Books are what I do : Write (very slowly), Read (rapidly or at leisure), Re-read (for pleasure or reference), Buy and Sell (my livelihood), Catalogue and Describe (ditto), Edit, Publish, Review (for The New York Review of Science Fiction and others), Recommend or Give away, Receive, and — unavoidably and repeatedly — Lift (whether singly or in boxes). I concede a fondness for private eye novels, equalled by my interest in the quirky, erudite, or obscure, and surpassed only by my love of the literature of the fantastic.
— Henry Wessells
marginal glosses
(via twitter)
24 January 2017
links
Ten Years of the ’shelf
No styrofoam cake, no fanfare, no crowds. Your correspondent continues to read books and think about their contents and form. I am writing ‘ A Conversation larger than the Universe ’, a short nonfiction book on science fiction and the literature of the fantastic, to accompany the exhibition of the same name scheduled at the Grolier Club in January 2018. Details will be forthcoming. In the interim, communications here are brief.
Your correspondent will be in Oakland for the California International Antiquarian Book Fair 9-12 February, at booth 217 (James Cummins Bookseller). Copies of Donald Trump The Magazine of Poetry will be available. In March, look for me at booth A-1 at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. Come say hello.
The next update, March 2017, will see a redesign of the ’shelf. Send me your news.
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current reading
— Emmanuelle Loyer. Lévi-Strauss. Flammarion, [2015]. Biography of Claude Lévi-Strauss. The first three pages are a brilliant portrait of Lévi-Strauss in miniature, a tour of his bibliothèque circumnavigatrice (circumnavigating library) encompassing the world.
— Nonstop Metropolis. A New York City Atlas &c. Editors Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. University of California Press, [2016].
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commonplace book
Everybody has a sense of humor. Use it.— Michael Moore, 19 January 2017
at 61st street and Central Park West in New York City
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recent reading
— Viktor Koen. Bestiary. Bizarre Myths & Chimeric Fantasies. Edited by Ellen Datlow, Introduction by Jack Ketchum. [Hellenic Center for Photography / 010 Editions, 2015 (i.e., 2016)]. A pantheon of new myth, a collection of 24 short fantastical stories inspired by the tintypes of Viktor Koen.
— Scheherazade’s Children. Global Encounters with the Arabian Nights. Edited by Philip F. Kennedy and Marina Warner. New York University Press / Abu Dhabi Arabic Institute, [2013]. Excellent collection of essays on the Arabian Nights : “ Scheherazade was a feminist centuries before the word became part of western society, ” as Alia Yunis writes in her afterword.
— Thomas M. Disch. Camp Concentration. Doubleday, 1969.
— Tana French. The Trespasser. Viking, [2016]
— Lord Dunsany. The King of Elfland’s Daughter. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [May, 1924].
— Michael Swanwick. Midwinter Fables. [Dragonstairs, 2016]. Three short tales in which he re-writes the life and fables of Aesop !
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16-18 December 2016
Best Book of 2016
— Ingrid Burrington. Networks of New York. An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure. Melville House, 2016.
“I’m just looking down at the ground and looking up at buildings”
Networks of New York is fun and fascinating ; this compact, well written book is also a bold exhortation to observe life in the city. “Learning how to see and pay attention to the fragmented indicators . . .”. Burrington traces the way geography and earlier technologies continue to shape the function of twenty-first century Manhattan. Her book challenges the reader to see the familiar anew and provides tools to do so.
The best book I read in 2016.
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at the sign of the Burning Marshmallow
At the launch of Donald Trump The Magazine of Poetry, 22 November, at 725 Fifth Avenue.
Details here and more photos at the Temporary Culture instagram page.
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Extended Range ; or, The Accession Label
The text of Extended Range ; or, The Accession Label (published as a book with original etchings by Judith Clute in December 2015) has now been reprinted in issue 35 of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, edited by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link and published by Small Beer Press.
details at http://smallbeerpress.com/lcrw/2016/11/17/lady-churchills-rosebud-wristlet-no-35/
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The Private Life of Books
The Private Life of Books, poems by H. Wessells, duotone photographs by Paul Schütze.
Copies still available from Temporary Culture.
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Hope & Wreckage
New editions of Michael Swanwick’s legendary monographs Hope-in-the Mist. The Extraordinary Career & Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees (2009) and What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage (2007) are now available in all the usual e-booke formats through Weightless Books.
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Wander in the Archives
The Archives of the Endless Bookshelf have been swept and tidied and a guide has been prepared to assist wanderers. Index would be too strong a term : the headwords tend to be suggestive rather than directive. Start here. Have fun.
This creaking and constantly evolving website of the endless bookshelf : some entries are brief mentions, others take the form of more elaborate essays and reviews. Someday, not soon, comments or interactivity. Right now you’ll have to send links to me, dear readers. [HWW]
electronym : wessells
at aol dot com
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Henry
Wessells and individual contributors.
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Culture, P.O.B. 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 USA.