Not knowing what the worst people in the world were thinking every fucking day

Maurice J. Freedman - Wikipedia

Today is National Library Workers Day, celebrating the people who do the work. ALA can't lobby for worker's rights because of stupid non-profit reasons but ALA-APA can. This year we lost Mitch Freedman who helped create ALA-APA. May his memory be a blessing. 📚

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice...

Truly!!! And that Margreta is also an alumna gives it that extra anassa kata

A feminist comparison of Sidney’s Astrophil to Stella to Wroth’s Pamphilia and Amphilanthus! Back in 1990! Thanks to Josephine Roberts via Margreta de Grazia, I was an early Wroth fan

Me, I am the dog, the ball is a book history rabbit hole, the pond is actual archival research, except that book people are the best and usually respond to my calls for help

Yes! And the surprise joy when you recognize a character in the background as one you know or when they step up into the foreground. Like bumping into your local barista on the other side of town!

Yes! In all the ways!!

We were! And horrifyingly I still sometimes come across bits of that indoctrination that I haven’t yet shed! But the freedom that comes with the bafflement of realizing I’d accepted whatever it was—that’s pretty great

The intro to the Oxford World Classics edition was really helpful for seeing how the narratives and construction of the evidence/revelation drive shaped BH. Recommended! 🔒

🔒 It makes it feel much more dizzying and harder to know what matters and what doesn’t, which maybe is part of what BH is about? I had also not noticed that it’s an omniscient present-tense narrator that alternates w Esther’s retrospective narrative, but that’s def part of what gives it that feel

🔒 A few more Bleak House thoughts: Being able to look back and see how the whole thing is put together gives me so much more appreciation than when I was in the middle of it! So many plot details and being lost in the evidence/discovery matters is hard to follow, but I think that’s the point

Yeah, I def feel like I have so much more appreciation of this book now that I can look back on the whole thing!

A zoomed in picture of a wooden sign painted orange with the black outline of a butterfly and the date “16-OCT-2025”, the signed is screwed onto a wooden utility pole.

A zoomed in picture of a wooden sign painted orange with the black outline of a butterfly and the date “26-OCT-2025”, the signed is screwed onto a wooden utility pole.

These have gone up all over our area. A heartbreaking memorial to those people stolen from our community.

Ohhhhhh I didn’t know about that, will have to watch!

It’s so much fun to plow through it!

A marathon of a book literally turning into a plot sprint for like the last third of the whole thing is quite the structure

Just clarifying that my reading BH while falling asleep is actually a big compliment! I kept reading even though I was falling asleep because I enjoyed it so much

Weird how so many politicians insist that the problem is how we talk about the horrors of our world rather than the horrors themselves

I will say that I would have fared better in anticipating some things if I’d realized that the Mrs that appeared with a character’s return was mother not wife but in my defense, I often read BH as I was falling asleep 🔒

I had totally forgotten the plot and really enjoyed reading this without any idea of what was going to happen. So many revelations at the end so I’m going to keep my mouth shut for now 🔒

Uh-oh I finished Bleak House and now I am sad because I have no more Bleak House to read 🔒

She never really talks about how she feels but when she does, it’s intense!

🔒 ok y’all I was behind on the Bleak House reading schedule and now I am ahead of schedule because ZOMG so much plot and revelations I can’t stop don’t wanna stop

Whitman broadside printed in support of Kadin's lecture, with a sweet image of old wooly beard himself

image of Kadin delivering his talk

Thoroughly enjoyed "Waltzing with Whitman," a lecture by @transbookhistory.bsky.social - Kadin is the newly installed director of the King Library Press at U of Kentucky Libraries. Kadin's talk touched on letterpress, embodied knowledge, critical fabulation, and the erotics of print. Total banger!

I am so relieved I have not seen this email because 🤯

Shakespeare Bought One Property in London. Now We Know Exactly Where.

Lucy Munro in the New York Times!! I do miss my Shakespeare friends. 🎁 link

Christian politicians accusing Jewish politicians of being antisemitic for being less pro-Israel than they are is the logical endpoint of our current discourse on antisemitism.

Really the role-playing I want is hanging out with Ishmael and Queequeg getting tattoos

oh no I was going to take a break from book club reading but Persuasion is an incredible novel and also weirdly an option for a “sleep story” on Calm

Virginia governor, advocates remember Dr. Cerina Fairfax Dr. Cerina Fairfax is remembered as a mentor and community leader as officials call attention to the broader impact of domestic gun violence toward Black women.

Dr. Cerina Fairfax is remembered as a mentor and community leader as officials call attention to the broader impact of domestic gun violence toward Black women