4, Kk-Rr2, Ss-Zz4, Aaa-Nnn4, Ooo2; error in pagination: nos. 281-312 omitted).

Wing R2386.

Thanks to David Brass for title page image.

Miss Lonelybooks, Revisited

As one who has braved JDate, aka desperatehebrews.com, I know why the caged bird swings in hope. The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books provide opportunities for the bookish and alone to meet. But Americans and British have completely different styles when it comes to personal ads.

We Americans commodify and market ourselves with can-do! go-get 'em! spirit that weighs heavily. We're singing the lyrics from Best Foot Forward to the tune of Sinatra's One For My Baby, One More For the Road, a torch song beneath the bright, snappy prose composed to wring assets out wishful-thinking during an economic downturn that appears to have placed verbiage with cash in inverse ratio. These people are just too marvelous for words but that doesn't stop them. The format appears to be designed to maximize sales.

The British? Brief, to the point, no B.S., self-deprecating and delightful.Their spirit? Bollocks and piss off if you don't like me or my ad.

And so, a recent selection of personals, Part Two of "Have Books Destroyed Your Life, Too?"

NYRB: EASYGOING ALLURE, bright smile, and dash of mischief. Slender, athletic, adventurous. Very nice-looking with passion for the outdoors and for keeping our planet healthy: hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, investigating nature, buying/eating locally, respecting the environment, working with Heifer Project International, Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross Relief. Lighthearted, curious, sensual. Widow, lives in the Rockies, ties to East Coast. Loves art, music, dogs, gardening--though welcomes help from others, does best with cacti. Gravitates to travel that involves learning--Nepal, Morocco, Turkey, language study in Paris. Would love to hike Switzerland, discover more of New Zealand, do service project, or just hang out together at home with bright, active, fit man with residence west of Mississippi River, 56-74.

LRB: Cantab pair (M 22, F 21) seeks clever F (40 - 50) to share ideas & bed.

NYRB: PASSIONATE ARTIST; lovely, thoughtful, sensual, successful painter. Local exhibitions--landscapes, seascapes, street scenes, paintings that tell stories. Happiest painting outside, indoors only when weather insists. Naturally slender, athletic, divorced, good-looking with mischievous spark. Enjoys ideas, photography, Monhegan, Provence painting trips, NPR, books, DVDs, skiing, planning dinners with interesting mix of friends. Loves ease, conviviality of eating out--intimate conversation across the table, no planned agendas, someone else to cook/do dishes. Easygoing, relaxed. Works to make the world better and greener place, attends Bioneers conference annually. Lives wonderful life just missing someone special--friendly, fit, active, Mass./Rhode Island-area man, 57 to 72.

LRB: Let's put our dentures in the same glass. I'm alive. You be too. Pacemaker a plus. Opioids even better. M, 74.

NYRB: AMERICAN GIRL-NEXT-DOOR, blonde good looks. Really pretty, smart, sensual, non-workaholic CEO--known for insightful irreverence, quick mind, and ever-present dash of self-deprecating humor. Slender and active with true explorer's spirit, be it exploring around the corner or the world. Easygoing, genuinely warm, classy, intellectual, not dry or stuffy, just the real deal. Passions include: photography, travel (just returned from Egypt, Jordan), weekends in Maine, literature, movies, music (especially Latin and World), cooking, discovering great neighborhood restaurants. Would love to meet co-conspirator, 50-65, bright, active, cosmopolitan man.

LRB: Attractive F, 32, seeks M, of a not too dissimilar age, who smells nice, dresses well & is good at sex. But must not be a cock. London.

NYRB: THE REAL DEAL--classy, confident, and really cute Ph.D. Sensual and stylish, sweet and successful, Boston-based. Brains, looks, and a great sense of fun. Toned, fit, romantic, blonde. Proactive, easygoing, generous, yet no tolerance for injustice or arrogance. Traveler, writer, adventurer--can never get enough of Paris, San Miguel, Puerto Escondido (dreams of one day speaking Spanish fluently), fantasizes about visiting Rome or exploring Outer Banks with special man. Fan of political humor, legislative policy, jazz clubs, Prosecco, fiction, New York weekends, Central Park, fireworks on the Esplanade. Appreciative of talent, be it sports, theater, music. Seeks bright, passionate, active man, 50-early 70s.

LRB: Inelegant. Seeks same. Be my soul/slob-mate. F (42) seeks M (35-55) or best excuse for one.

NYRB: IMMEDIATELY LIKABLE. Intelligence and sensuality. Known for great figure, shy beauty, infectious laugh, dedication to improving the lot of those less fortunate. Documentary film producer, photographer, accomplished professional. Warmth, passion, whimsical sparkle, and most of all--fun. Politically left, team player, former race car driver, maintains motorcycle license. Divorced, proud of Fulbright scholar son. Fan of in-depth travel, Connecticut seacoast house, biking, scuba, science, great food, entertaining friends/family, Morocco, Italy, opera/chamber music, though despite hours listening still can't "name that tune". Learning Spanish. Excited by work in Oaxaca, preserving and exhibiting work of local artisans. Seeks smart, sociable, attractive, active man--50-68.

NYRB: BRIGHT, CAPTIVATING, affectionate artist and outdoor adventurer. Graceful, natural athlete, leggy slim figure, easygoing, great looks, 49. International experience and sophistication yet deep roots in New England with the best of its philosophy and love of its landscape and light. Mischievous and genuine, sexy and comfortable with herself. Loves challenge of the elements: downhill skiing, sailing, hiking, breathtaking views. Passionate about photography, architecture, Maine, Japan (spent 3 years there), spur-of-the-moment fun, the environment. Authentic and game. Contributes to the community, sits on boards. Improvisational cook. Seeks kind, hearty, secure, worldly, competent man, 45-57--mature yet young at heart, Boston/New England-area.

LRB: Two hefty, tattooed Brighton skinheads, 43/45. One writes, one reads. Want uncensored sex with bookish blokes who like rough drafts.

I rest my case.

__________

Drive a Book into Another World

The following poem was recently posted to Slate with a podcast reading by the author.

To Read by Michael McFee

He held the opened book
in both hands, at arm's length,

as if he were a student driver
practicing steering this Model ABC
that resisted his touch,
that he could tell he wouldn't know
how to control once it started,

not yet able to ease his grip
or surrender his frown
and learn to let the sentences unwind,
letting their momentum
carry him down the waiting road,

Stopping and starting his way
into a world of words.

__________

Poet Michael McFee directs the Creative Writing Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. The author of ten books of poetry and essays, his most recent collections of poetry are Shinemaster (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2005) and The Smallest Talk: One-Line Poems (Bull City Press, 2007).




“The Smallest Talk, squeezes the conventions of poetry-- image, rhythm, language and meaning-- into the smallest possible package. These monostiches, as one-line poems are often called, are extraordinary feats of wit, as much kin to prose poems as to a comedian's smartest lines. If comedians zing, then McFee zings darkly, with the verbal charge and resonance of longer poems. The Smallest Talk is an examination of poetic line in its barest terms, a celebration of compactness.”

Dinner is Served: New Book Provides Entrée to Cannibalism

‘I sautéed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce”
Fresh on the, ahem, heels of Julia & Julie, the new movie by Nora Ephron about Julia Child and her worshipful acolyte-blogger, Julie Powell, comes a new book about the cuisine that dare not speak its name. Master this sort of cooking and the only thing you’ll actually be serving is a prison sentence.

Those who enjoy Bernd Steak well done will salivate over An Intellectual History of Cannibalism by political scientist at the University of Bucharest, and Docent, Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Catalin Avramescu, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth (Princeton University Press, 2009).

The above, scrumptious quotation is from a television interview by Armin Meiwes, the notorious German anthropophagus who was tried and convicted of manslaughter for the death of Bernd Brandes, who Meiwes invited to dinner, killed (by consent!), butchered then dressed, ate, and digested. It was a cautionary tale of watching what you eat and portion control, and feeding the hungry heart – sauté’ed and garnished with an insouciant sprig of insanity.

Avramescu focuses his thesis on the theory and thought of cannibalism, their historical reality irrelevant. “Whether cannibals existed or not is a fact of marginal importance,” he writes. For political scientists, historians of ideas and anthropologists, cannibalism offers a smorgasbord of political and social philosophy to chew on. It’s rich food for thought if not consumption; actual cannibalism interferes with intellectual digestion. Those prone to intellectual heartburn may want to keep some Rolaids around for the read.

The London Review of Books has an excellent review of the book, All Eat All by novelist Jenny Diski. It’s quite a meal about a book that’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Coming Soon: Unpublished book by Julia Child, posthumously issued - Cooking Jacques Pépin.
Bon appetite!

(And Bon Livres).

_______________

Edgar Allan Poe Lights Up the Ransom Center

Break out a cask of amontillado and let the pale sherry flow. Fans of Edgar Allan Poe are in for a treat this year, the bicentennial of the American poet, critic and inventor of the detective story’s birth.

The Harry Ransom Center, the humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, is commemorating the two-hundreth birthday of Poe with the exhibition From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe.

The exhibition is based upon the extensive holdings of the Ransom Center and the Harrison Institute/ Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, and includes additional materials from the Free Library of Philadelphia and other museums.

The exhibition is on display at the Ransom Center Sept. 8, 2009, through Jan. 4, 2010.

As noted on the Ransom Center’s website, the exhibit features “manuscripts, books, art and personal effects, many of them displayed for the first time, documenting Poe's career as a writer, his romantic relationships and mysterious death, the decline and rehabilitation of his literary reputation and his profound influence on mystery and detective fiction and other genres.”

For the weak and weary on midnights dreary, this exhibit should strengthen, energize, and part the clouds of doom. It might even bring a smile to Poe's ghost and make that tell-tale heart of his swell with pride. But let's not push it; the man was seriously depressed. It'd be like asking Schopenhauer to be optimistic; it ain't goin' to happen.

Question: if Poe were alive today would he take Prozac? I suspect he'd pass on the prescription, afraid it might blunt the edge of death, knife of gloom attitude his work depended upon.
__________

Banned Books Week Coming Soon

Banned Books Week is scheduled for September 26th- October 3rd, 2009.

Every time we think that banning books in the United States is a thing of the past, we are sorely reminded that there are still many who believe that removing books from book stores and library shelves will make the social issues that the books represent go away and that the world will be a better place.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is fighting the good fight for retailers.

“The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. Founded by the American Booksellers Association in 1990, ABFFE’s mission is to promote and protect the free exchange of ideas, particularly those contained in books, by opposing restrictions on the freedom of speech; issuing statements on significant free expression controversies; participating in legal cases involving First Amendment rights; collaborating with other groups with an interest in free speech; and providing education about the importance of free expression to booksellers, other members of the book industry, politicians, the press and the public.”

The American Library Association (ALA) is the advocate for public and private institutions.

The ALA’s website has an excellent article about Banned Books Week. Within, the ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual (7th edition) is cited:


“Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled.”
Go to the Banned Books Website for more information and to sign up your library or bookstore for participation.

BANNED BOOKS WEEK
September 26 - October 3, 2009

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
275 7TH Ave Rm 1504
New York, NY 10001
Contact Info:
Jamie Chosak
Program Director
(212) 587-4025

Mug Shots of the Usual Suspects

New Book on Prepuce at the Precipice

The details of the mysteries of the carne vera sacra have now been unsheathed.

Those expecting cooking news about a nuova cucina Italian delicacy will be disappointed. We’re talking foreskin here, and not just any foreskin but THE foreskin of the ages – the “miraculous membrane” of Jesus Christ.

As discussed in a piece in The New Yorker, travel writer David Farley has published his first book, An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town. Within, he relates that the foreskin of Jesus Christ went missing from a church in the village of Calcata, a medieval fortress town on four hundred and fifty foot cliffs thirty miles north of Rome inhabited by artists and hippies since 1983.

This is the “true holy foreskin” (carne vera sacra - "true holy meat"), not to be confused with the pretenders, the faux foreskins. As Farley declares in the article, “a French village called Charroux—which had been famous in the Middle Ages for having a supposed Holy Foreskin—announced they’d rediscovered their miraculous membrane hidden in one of the walls inside the abbey. A big deal was made of it and the Protestant press attacked the Church. It didn’t help that yet another French village, which was also linked to a Holy Foreskin in the Middle Ages, announced in the nineteenth century that theirs, too, had been rediscovered. So, I think, Pope Leo XIII, who was staunchly anti-modernity, just wanted to put the whole issue to bed. He eventually made a decree threatening excommunication to anyone who spoke of or wrote about the Holy Foreskin.”

We shall never speak of it again.

But wait. Who can resist dwelling upon the existence of three Holy Foreskins. There can, of course, only be one “true” prepuce. How many times can a man – even the son of God - be circumcised before what’s left over is inadequate to its intended task?

This is the ultimate slice of life story.

By the way, Farely reveals the existence of another holy relic. Sit down for this. The breast of Mary Magdelene awaits your veneration, preserved and displayed, presumably, in the holy brassiere.

Those who find that these weird holy relics don’t have the requisite mojo to inspire faith and require something with a little more drama may kneel before yet another item from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not warehouse of religious talismans. The severed head of John the Baptist is available for concelebration if not consultation.
___________

Book Do's and Don'ts For the 21st Century

Sad that it has come to this but signage has now been created to prevent those whose experience with books is severely limited from making serious, life- or book threatening gaffes when in their presence.

The signs are appropriate for libraries, book stores, reading rooms, or general household use, and delightfully capture the current, confused book zeitgeist.

It is unlikely that ebooks will ever require warning signs beyond a Magritte-ish This Is Not a Book poster. Kindles, however, may need an additional caveat, the Do Not Taunt This Book alert with image of Jeff Bezos wagging his finger at us.

Wall Street Bank For Poets Proposed. Never Too Big To Fail?

There are many contenders for Top Dog status in the bone yard of bonehead ideas. [Provide favorite to Comments]. In the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries, the highest honors for magnificently cockeyed excogitations belonged to one known only as the Idiot.

The Idiot, the creation of Harpers humor editor, John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), whose Idiot confections were collected into six volumes*, was a boarder in Mrs. Smithers-Pegagog’s High-Class Home for Single Gentlemen. I’m always anxious to learn as much as I can about the history of the fleabag with a foyer and threadbare lace doilies I currently call home, so, naturally, I am drawn Bangs’ stories.

The Idiot presided over all communal meals as an impresario of inanity, serving up moronic opinions and dubious schemes for the “amelioration of the condition of the civilized” onto his dining companions’ plates con mucho gusto, the meals invariably ending with indigestión con vertigo for fellow residents the Poet, the Biblioiphile, Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog and her ex, Mr. Pedagog.

“The trials of the barbarian are really nothing compared to the tribulations of civilized man,” the Idiot declares. Amen, brother.

So, in The Inventions of the Idiot (1904) he turns his attention to the plight of the lowly poet.

“What I’d like to see established is a sort of Poetic Clearing-house Association. Supposing I opened up an office in Wall Street – a Bank for Poets in which all writers of verse could deposit their rhymes as they write them, and draw against them, just as they do in ordinary banks with their money. It would be fine. Take a man like Swinburne, for instance, or our friend here. Our poet could take a sonnet he had written, endorse it, and put it in the bank. He’d be credited with one sonnet, and wouldn’t have to bother his head about it afterwards. He could draw against it. If the Clearing-house company could dispose of it to a magazine his draft would be honored in cash to its full value, less discount charges, which would include postage and commissions to the company.

“’And suppose the company failed to dispose of it,’ suggested the Poet.

“They’d do just as ordinary banks do with checks – stamp it, ‘Not Good,’ said the Idiot. “That, however, wouldn’t happen very often if the concern had an intelligent receiving-teller to detect counterfeits. If the receiving-teller were a man fit for the position and a poet brought in a quatrain with five lines in it, he could detect it at once and hand it right back. So with comic poems. I might go there with a poem I thought was comic, and proceed to the usual deposit slip. The teller would look at it a second, scrutinize the humor carefully, and then if it was not what I thought it, would stamp it ‘Not Comic’ or ‘Counterfeit.’ It’s perfectly simple.”

And perfectly idiotic, though it does raise the possibility of gainful employment for poets that involves poetry. Those receiver-teller positions are going to require skilled craftspeople to separate the iambic from the trochaic, the spondaic from the dactylic, the systolic from the diastolic. And, as required, comic timing will be necessary.

The Bank For Poets had a bad quarter
Sub-prime muses all underwater
Foreclosed stanzas sitting idly
Interest rates down- swing wildly
Down, down, down, the drunken bard
Says with the bastards in verse pithy
I’ve had it with these rotten bums
Who securitize our work and leave us crumbs



Spending days diffusing risk
While Greenspan yawned and said, "Tsk, tsk"
Diced poems trade for the highest quote
There’s a guy in Butte who bought a syllable I wrote
And thinks he’ll profit while I starve
But I’ve sharpened my knife for morbid carve
Weak and weary I know the dreary score
And you can quoth me on this: “Nevermore!”

__________
*
The Idiot (NY: Harper & Bros.,1895).
Coffee, Repartee, and the Idiot (Harper & Bros., 1899)
The Idiiot At Home (NY: Harper & Bros., 1900)
The Inventions of the Idiot (NY: Harper & Bros., 1904)
The Genial Idiot (NY: Harper & Bros., 1908)
Half Hours With the idiot (NY: Harper & Bros., 1917)

Many thanks to Valerie Urban of Rulon-Miller Books for images of title page and binding.

Romance and Erotic Novels Drive Ebook Sales

Call it The Story of Oy.

One of the many fascinating insights that Nicholson Baker provides in his recent piece on the Kindle, A New Page, for The New Yorker is what kind of ebooks are most downloaded from Amazon.

“The success of the ebook is being fueled by the romance and erotic romance market,” asserts Peter Smith in the TechoFile blog for ITworld as quoted in Baker’s piece.

Felicia Day, “Vi” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is cuckoo for the Kindle for that very reason. She writes in her blog that “as an insane reader of genre paperbacks, I’m absolutely in love with it. It would be great if Amazon sold it in a physical store somewhere so people could check them out themselves. I think they would sell a lot more of them. They especially make great gifts, as they’re an indulgence most ppl won’t allow themselves per say, but if you’re looking for a REALLY nice gift for a family member or friend who loves books or travels a lot, you couldn’t go wrong.

“Now for the ‘come clean’ part: I’ve read like, 6 books this week and ordered about 10 more. And no ordinary books: Pure unadulterated TRASHY-ROMANCE books! Check out my GoodReads shelf vaginal-urban-fantasy, it’s bloating to an alarming degree. It’s stuff I never would have checked out at the Barnes and Noble, because the gleaming and oily man chests would have made me blush too much [unless I was drunk, but that’s a previous blog entry :-)]. I’m delighted to be reading ridiculous werewolf/demon/vampire-Alpha-male fiction with no guilt.”

Now the Kindle’s primary benefit to society is made clear: Providing the ability to read guilty-pleasure lit. without fear of being busted. Sort of like the old days in high school, hiding the comic book in front of Introduction to Biology so that the teach’ wouldn’t catch on.
_____________

Bio of Beatles' Sgt. Pepper in the Works

On a recent reconnaissance mission for Book Patrol I met Brian Kehew, co-author of Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums, a massive eleven pounds of Beatlemania that takes us behind the scenes of the making of the Fab Four’s records. At the end of our interview, he dropped a joy bomb in my lap.

Years of research and extensive interviews with the group’s former engineers and technicians shed new light on those classic sessions that provided the music that influenced and defined a generation and continues to impact pop music today.

Kehew co-produced Fiona Apple's album Extraordinary Machine. He also worked in studio with artists such as Eels, Eleni Mandell, Aimee Mann, Matthew Sweet, Michael Penn, Prick, Beck, and Jon Brion. Mixing work includes Aretha Franklin, Talking Heads, Little Feat, Fleetwood Mac, Ramones, Pretenders, Morrissey, Alice Cooper, The Faces, The Eagles, Black Sabbath, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Stooges, MC5, Yes, Elvis Costello, Judee Sill, Crazy Horse, Tiny Tim, Gene Clark, and Stone Temple Pilots. He knows his stuff.

BP: Tell our readers something unknown about The Beatles and their recordings. Something in RTB not found anyplace else and an eye-opener?

George Martin was gone for a significant part of The Beatles ("the White Album"). He had left England to find a location for his own independent studio. Meanwhile, the Beatles were essentially producing themselves, and engineer Ken Scott and Martin's guest Chris Thomas were acting-producers when needed. We include a postcard replica with the book - sent back to Abbey Road studios from George Martin while away on an island; it's addressed to "Ken Scott and the Beatle Band."

BP: What motivated you to undertake this massive project?

Both Kevin [Ryan] and I work in studios all the time, producing and engineering. The Beatles are a constant reference in most pop sessions, but people didn't really know how they did things. It took us a long, long time (longer than it took the Beatles to make those records), but we eventually found what we needed and wrote it out.

BP: How long did it take from idea to published book?

I remember starting the idea in 1991/92 and we finished in 2006, so about 15 years total. Not every day, but so many endless months and years went into it.We keep saying we might not have started if we'd know how long it would take! I guess that's a blessing in disguise - you don't really know, so you begin, then you're too deep to stop!

BP: How many copies in first printing?

First printing was 3000, with the first 1000 of those being signed and numbered limited edition versions. Those sold out pretty fast and we did a second run within half a year I recall. It's done three full runs now.

BP: Who designed the book? It's really quite extraordinary; the slipcase looks like a studio recording tape box.

Actually, my co-author Kevin Ryan designed and laid out the whole book. And I think it's as good (maybe better) than any book I own. Seriously, he's truly a genius at these things. We're lucky we found each other as we have very complementary skills; they overlap in the middle but each of us is clearly good at things the other is not. We work well together.

BP: Anything you can think of that might be of interest to book lovers?

We produced and published the book ourselves. We found that publishers wanted to water it down - make it about half as big (lose half of which information!?) have few photos (we put in tons of unseen Beatles pics we found), and print it cheaply (we made it a nice as we could). It's out lifetime we spent on this, and they hope to make a quick buck and get out of it - we like books that last and last; they don't look trendy or dated, they are easy for people on any level to read/understand, and they have that solid appeal that comes from nice packaging and design. Books are truly a great treat when done well.
Our second book is a set of nearly unseen photos, hundreds taken one night in the studio. It's the closest we'll even get to a film of the making Sgt. Pepper! The third book is coming soon, and it's a secret...




A never before seen behind the scenes view of the making of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, the defining album of a generation and one considered by all as one of the most influential albums of all time? That should be one of the most highly awaited books in years.




The first printing of Recording The Beatles is now selling for $175-$475; there are no
copies of the signed and numbered limited edition currently being offered by anyone, anywhere in the world. They are both highly collectable. Without this volume, no collection of Beatles
books and memorabilia is complete.
But this book is for all lovers of music, sound engineering, and recording; the studio techniques used in the recordings were pioneering and in the vanguard of audio reproduction. The influence of the Beatles on sound recording history cannot be underestimated.

______

Recording the Beatles by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan (Curvebender Publishing, 2006). Hardcover, 11" x 11", 540 pages, lavishly produced with over 500 photos and illustrations, color and black and white, includes slipcase and bonus items.

"Magnificently produced...everything you could possibly want to know about how the group made its recordings" (New York Times).

"Five stars...impossible to put down...a major publication" (MOJO).