The Carlos Museum Bookshop: Books About Books

The Carlos Museum Bookshop: Books about Books

HOW TO ORDER NEW THIS WEEK NEW THIS WEEK What We See When The Library Book Please email your request and/or general ques- tions with your shipping address and phone We Read number to Bookshop Manager Mark Burell at [email protected], and you will receive a call to process your order.

Most orders for books in stock will be shipped within five business days. If a book is temporarily sold out, it may take longer to fulfill orders due to current shipping delays, but orders will be processed as quickly as possible.

Free curbside pickup options are now available weekdays by appointment. If you are unable to come by for pickup, we can sometimes deliver The collection of frag- Bestselling author Orlean for free to local addresses within a four mile radi- mented images on a chronicles the disasterous us of the museum. page of a book we are 1986 LA Public Library reading—a graceful ear fire (over a million books Click HERE for lists of great books about there, a stray curl, a hat damaged and destroyed) books, books for coping with crisis, books of positioned just so—and and its aftermath to world folktales and mythology, and books for other clues and signi- showcase the larger, cru- adults. fiers helps us to create cial role that libraries play an image of a character. in our lives. She delves Actually, our sense that into the evolution of li- You can also support the museum with the we intimately know a braries across the country purchase of Bookshop gift cards, which can literary character has little and around the world, be redeemed for mail order purchases. to do with our ability to from their humble be- concretely picture them. ginnings as a charitable Remember, all purchases support the Carlos In this remarkable work initiative to their current Museum, so stock up today! of nonfiction, book jacket status as a cornerstone art designer Peter Men- of national identity, and delsund combines his brings each department design skills with his first of the library to vivid life NEW ONLINE SHOPPING SITE career, as a classically through on-the-ground trained pianist, and his reporting. She also ex- Even more books are available on our first love, literature, into amines the case of Harry new Carlos Museum Bookshop site at what is sure to be one Peak, the blond-haired of the most provocative actor long suspected of Bookshop.org. Your purchases on this and unusual investiga- setting fire to the LAPL nonprofit site benefit the Museum and tions into how we under- more than thirty years stand the act of reading. ago. $16.99, paperback. many other small independent bookstores $17.95, paperback. across the country. CLICK HERE TO SHOP Classic Paperbacks MIT Press Essential Rereadings: Seven- Ex Libris: Confessions Notecards Knowledge Series: teen Writers Revisit of a Common Reader The Book Books They Love

Every book lover’s collection includes a few treasured favorites with What is the book in a Anne Fadiman is (by her frayed edges and covers digital age? Is it a phys- own admission) the sort Is a book the same soft from wear. Rich- ical object containing of person who learned book—or a reader the ard Baker’s remarkable pages encased in covers? about sex from her same reader—the sec- paintings of vintage Is it a portable device father’s copy of Fanny ond time around? The paperback books capture that gives us access to Hill, whose husband buys 17 authors in this witty these intimate details. He entire libraries? The co- her 19 pounds of dusty and poignant collection started painting dog- dex, the book as bound books for her birthday, of essays all agree on the eared copies of vintage paper sheets, emerged and who once found answer: never. Reread- paperbacks several years around 150 CE. It was herself poring over her ings reveals at least as ago and prowled used preceded by clay tab- roommate’s 1974 Toyota much about the reader as bookstores in search of lets and papyrus scrolls. Corolla manual because about the book: each es- appropriately careworn Are those books? In this it was the only written say is a miniature memoir paperbacks to immor- volume in the MIT Press material in the apartment that focuses on that most talize in his gouache Essential Knowledge that she had not read at interesting of topics, the portraits: “No precious series, Amaranth Borsuk least twice. This witty col- protean nature of love. first editions, no rare considers the history of lection of essays recounts And as every bibliophile things—just your com- the book, the future of a lifelong love affair with knows, no love is more mon companions.” The the book, and the idea books and language. For life-changing than the “book portraits” in this of the book. Tracing Fadiman, as for many love of a book. $15, pa- set feature titles by some the interrelationship of passionate readers, the perback. of the most iconic writers form and content in the books she loves have of the modern era, from book’s development, she become chapters in her Emily Dickinson and Mark bridges book history, own life story. $14, pa- Twain to George Or- book arts, and electronic perback. well and Susan Sontag. literature to expand our $16.95, boxed notecards. definition of an object we thought we knew intimately. $15.95, paperback. Breaking Bread with The Oxford Illustrated Browse: Love Letters Remarkable Books: the Dead: A Reader’s History of the Book to Bookshops Around The World’s Most Guide to a More the World Historic and Significant Tranquil Mind Works

This unique encyclopedia spanning the history of The history of the book A cabinet of curiosi- the written word, from is the history of millions ties, a time machine, a 3,000 BC to the modern of written, printed, and treasure trove—we love day, shows the evolution The title comes from illustrated texts, their bookshops because they of human knowledge Auden, who wrote that manufacture, distribution, possess a unique kind of and the changing ways in “art is our chief means and reception, from clay magic. UK literary critic which books are made. of breaking bread with tablets to scrolls, from in- Henry Hitchings asks Discover some of the the dead.” As we battle scribed codices to print- 15 writers from around most influential books in- too much information ed books, pamphlets, the world to reveal their cluding the Mahabharata, today, with algorithms magazines, newspapers, favorite bookshops. Each Shakespeare’s First Folio, aimed at shaping our and digital texts. The conjuring a specific time Darwin’s groundbreaking every thought and a larger question is of the and place, these inquis- On the Origin of Spe- tendancy to surround effect of textual produc- itive, enchanting pieces cies, The Diary of Anne ourselves only with what tion, distribution, and are a collective celebra- Frank, and Penguin’s we know and what brings reception, of how books tion of bookshops for first ever paperbacks. us instant comfort, author themselves made history. anyone who has ever fall- This lavishly illustrated, Alan Jacobs suggests In 14 original essays, this en under their spell. Con- coffee table-worthy book the opposite: to be in beautifully illustrated sur- tributors include Michael is wrapped in a textured conversation with, and vey reveals the history of Dirda, Daniel Kehlmann, jacket with gold foil, challenged by, voices books in all their various Yiyun Li, Pankaj Mish- making it a great gift for from the past. What can forms, from the ancient ra, Yvonne Adhiambo those with an interest in Homer teach us about world to the digital pres- Owuor, Elif Shafak, Iain literature, art, and de- force? How does Fred- ent. Leading international Sinclair, Ali Smith, and sign. $30, hardcover. erick Douglass deal with scholars offer an original Juan Gabriel Vásquez. the massive blind spots and richly illustrated $16.95, paperback. of America’s Founding narrative that is global in Fathers? How can Ursula scope. $39.95, hardcover. K. Le Guin show us truths about Virgil’s female characters that Virgil himself could never have seen? Other touchstones include Ibsen, Rhys, Wharton, Ghosh, Calvi- no, and many more. $25, hardcover. Meetings with 100 Books That How to Read a Book Proust and the Squid: Remarkable Changed the World The Story and Science Manuscripts: Twelve of the Reading Brain Journeys into the Medieval World

FIRST, FIND A TREE—A BLACK TUPELO OR Beautifully illustrated in DAWN REDWOOD WILL full color, this sweeping DO—AND PLANT YOUR- chronological survey SELF. IT’S OKAY IF YOU highlights the most PREFER A STOOP. LIKE Human beings were nev- important books from LANSTON HUGHES. around the globe from er born to read, writes With these words, an ad- Tufts University cognitive From the earliest book in the earliest illuminated venture begins into the manuscripts all the way neuroscientist and child medieval England to the world of reading. New- development expert incomparable Book of to the digital age. Includ- bery Medalist Kwame ed are such well-known Maryanne Wolf. Reading Kells to the oldest manu- Alexander’s evocative is a human invention that script of the Canterbury classics as the Odyssey, poetry and Caldecott the Torah, Shakespeare’s reflects how the brain Tales, these encounters Honoree Melissa Sweet’s rearranges itself to learn tell a narrative of intellec- First Folio, Moby Dick, lush artwork come to- and Darwin’s On the something new. In this tual culture and art over gether to take you on a ambitious, provocative the course of a millenni- Origins of Species, but sensory journey between an array of other works, book, Wolf chronicles um. The author introduc- the pages of a book. For the remarkable journey es us to kings, queens, some well-known and ages 4-8. $17.99, hard- others less so, are fea- of the reading brain not saints, scribes, artists, li- cover. only over the past 5,000 brarians, thieves, and col- tured as well, including those by Sun Tzu, Co- years since writing began lectors. Part travel book, but also over the course part detective story, part pernicus, Mary Woll- stonecraft, Thoreau, Karl of a single child’s life, conversation with the showing in the process reader, this history allows Marx, Sigmund Freud, Proust, and Kafka as well why children with dys- us to experience some of lexia have reading diffi- the greatest works of art as more recent works by J.K. Rowling, Art Spiegel- culties and singular gifts. in our culture and gives $16.99, paperback. us a different perspective man, and Naomi Klein. on history and the culti- $29.95, hardcover. vation of wisdom. $25, paperback. Why Women Read Shakespeare and 1,000 Books to Read Book Towns: Fiction: The Stories of Company, Paris: A Before You Die: A Forty-Five Paradises Our Lives History of the Rag Life-Changing List of the Printed Word & Bone Shop of the Heart

The so-called “book towns”of the world are dedicated havens of literature and the ultimate dream of book lovers everywhere. Book Towns Ian McEwan once said, Covering fiction, poet- takes readers on a richly “When women stop ry, science and science illustrated tour of the 40 reading, the novel will fiction, memoir, travel semi-officially recognized be dead.” This book writing, biography, chil- This first-ever history literary towns around the explains why women dren’s books, history, and of the legendary world, and outlines the are the main buyers and more, this fun resource bohemian bookstore history and development readers of fiction today, ranges across cultures in Paris, published by of each community, and and how they draw on it and through time to offer the bookshop itself, offers practical travel ad- to tell the stories of their an eclectic collection of interweaves essays and vice. Many “book towns” lives. And female read- works that each deserve poetry from dozens have emerged in areas of ers, as parents, teachers, to come with the recom- of writers associated marked attraction such as and librarians, are the mendation, “You have to with the shop—Allen Ureña in Spain or Fjaer- glue for a literate soci- read this.” Rather than Ginsberg, Anaïs Nin, land in Norway, where ety. This book, written your typical list of “great Ethan Hawke, Robert bookshops have been set by a scholar of women’s works,” this is a cele- Stone and Jeanette up in buildings, includ- writing, draws on more bration of the mosaic of Winterson, among ing former ferry waiting than 500 interviews with our literary heritage, and others—with hundreds rooms and banks. While and questionnaires from inevitably you will stum- of never-before-seen the UK has the best- women readers and ble upon a completely archival pieces. It known examples at Hay, writers, describing how, unknown author and includes photographs of Wigtown, and Sedbergh, where, and when women work and feel the tingle James Baldwin, William the book has a broad read fiction and why sto- of discovery. Suggestions Burroughs and Langston international appeal, ries influence the way fe- include the best editions Hughes; a foreword by featuring locations male readers understand to read, other books British novelist Jeanette such as Jimbochu in their own life stories. by the author, “if you Winterson; and an Japan, College Street in $18.95, hardcover. like this, you’ll like that” epilogue by Sylvia Calcutta, and major unof- recommendations, and Whitman, the daughter ficial “book cities” more. 948 book-filled of the store’s founder, such as Buenos Aires. pages. $35, hardcover. George Whitman. $22.99, hardcover. $34.95, hardcover. The Bad-Ass Bookworm: A Memoir Confessions of a The Library: Librarians of Bookseller A Catalogue of Timbuktu: And Their Wonders Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts

Libraries are much more Imported from England! than mere collections of When Lucy Mangan was Just published, the fol- volumes. The best are In the 1980s, a young little, stories were every- low-up to the bestselling magical, fabled places adventurer and collector thing. They opened up Diary of a Bookseller whose fame has become for a government library, different worlds and cast and a memoir every bit part of the cultural wealth Abdel Kader Haidara, new light on this one. as warm and welcoming they are designed to journeyed across the She was whisked away to as a visit to your very preserve. To research Sahara Desert and along Narnia, Kirrin Island, and favorite bookstore. Inside this book, Stuart Kells the Niger River finding Wonderland. She ven- a stone-faced Georgian traveled around the and salvaging tens of tured down rabbit holes townhouse on the Wig- world with his young thousands of ancient and womble burrows into town highroad, jammed family like modern-day Islamic and secular man- midnight gardens and with more than 100,000 “library tourists.” Kells uscripts that had fallen chocolate factories. In books and one portly discovered that stories into obscurity. Here is the Bookworm, Lucy brings shop cat, Shaun Bythell about libraries are stories incredible story of how the favorite characters of manages the ups and about people, containing Haidara, a mild-man- a British childhood back downs of Scotland’s larg- every possible human nered archivist and to life and disinters a est used bookshop with drama. The Library is a historian from the leg- few forgotten treasures, a sharp eye and even celebration of books as endary city of Timbuktu, poignantly, wittily using sharper wit. $25.95, objects, a celebration of later became one of the them to tell her own hardcover. the anthropology and world’s greatest and most story, that of a born and physicality of books and brazen smugglers. In his unrepentant bookworm. bookish space, and an quest to outwit Al Qaeda $17.95, paperback. account of the human and preserve Mali’s—and side of these hallowed the world’s—literary patri- spaces by a leading and mony, a victory of art and passionate bibliophile. literature over extremism. $16.95, paperback. $17, paperback. The Writer’s Library: Paper: Paging The Book Shopper: A A History of Reading The Authors You Love Through History Life in Review on the Books That Changed Their Lives

Paper is one of the Steven Roger Fischer’s Before Jennifer Egan, simplest and most es- fascinating history offers Louise Erdrich, Luis Al- sential pieces of human a sweeping view across berto Urrea, and Jona- technology. For the past This spirited and witty time and geography of than Lethem became re- two millennia, the abili- guide to the world of our evolving relationship vered authors, they were ty to produce it in ever disheveled used book- with text, taking us to readers. In this ebullient more efficient ways has stores by author (and Asia and the Americas book, America’s favorite supported the prolifer- Atlanta resident) Mur- and discussing the forms librarian Nancy Pearl and ation of literacy, media, ray Browne describes and developments of noted-playwright Jeff religion, education, his personal obsession completely divergent Schwager interview a commerce, and art; it has with bookstores that has writing systems and diverse range of Amer- formed the foundation of “grown into a real (albeit scripts. With the Middle ica’s most notable and civilizations, promoting quirky) passion for think- Ages in Europe and the influential writers about revolutions and restor- ing about the many ways Middle East, innovative the books that shaped ing stability. By tracing books affect our lives—- reinventions of reading them and inspired them paper’s evolution from how and where we shop emerged—silent and to leave their own liter- antiquity to the present, for them, the people we liturgical reading; the ary mark. Illustrated with with an emphasis on the know who read them, custom of lectors; and a beautiful line drawings, contributions made in and the small passages focus on reading in gen- this is a revelatory ex- Asia and the Middle East, that stick in our heads for eral education, whereup- ploration of the home author Mark Kurlansky years only to reappear at on printing transformed studies, libraries, and challenges common as- the oddest moments.” society’s entire attitude bookstores of today’s fa- sumptions about technol- His ruminations and ex- toward reading. He also vorite authors. It is a love ogy’s influence, affirming plorations offer a lifeline assesses a future in which letter to books and a cel- that paper is here to stay. to readers who love to read communication will ebration of wordsmiths. $16.95, paperback browse, in the eternal likely exceed oral com- $27.99, hardcover. quest for the perfect munication in the digital read. $12.95, paperback. age. $13.99, paperback. Footnotes from the World‘s Greatest When I Was a Child I World’s Greatest Bookstores: 100 Read Books Bookstores: True Postcards Celebrating Tales and Lost the Most Beloved Moments from Book Bookshops Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers

Based on his earlier This collection of evoca- bestseller Footnotes tive paintings and color- from the World‘s Marilynne Robinson has ful anecdotes invites you Greatest Bookstores built a sterling reputa- into the heart and soul of (also availble for purchase tion as not only a major every community: the lo- for $22.00, hardcover), American novelist but cal bookshop, each with Bob Eckstein brings his also a rigorous thinker its own quirks, charms, heart-tugging illustrations and an incisive essayist. and legendary stories. to a postcard set. Here In this lucid but impas- Featuring an incredible are 100 postcards that sioned collection, Robin- roster of great book- celebrate the pillar of son expands with re- stores from across the every community— newed vigor the themes globe and stories from the independent that have preoccupied writers, thinkers, and bookstore—with 50 total her work. Here she tack- artists of our time such as illustrations to both send les the charged political David Bowie, Tom Wolfe, and save. $20, boxed set. and social climate in this Jonathan Lethem, Roz country, the deeply em- Chast, Philip Glass, Jon- bedded role of generos- athan Ames, Terry Gross, ity in Christian faith, and Mark Maron, Ann Patch- the nature of individual- ett, Chris Ware, Amitav ism and the myth of the Ghosh, Alice Munro, and American West. Clear- many more. Page by eyed and forceful as ever, page, New Yorker car- Robinson demonstrates toonist Eckstein perfectly once again why she is captures our lifelong love regarded as one of our affair with books, book- essential writers. $17, stores, and book sellers. paperback. $22, hardcover.