Eureka

                After a just-post-initiation hiatus, I've drafted a few extended length articles, one on opera and another about Coppola's metaphysical-fiction film Youth Without Youth.  While these are coming soon, this blog will be dedicated to my relationship with books and their coral clustered homes we call libraries, both my personal library, which is robust and growing, and my encounters with other libraries. Since books are about everything one could probably conceive or talk about (from one very limited perspective), we could just call it a blog about everything, but there are many things outside of the realms of the codex and the manuscript (after all, if there weren't, no one would be able to create new books) that are not found in our philosophy, thus, while our eyes will cast themselves softly over life's mutations, we look with the eyes of a bibliophile-humanist.

                     In honor of this conceit, a book I recently picked up seduced me with its cover (like humans and clothing, while our ultimate judgement may not be by covers alone, its hard to beat a first impression).  The title, The Library at Night shows a photograph of a man reading in a leather lounge chair, back the viewer, in the middle of a sparse forest.  I am swallowed by the soft rift that the book and the bed inspire, the night that tries to smother us is made friendly by the light and the book, the humanists holy amulets to ward off melancholly and black thoughts.  So far this book (I got it yesterday) takes that general impression and runs with it.  For now perhaps sharing that photo with you will pique your interest.

We also had some recent purchases:

Eco, Umberto. A Theory of Semiotics: 
                   I've been searching for a copy of Eco's original flagship work on his influential semoiotic system for a while now. $7.50

Camus, Albert.  The Plague.  
       A Vintage paperback edition of one of Camu's best novels, good-condition, $0.50.

Hitchens, Christopher.  Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens. 
       The honkin' hardcover edition, gorgeous design with a gargoyle-eyed Hitchens on the frontispiece, whose visages is haunting me from my bookshelf as I write.

I'll be back with more on the above-mentioned The Library in the Night (after I've read a bit more) as well as some gems I've checked out from my library (and place of work), as well as some longer essays.