(b)logophile

Between one paper and the next I’m popping my head up for a brief gloat: In the alleyway stalls beside the Oudemanhuispoort I found Een Cent Per Emmer (One Cent Per Bucket), a richly illustrated history of the drinking water of Amsterdam. This is local history at its absolute best, with a side order of [...]

Oops. “I’ll just pop in and see if they have any Lucius Shepard” doesn’t work at the Book Exchange (Kloveniersburgwal, loads and loads of English-language secondhand, good sf section, highly recommended). Last week’s Primo Levi (The Periodic Table) has started me on a Levi kick: Moments of Reprieve, Other People’s Trades and his Auschwitz memoirs [...]

From the Boekenmarkt Spui: Hugo Claus, “Het Verdriet van België” (“The Sorrow of Belgium”). A classic, apparently, recommended by Marijn. At a hefty 774 pages, this should keep me going for a while. “Sometime, Never: 3 Outstanding Tales of Science and Fantasy”. I can hear my mother sighing deeply… but this is good stuff! It’s [...]

Only one this week, but it’s a doozy: Goudy’s type designs : his story and specimens : being a virtual facsimile of the Typophiles chap books XIII and XIV. This gorgeous pocketsize volume is accompanying me to New Zealand, where I can gloat over it at my leisure. Thanks very much Robert, glad you liked [...]

It’s been two weeks, and quite a lot has arrived… I’ve read a good chunk of it, and I just cleared most of my pending reviews on LibraryThing, so I’ll be pretty brief here. Nobilis, R. Sean Borgstrom. This is an RPG (roleplaying game) but I ordered it for the backstory and world creation. Reviewed [...]