Hitler's Personal Library

Posted by John Farrier in Book & Lit on October 27, 2009 at 2:59 pm

This past January, Timothy Ryback wrote in The Times about the books that Adolf Hitler kept in his private library. 1,200 books that he retained at his residences in southern Germany are now warehoused by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Ryback suggests that one might gain insights into the mind of a man by the books that he collects. Among Hitler’s favorites:

He ranked Don Quixote, along with Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Gulliver’s Travels, among the great works of world literature. “Each of them is a grandiose idea unto itself,” he said. In Robinson Crusoe he perceived “the development of the entire history of mankind”. Don Quixote captured “ingeniously” the end of an era. He was especially impressed by Gustave Doré’s depictions of Cervantes’s delusion-plagued hero.

He also owned the collected works of William Shakespeare, published in German translation in 1925 by Georg Müller as part of a series intended to make great literature available to the general public. Volume six includes As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida. The entire set is bound in hand-tooled Moroccan leather, with a gold-embossed eagle, flanked by his initials, on the spine.

Hitler considered Shakespeare superior to Goethe and Schiller. While Shakespeare had fuelled his imagination on the protean forces of the emerging British empire, these two Teutonic playwright-poets squandered their talent on stories of midlife crises and sibling rivalries. Why was it, he wondered, the German Enlightenment produced Nathan the Wise, the story of the rabbi who reconciles Christians, Muslims and Jews, while it had been left to Shakespeare to give the world The Merchant of Venice and Shylock?

Link | Image: Calvin College

 
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Library Necklace

Posted by Miss Cellania in Fashion on September 20, 2009 at 10:27 pm

Bibliophiles, you can now wear books around your neck! Etsy seller TheBlackSpotBooks offers this necklace with eleven tiny books made from a mix of antique and scrap leather. Each is hand-made and no two are alike. Custom books designs are available by request. Link -via Bioephemera

 
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Tattooed Librarians

Posted by Miss Cellania in Tattoo, Etc. on August 3, 2009 at 9:30 am

The Texas Library Association is selling a 2010 calendar called “The Tattooed Ladies of TLA.” Twenty-one librarians show off their tats over 18 months. The calendar is a fundraiser to assist libraries that are still recovering from damage caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“It was just a fun thing to do,” said Gretchen Hoffmann, 42, who turned up the heat as Miss August 2010 by posing on a row boat, a purple boa strategically draped to highlight the starfish tattoo on her upper back. “I like the idea that the calendars are stereotype-busters. You don’t usually see [librarians] as tattooed and sexy. We’re not the little old ladies who walk around with buns.”

Link to story. Link to website. -via Metafilter

 
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Awful Library Books

Posted by Miss Cellania in Book & Lit on July 13, 2009 at 11:43 am


This blog collects instances of books on the shelves of libraries that should be culled (or should have been culled years ago). The page shown is from a book called Moving Through Pregnancy from 1975.

The items featured here are so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information.

This blog contains actual library holdings. No specific libraries or librarians are named to protect the guilty. Check your shelves, it could be you.

Link -via J-Walk Blog

 
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The 7 Most Impressive Libraries Throughout History

Posted by Queuebot in Book & Lit on June 16, 2009 at 3:42 am

Ever since the dawn of civilization, men have demonstrated their cultural sophistication, scientific knowledge and philosophical aptitude in written word kept in libraries for peers and, less often, the public, to access and review.

We have a tendency to assume that knowledge and the availability thereof is a modern concept, but in actuality the huge Great Library of Alexandria and the Celsus library in Ephesus prove that the concept of libraries is an ancient one.

We tend to take for granted the notion that the people of the world can or should be taught to read. The ability to read is even used as an indicator of poverty and development. In 1998, the UN defined 80% of the world population as literate, defined as the ability to read and write a simple sentence in a language. It was not always thus. In ancient times, literacy was the trade secret of professional scribes.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Arby.

 
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Student Thwarts School's Book Ban by Forming Secret Lending Library

Posted by John Farrier in Book & Lit on May 26, 2009 at 2:27 pm

A pseudonymous (presumably) student named Kat Atreides responded to her school’s ban on a large number of books by forming a secret library in her locker, and then loaning out banned books to students:

I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we’re not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well… I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned!

I hope that the school administrators were actually trying to trick students into reading, and weren’t so foolish as to imagine that banning books would lead to teenagers not reading them.

Link via Jessamyn West

image by flickr user florian.b used under creative commons license

 
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15 Incredible Library Special Collections

Posted by Queuebot in Book & Lit on March 6, 2009 at 11:59 am

Many university and public libraries house special collections, often donated by wealthy patrons or accumulated over decades. This list takes a look at 15 of the most unique special collections from around the world, with such entries as Michigan State’s massive comic art collection.

Michigan State has one of the biggest comic art collections in the world, with more than 150,000 comic books published in the US since 1935 indexed. They don’t stop with comic books however, they also have an exhaustive comic strip collection, including every known book collection of comic strips, as well as over 500,000 hand clipped daily strips filed away in hand made scrapbooks.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by redsfaithful.

 
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Library May Ban Children's Book to Comply with New Anti-Lead Law

Posted by Alex in Book & Lit, Crime & Law on January 30, 2009 at 7:32 pm

Remember our post about the new Consumer Product Safety Act that will make it illegal to sell children’s products unless they were tested for lead and phthalates?

Besides threatening to put local artisans and small businesses who can’t afford the test (at $4,000 a pop), the law has another unintendend consequence: library may ban children’s books in order to comply:

The Consumer Product Safety Act was passed by Congress Aug. 14 in reaction to findings that some toys imported from China contained dangerous levels of lead. President Bush signed the legislation, which includes stricter limits on lead levels in children’s products.

The American Library Association said it fears the law has unintended consequences, and libraries may face the choice of closing their children’s sections, banning children under the age of 12 or completing expensive lead testing for every book. [...]

This unintended consequence of the new law isn’t the first to rear its head since Congress passed it. A flurry of complaints from second-hand retailers afraid of being bankrupted by the new requirements prompted the commission to release a clarification on Jan. 8 stating the law doesn’t require all children’s items to be tested.

However, it does make it illegal to distribute any children’s item that exceeds the lead limits, said Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Joseph Martyak. Though libraries, schools, and thrift shops aren’t required to test books for lead, they could face civil or criminal penalties if a book with an elevated lead level leaves its shelves.

Link – Thanks Tiffany!

 
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