Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012

Dedications
An Atlas of the Difficult World, Adrienne Rich.
(Photo credit: Flickr)

Trichinosis

Source: The Heart (Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations, Volume 5)

Ode to Avocados

Photograph: Haley Johnson

"Avocados are my favorite fruit. Every Sunday my grandfather used to bring me an avocado pear hidden at the bottom of his briefcase under six soiled shirts and the Sunday comics. He taught me how to eat avocados by melting grape jelly and french dressing together in a saucepan and filling the cup of the pear with the garnet sauce. I felt homesick for that sauce. The crabmeat tasted bland in comparison."

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Or you could sell those books back.

The Hairpin isolates the greatest panel in the Sequential Crush post on "Love Was a Lie!"

Always remember.

Courtesy of Bryan Waterman: #networkedny Kristen Highland starting her talk on 19c bookstores by invoking recent history at St Marks.

Bookstore Crush

"There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on."

It's acceptable to talk about other bookshops I would go to if I could travel everywhere to get anything, right? This is DreamHaven Books & Comics in Minneapolis, Minnesota and I want to go to there. There's this mural, for one. Plus, they still maintain a LiveJournal (just like George R.R. Martin) and this is their given store history:

In 1793, science fiction bookseller Nigel Ketter, facing massive legal action and an unprecedented public outcry (see The London Times for June 15th, 1793), sailed for Boston with several tons of collectible monster magazines and rarer-than-rare Arkham House titles. Upon reaching the New World, he made plans to travel south and set up a small book shop in the Caribbean (trading books for rum). Nigel accidentally confused North for South and ended up the arctic wilderness of Minnesota (see photo). He managed to survive by burning old Fanthorpe paperbacks for heat and by hunting (bashing) ice weasels and snow voles with the "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction." He waited. He advertised. He waited some more.

Settlers settled. The city grew.

But alas! No one had anything to read.

Thus (and finally!), in 1977, enterprising descendant Greg Ketter, sensing the needs of the public, opened his first store in Minneapolis.

The DreamHaven Empire had begun. 

What a lovely store. Bookstore tourism for life. Okay, let's review: Shakespeare & Co. for when you are in New York and DreamHaven for when you find yourself in Minnesota. Are bookseller exchange programs a thing?