July 29, 2013 Look Beatrix Potter, “Study of a Spider” By Sadie Stein Via Victoria and Albert Museum. Yes, she may be known for her anthropomorphic animals, but Beatrix Potter’s studies of local flora and fauna show an entirely different side: that of the committed naturalist and conservationist.
July 25, 2013 Look A Table of Remarkable Æras and Events By Sadie Stein From the terrific Britannica Blog, a noteworthy page from the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1768.
July 24, 2013 Look On the Occasion of Zelda Fitzgerald’s Birthday By Sadie Stein F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald on the Riviera in 1926. In a letter from that year, Fitzgerald wrote, There was no one at Antibes this summer, except me, Zelda, the Valentinos, the Murphys, Mistinguet, Rex Ingram, Dos Passos, Alice Terry, the MacLeishes, Charlie Brackett, Mause Kahn, Lester Murphy, Marguerite Namara, E. Oppenheimer, Mannes the violinist, Floyd Dell, Max and Crystal Eastman … Just the right place to rough it, an escape from the world. This image appeared in “Zelda, a Worksheet,” in issue 89.
July 18, 2013 Look Literate Liars and the Lying Lies We Tell By Sadie Stein The results of Book Riot’s “Books you pretend to have read” survey are in, and they’re explosive. While the usual lengthy suspects—Ulysses, Moby-Dick, Infinite Jest—are represented, Pride and Prejudice is a surprise dark horse number-one. (Maybe after investing six hours in the BBC miniseries, people feel they’ve got the idea?) Other surprises include the relatively short To Kill a Mockingbird and Great Expectations—perhaps purely due to their inclusion on hundreds of syllabi?—Harry Potter, and, somewhat mysteriously, Fifty Shades of Grey. And this prompts several follow-up questions: When you listen to a book on tape, does that count? Is there a point at which, via osmosis, adaptations, and self-delusion, one can actually begin to believe he has in fact read a book, and is there a German compound word for this phenomenon? And what of the monstrous Mr. Darcy in the Serpentine?
July 16, 2013 Look This Is a Book By Sadie Stein This is a 3-D orihon, or accordion book, made by Chicago artist and teacher Tom Burtonwood, and developed for the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College.
July 12, 2013 Look Spoiler Alert: Why We Abandon Books By Sadie Stein This infographic on “the psychology of abandonment”—that is, why we don’t finish certain books—makes for fun reading. But even more interesting is the Goodreads list of those titles most frequently abandoned. We don’t want to spoil Stieg Larsson for anyone, but let’s just say that those who don’t persevere are missing out on some sexual sadism and computer espionage.