#OnThisDay, 4 Jan 1944, Anne-Marie Walters parachutes into France as a British Special Operations Executive agent. SOE supported the French Resistance to Nazi occupation. In Aug 1944 she escapes over the Pyrenees. She writes a book about her work. #WorldWar2 #WomenInHistory #WomensHistory 🗃️

In the early 90s I was a house manager at the Public Theater in NYC. During the intermission of a play, Jackie O approached me in the lobby and asked for directions to the ladies' room.

When French farmers protest, there are cookouts, bonfires, plenty of vin chaud, and neat stunts like this motocross champion jumping over tractors. There's joy in this resistance.

The little free library in a nearby town is pretty wild. Found this treasure there a few days ago, and it reminded me of finding Kathy Acker's essays and A Confederacy of Dunces in a stationery store in Casablanca.

We are the absent ones #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social #poetry

Every summer, a lady of a certain age would arrive in Paris and stay in the hotel right across the street from my bookshop. Once she settled in, she'd fling open her windows and call out my name punctuated by a YOO HOO! I'd go to my front step, wave, and welcome her to town.

I went to an estate sale in a nearby village to scout for books. The house belongs to an elderly English lady who has lived in this tiny village for 25 years, and is now moving back home to expire (her words). Judging from various inscriptions and bookmarks I found, her books are very well-traveled.

24hrs in London last Saturday.

Sometimes, on the way to my bookshop, I'd walk down rue Jacob and stand before her old house. I imagined my way into le Temple de l'Amitié. One day, an elderly customer told me his family lived next door to it when he was a boy. He beamed with the memory of the glamorous women of rue Jacob.

New Halloween costume just dropped in France...

If you are still awake, take a moment you look up at the moon. Currently untroubled by living humans. Still a place of ghosts, gods and 20th century wreckage.

Books have always mattered. Only the imagination can challenge the fatalist mindset of capitalist realism. Only the impossible has the power to battle what power wants us to accept as the given. (I’m probably not making sense but yes books matter so much and always)

Joe Brainard’s ‘I Remember’ (1970-1975) is a small book that is immense inside, not least because of the way it—generously, wittily, companionably—opens up the reader to their own worlds of memory and feeling. There’s no such thing as an everybody book, but this is one. @dauntbookspub.bsky.social.

It's no wonder that criticism is getting gutted at outlets right now, because understanding how to process art on more than a surface level is antithetical to the monolithic "my way is the right way" edict of our current fascist regime. There's no room for interpretation or nuance. And that sucks.

Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. -Adam Zagajewski Resharing a favorite. [trans. Clare Cavanagh, published in TheNewYorker’s Sept 2001 special issue] #everynightapoem

Of the many pleasures I find in used books, this one is a doozy. My copy was previously owned by a French-speaking person, so the margins are filled with translations of English words into French. I can't imagine a better book for a French reader to learn the word twinkle.

There she is! A proof of No Friend, hanging out at the wonderful @book-ish.bsky.social in Wales! 🙌📚 I’m so touched by all the support from indies. That’s why we made a special edition just for them, with sheeptastic spredges and endpapers, signed by me… 🐏 👉 www.book-ish.co.uk/product/nata...

Now listening to the soothing sounds of the 1957 Baseball All-Star Game. The starting lineups are wall-to-wall legends: Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial. Once again, @archive.org hits it out of the park.

Will I ever tire of looking at dust jacket art on vintage mystery fiction? Absolutely not

The view from the back door this morning. My cat is chilling in front of the car, and two not-my-cats are taking it easy after a heatwave. #caturday

Never forget that #SesameStreet once did a sketch based on Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, which involved a Swedish fisherman counting seals until he found the seventh one.

I moved some books around today, and finally figured out what to put in the tiny alcove in the kitchen. Its intended purpose is a religious statue, but I put Saint Royko there instead.

It doesn't matter how long I've lived in France or how well I know the language. I cannot help but laugh at seeing "le New Jersey" in print.

Post a banger that's not in English. youtu.be/OPVtricblNM?...

From Al Lowe: Schickele Mix was a radio program hosted by Peter Schickele for 175+ episodes, combining diverse music into suites that demonstrated how different songs could unexpectedly share a similar musical technique or idea. archive.org/details/Schi...

Arrêtez tout ce que vous êtes en train de faire. Cette nouvelle image du JWST est hallucinante. Au centre, un amas de galaxies à 4,5 milliards d'années-lumière de nous. Sa masse est tellement énorme qu'il dévie la lumière des galaxies en arrière-plan. Cela forme ces arcs de cercles impressionnants!

As a Chicago-born person, I was baffled by this image of one hotdog surrounded by 17 wrong ones.

lil note for the "every available legal remedy" types, please note that my man has a sword. what is the sword for? it's for giving the fascists what they deserve. note also that he's got a bandolier. what is the bandolier for? it's for giving the fascists what they deserve.

One of many commemorations held this year marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the liberation of concentration camps, and in remembrance of those who fought in the French Resistance. People read poems and letters dating from WWII while accompanied by the local orchestra.

Going after libraries under the guise of “protecting children” will result in censorship of ALL library materials and services; vilification of librarians, resulting in us being targeted and attacked; and further defunding and even closure of libraries to “protect” the community. Fascism 101.

My dad writes home to his wife on V-E Day. He was an infantryman in Germany at the time. His last name was Cohen, so the US Army issued him dog-tags with the name Johnson, in case he was captured by Nazis. He later went to Paris to find his mother's family. Most of them were missing.

Happy to report that the kittens aren't holding a grudge against me for having 'em fixed and vaccinated.

Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode (2024) is being translated into French and will be published next year by Rag Editions & ABC Librarioli! To celebrate they made a short run zine featuring a translation of the third part of my pamphlet Goblins (2020) 💚 @roughtradebooks.bsky.social

This news was like a jolt to my heart in the best possible way. Eve Ewing and friends are doing beautiful, necessary things in my hometown. Welcome to the world, Build Coffee and Books.

To quickly note that my mesmerizing peer, Carrie Chappell, has a new book out, a co-translation with Amanda Murphy, that you will want to devour. And of course @asterismbooks.bsky.social has a copy you can order!! asterismbooks.com/product/cass...

"Hatred, for me, is dangerous,” she added. “As soon as we say: that one is like this, that one is like that, it already proves that we make a difference when in reality, no matter whether we are Jews, Muslims, Christians, Blacks, we are human beings.” --Ginette Kolinka, 100, Holocaust survivor.

I just got back from a café in a tiny village. More than half the people in the joint were wearing the same shirt, me included. Reminded me of this story:

A magnificent image from the always excellent Manderley Press.

Saturday morning in the south of France.

Honouring the ancient plumbers, mosaicists, builders, and painters in an insula in #Pompeii (Region IX) who were tragically interrupted in their work. #LabourDay #MayDay

Happy May 1st. The value of your labor belongs to you and the actions of the state are best understood as as a coordinated effort to distract you from this. The state fears an organized and unified proletariat like it fears death and rightly so. Power to the workers and power to the people

Listen to all 28 episodes of our latest @rememberthispod.bsky.social season, The Old Man is Still Alive, on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/y...

Did you know that every single one of our books includes matching head and tail bands - these are added to enhance the strength, durability and decoration of our hardback titles. Here are some of my Manderley Press favourites #booksky

Join Chicago librarians, booksellers, publishing workers & other book workers tomorrow from 6-9pm for a May Day Art build. All book workers and fellow travelers are welcome!

What a relief. Over the last two weeks, I've been able to trap, neuter, and return all five kittens who live next to my house. (L) the tiny tots when they first arrived, and (R) five large kittens whom I call les cinq saucisses de Toulouse.

Sylvia Beach, 1887-1962. Owned Shakespeare and Company in Paris, the bookstore that was a gathering place for authors of the Lost Generation (Hemingway, Lawrence, Pound, Stein, etc.) and published Joyce's 𝑼𝒍𝒚𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒔 in 1922 when no other publisher would touch it. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors

If you’re in NYC for the antiquarian book fair this week, you may want to make some time to visit our rare book room, currently well-stocked with lots of beautiful new arrivals in dust jacket. Just ask a bookseller to show you downstairs…