“History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what do do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.”
―
―
“Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.”
― Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations
― Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations
“A book is tremendously important. Nobody ever paid for the price of a book, they only paid for the printing”
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“Entering a library, I am always stuck by the way in which a certain vision of the world is imposed upon the reader through its categories and its order.”
― The Library at Night
― The Library at Night
“The existence of any library, even mine, allows readers a sense of what their craft is truly about, a craft that struggles against the stringencies of time by bringing fragments of the past into their present. It grants them a glimpse, however secret or distant, into the minds of other human beings, and allows them a certain knowledge of their own condition through the stories stored here for their perusal. Above all, it tells readers that their craft consist of the power to remember, actively, through the prompt of the page, selected moments of the human experience. This was the great practice established by the Library of Alexandria.”
― The Library at Night
― The Library at Night
Goodreads Librarians Group
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Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
Bookish Book Club
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— last activity Oct 29, 2023 11:41AM
We read books loosely pertaining to the history of the book, the world of librarianship, bibliography, the rare book trade, typography, book design, b ...more
Jason’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jason’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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