Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus

When, in 1918, a clerk erroneously ordered twelve times the number of children’s books, Western Publishing Company may have faced ruin. Instead, the company persuaded Woolworth’s department stores to sell it, a practice unusual since children’s books were normally only sold during the holiday season.

Years later, in the 1930s, one publishing novice was inspired when his three-year-old tossed a picture book into the bathtub, which destroyed it, of course. He reflected at the time that

given the wear and tear to which children naturally subjected all their belongings, lower-priced books might be greatly appreciated by parents. (p 29)

Such are two very small stories illustrating how (and why) Golden Books roared to life in 1942. In Golden Legacy, Leonard Marcus shows how the development of Golden Books changed the face of children’s book publishing forever because of resourceful people who thought outside the box. For the first time, children’s books were 25 cents, and not $2 or $3. Instead of buying just one book, parents bought twelve. Children had many books at their disposal, and The Poky Little Puppy has since been the best-selling children’s picture book of all time. Continue reading »

A Ruined Author?

I’m finishing my review of Vladimir Nabokov’s short stories, which I loved reading. I hope to have it done by tomorrow.

But I feel I can’t write a post about Nabokov (even his short stories) without mentioning another work by this author that I probably don’t even need to name. Continue reading »

Fun Facts about Homer

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

I thought I’d participate in Weekly Geeks this week. In the wake of rethinking my “book blog goals,” as I talked about yesterday, I’ve decided I’m going to not do these weekly memes unless I already was going to post something like this anyway. (I haven’t been participating for weeks anyway; I have had so much else going on.)

For Weekly Geeks #24, we are to share some fun facts about an author. I’m just going to go with the author I’m currently reading: Homer.  I wanted to share these things anyway, and so it will fit right in to my review of The Iliad that will come.

It’s interesting to note that my chosen author may not really have existed. Does that still count? Continue reading »

Author Weekly Geeks Answers

Answers

to Sunday’s post

1. (a) A.A. Milne (b) Simon Winchester (c) Alexander McCall-Smith

2. Guy de Maupassant

3. (a) Amy Tan (b) Terry Tempest Williams (c) Sherman Alexie (d) Robert Hass

4. Robert Hass

6. Winston Churchill

The winner was gag who guessed all correct (!) except Terry Tempest Williams. NIce job! And nice job for the rest of you.

Go visit her Reading Room!

Sick Day and Author Weekly Geeks

My husband, my ten-month-old, and I have all been sick this weekend. To my surprise, I couldn’t bring myself to finish my book and post the review as I’d planned. Every time I started to read, my eyes would close. I also usually read a book aloud to my son as he plays and my husband and I read a book aloud together. But neither of us have our voices, so I didn’t do that either. It’s amazing that I haven’t read much at all! My husband and I zoned out watching a movie all day Saturday, while our son crawled over us. That’s not like me.

Do you find your reading changing when you’re not feeling well? Or am I weird to be reading less?

Anyway, in lieu of a review, I’ll do Weekly Geeks this week, which is all about authors. (I don’t have energy to write up my thoughts about the book I just finished today, but I can do a few photo searches!)

So, the idea is, you guess in the comments who the authors are. I wish I could give you a reward if you get them all, but my budget really can’t right now. I will write a nice post linking to you. Is link love enough? Continue reading »

Alexander McCall-Smith

Favorite Authors
When I was a child, I would go to the library on my bike with a backpack full of already-consumed books, return them, and get another full backpack full of to-be-read books. Sometimes I’d go through a series, reading every single one as they were available at the library. Other times I went through “author phases.” Then I would check out every book by a particular author and read those.

For past two years or so, I’ve been on an author kick again: I was looking for quick, easy-to-read, “empty” fiction that was enjoyable. I realize this isn’t really a good thing. I should always use my precious reading time for books that actually add something to my life. But they do: they add sanity.

I enjoyed reading Alexander McCall-Smith’s The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency a few years ago; it’s a good book club book and every book club I’ve been in has read it. It is about a “lady detective” in Botswana. How McCall-Smith, a man in a kilt, is able to capture this delightful woman and the intriguing country in this series is just amazing to me. (I know he wears kilts because I met him in Chicago a few years ago: he was wearing a kilt. That was before I knew most of his books take place in Scotland.) When I went to find the subsequent books in that series to read them (I think I’d only read through number five), I found that he had a number of other series. Continue reading »