The Stacks
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Something awoke in the garden…
Now with this direct link to the gallery!
In honour of this fine Friday the 13th, thought I’d take the opportunity to make a proper post about a highlight discovery of this past summer, Demon Potatoes by L. A. Cunningham… a mini-comic, and possible curse, acquired during the 2024 When Words Collide festival…
A bit of serendipity
Or at least perhaps the conditions for serendipity to occur?
Our latest project, this time in partial fulfillment of the requirements of GSJ 525 / DH 530 Data, Power, Feminism, introducing the Serendipity Project!
Ready or not, here I come…
Ray Bradbury once said “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” As a book nerd, student librarian, and global citizen, I think about that quote almost daily.
And as a student librarian, I’m learning that there is yet another tactic – make the books unfindable…
A state of perpetual wander…
Sharing a post from one of our sibling websites that is more book adjacent than anything, but we thought it might be of interest to our patrons here too. Click to wander over to the Black Riders website…
Happy Sesame Street Day!
Premiering on November 10, 1969, Sesame Street has been a cornerstone of my reading life for my entire life. “C is for Cookie” is one of my earliest alphabet memories and The Monster at the End of This Book helped set me on the path that led to a Master of Arts on the design of books and now has me going back to school again for a Library degree.
A miniature fairy library…
One of the lasting benefits of being a regular at When Words Collide, a readers and writers con held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is connecting with a community of book nerd artists alongside the “usual” readers and writers and publishing folks. The latest addition to our shelves from this talented crew is this Janice Blaine original, a fairy library to grace the shelves of our human one…
International Coffee Day 2021
We will have nothing further to say until the levels depicted in the picture above are significantly lower…
Banned Books Week 2021
Banned Books Week is an annual celebration of the freedom to read.
Although it is a more US-based event, we here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library are happy to signal boost and use this week as another opportunity to shout out some items bookish and book-adjacent.
Books and Birds
Today is National Pet Bird Day in the US! And, of course, I had to jump on the opportunity to wax enthusiastic about two of my favourite things – books and birds!
Books as Wall Art: A Practical Guide
This year is the tenth anniversary of When Words Collide, an annual readers and writers conference based in Calgary, Alberta. Today I had the privilege of delivering an encore presentation of my session on Books as Object, Sculpture, and Performance.
This post is not about that presentation.
But it was sparked by it, and by this photo from my slide deck…
Shuttle: The World’s First Spaceship
I’ve had people critique my love of print books as “just nostalgia.” Setting aside for the moment all the archival, psychological, and other reasons why print still holds a prime place in literary culture, what exactly is wrong with nostalgia as a reason for keeping books around.
To wit, my copy of Shuttle: The World’s First Spaceship by Robert M. Powers, published in May 1980 by Warner Books, eleven months before the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, on Mission STS-1, on April 12, 1981.
On hand rails and old books…
You can’t really tell from looking at this photo, but years of people sliding their hands along this wood railing have polished the outside edge so smooth that it feels like polished marble. Everything else around me was rough and “natural,” even the exposed grain and scratchy texture of the rest of the railing. Then out of the blue, this uncanny unexpected smooth…
