celebrating the good parts of america today. if you don’t think there are any good parts, just look to all the stuff the fascists are desperate to stifle

🇺🇸🍒🥛🪦 I thrifted these two photos a while back, the way these kids decided to capture their July 4th celebration and then segue into a mock funeral has always made me wonder: are they pantomiming the death of Zachary Taylor, or did they just decide their pal’s time was up?

#PhantomsFriday 'Ghosts I have Seen' by Scottish spiritualist & psychic, Violet Tweedale (1862-1936) who was also a prolific author. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the introduction to another of her books, 'Phantoms of the Dawn'.

Summer cemetery hopping is in full swing! Here’s one stone from the Indian burial ground section attached to Maple Grove Cemetery in Fremont, Michigan. 🪦

July *Ava Gardner in The Bribe (1949) 🔥 #FilmNoir

The bedside book stack is officially out of control. 😅 Time to dig down, re-shelve, and excavate the few I haven’t cracked into yet.

Cherry season is off to a fine start 🍒

That said, if anyone knows a wallpaper company that has William Morris-esque designs at a reasonable price, please share!

Great title for a burlesque show: The Sway of All Flesh. Debuting at Minsky's Oriental in January 1937.

Targeted ads need to stop making my frugal heart flutter with gorgeous wallpaper only to reveal a $400 price tag.

Check out the beautiful gilt-stamped design on the cover of The Finger Print Instructor (1917). I’ve come across this book before, but never with the gold gilt in such good condition. Of course, I couldn’t resist bringing it home with me.

relatable 😅

I can’t believe it’s been 5 years. I miss her every day. She was the best grandmother and, frankly, a mother to me. I know she’d be so proud of everything I’ve done and where I am today. ❤️

The Thin Man. Study. 2024. Graphite and white pencil on Strathmore toned paper. 11”x17”.

none of this is true and the place where this is going is potentially very awful

Happy Bloomsday to all who celebrate.

The Book Licker strikes again! 🐈‍⬛📚

Nope, not a single bad view on this morning's hike. 🥾

Yesterday was perfect.

"A guitar is something you can hold and love and it's never going to bug you. But here's the secret about the guitar - it's defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know." -Les Paul #BOTD

Lots of babies in the backyard now!

Copies of my latest zine, with words by the one and only Tosh Berman, will be available at @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social LitLit: The Little Literary Fair, 6/7–8! You don’t want to miss this one, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out that blurb from @somejerrystahl.bsky.social !

The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology was well worth the side trip to Ann Arbor

Been a busy few days. Had a blast in Detroit and even found time to pop into John King Books on our way out of town 📚

One of three little fawns I spotted while out hiking today 🥹🦌❤️ (Don’t worry, they were left alone, undisturbed)

Worn and torn but still a beauty! Oliver Goldsmith’s plays and poems, 1851

My zines found themselves in excellent company in the Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth LA booth at this year's Printed Matter Art Book Fair 📚

Copies of my latest zine, with words by the one and only Tosh Berman, will be available at @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social LitLit: The Little Literary Fair, 6/7–8! You don’t want to miss this one, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out that blurb from @somejerrystahl.bsky.social !

Sarah sure had a heck of a run: 1842-1936 The very last page of an undertaker's ledger from Maine, 1936. I'm always fascinated by these ledgers, how such a simple book can tell so much about an area and its people.

Vincent Price circa 1962 explaining to Sears, Roebuck sales associates, the art collection he has put together for them to sell. rb.gy/2jjhfp

Was worth plucking from the dollar cart for the cover alone 📚

It’s World Dracula Day, so a few editions from my library:

condition: new make / manufacturer: Sheep

A vicious, unprovoked attack caught on camera! Fortunately, I survive to scoop poop another day.

I won’t be able to fly out for this one, but my publisher is tabling at this year's LitLit Literary Fair! Pop on by and pick up some great books! @afterwordbooks.bsky.social @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social

Please admire the succulent beefcake I spotted at the garden center today 💪

👆🏻🪦

I won’t be able to fly out for this one, but my publisher is tabling at this year's LitLit Literary Fair! Pop on by and pick up some great books! @afterwordbooks.bsky.social @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social

Happy to report, as I close in on my first year and a half as a Michigander (by way of Los Angeles), I am not only still gobsmacked by the beauty but not a day goes by where I don’t appreciate living somewhere so beautiful.

It’s been a while since I’ve done the thing where I see a great deal on a beautiful book and buy it without looking at the dimensions. Turns out I accidentally bought a folio so big it might need its own zip code (but, oh boy, is it GORGEOUS, though). 📚

The Body Ran Home https://pulpcovers.com/the-body-ran-home/ Covers, Babes, Paperback, Unknown Artist

They’re very cute when they hop away and you get the white butt-fluff shot 📸🐇

🐍

Lucky for me there was time for some book hunting on the way out of town 📚

Happy to be heading home after two wonderful, albeit exhausting, weeks. I think we’re both looking forward to non-lumpy pillows and our own bed.

Pond fight 🥊

#RIP George Herms

"A ROW OF RIVERSIDE HOUSES" Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. 03-21-22 🇨🇦 📷: J.R. Rowan * A 16 x 10 widescreen neighbourhood #landscape #photography #ECK #architecture #house #homes #home #street #road #blue #white #tan #building #Cornwall #Ontario #clouds #EastCoastKin

Books are good, everyone go read them

George Herms 1935-2026