Book forts and Pas(s)times

D is coming to visit, my first sight of him since August.  (Next anticipated sighting? December.)  He leaves Honolulu at 9:30 tonight, and, traveling without cease, he will arrive in Halifax tomorrow at 10 p.m.  Twenty-four hours of travel apart? I don't care for that.  I feel like we are one internet and cell phone collapse away from carrying on a Victorian epistolary romance.

So... the next twenty-four hours are stretching out ominously, tediously, and busily (there is a lot of cleaning that needs to get done before this house is livable for anyone but me and the mouse colony that has taken up residence under my sofa).   But I am going to while away at least part of that time in reading, so I thought I would share my two favorite bibliophile discoveries of the week with you in honor of this passe-temps.

First, I give you this marvelous Penguin Books campaign.  I mean, who hasn't fantasized that they could just open up their hands and read whatever book they wanted in their palms?  Best mutant power ever.

And then there is the infinitely entertaining Bookshelf Porn, site of endless bibliophile giddiness.  What is there not to love about the shelves that spell out a giant injunction to literacy? (D's roommate tells me she is totally onboard with our putting these up in their LA apartment.)  And I think we all know that if the cautious Canadian banking system (that's why our economy isn't a state of total collapse, RBC bankers routinely say to me, turning a gimlet eye on my profligate American self) refuses me a mortgage,  it will quickly come to this.  Or this, depending on how assailed by worldly troubles I feel.

6 Responses so far.

  1. The last two links are taking me to the same book-fort.

    On the topic of interesting uses of books, have you read the Little Professor's post about her new art installation?

  2. Hmmm. Let me see whether I can't fix that. (This is what comes from posting at 1:30 in the morning...)

    (My favorite moment of the Little Professor post? "Partly concealed by the boxes that threaten to overwhelm it, the couch represents the last-ditch effort of the modern academic to ground interpretation in materiality.")

  3. The second book fort looks to me like a broch.

    All of this has convinced me that I need to get rid of some of my books, before I end up trapped inside a book fort.

  4. Emilie says:

    I know how you feel about the 24 hours of travel--SF to Berlin was basically the same. It's like Skype and cell phones lull you into this false sense of geographical closeness, but then something like travel distance makes you look at a map and all of a sudden you feel like you have been hit by a truck. Hard. And that's when you vow to never ever look at a map again. Ever.

  5. Vasilly says:

    Hope you had a great weekend. The Penguin Books post is perfect!

  6. Anonymous says:

    I like bookshelf porn. It makes me drool. :D

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