Women Librarians

From Austin MacCormick’s 1931 survey of U.S. prison libraries: The day may yet come, moreover, when the attitude of prison officials will be liberal enough to permit women librarians to enter the service of penal institutions. Women nurses are already being successfully used in a number of prisons and reformatories for men. It is true that the

Patti Smith on books

Patti Smith, who won a 2010 National Book Award for Just Kids, had this to say in last night’s acceptance speech: Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book. I have a nook, but I concur (I still do most of

The Hopeless Emptiness

I started a Tumblr. I’m going to attempt to keep a collection of my favorite book quotes in one central location. Hopefully, this will work better than my other time-tested methods: keeping pieces of paper in the book to mark the page; trying to recall which side of the page/which half of the book a

Christina Hendricks, on being Anne of Green Gables

“I was obsessed with the Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables. I decided I was Anne of Green Gables. There was something that spoke to me about her, and I wanted to have her beautiful red hair. So my mother said, “Let’s just go to the drugstore and get one of those cover-the-gray rinses!” My

John Waters on reading

John Waters, one of my favorite directors, once famously said, “If you go home with somebody, and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em!” In his new memoir, Role Models, he imparts this bit of wisdom: “You should never just read for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your