Happy Fourth Birthday!
And here we are, January 1, 2025, and celebrating the fourth birthday of the Butterflies & Aliens Library of Literary Eccentricities & Rarities!
So… crazy year has followed crazy year — even less posting in 2024 than in 2023! — but we are still here, and what began as our little digital refuge back in 2021 will continue to be just that, a place we can escape to once in a while to be unabashedly nerdy and bookish, and we hope you can too.
That’s the thing about libraries… they might not be a daily need but they are critical when they are needed. Virtual or physical, metaphorical or solidly bricks and mortar, libraries continue to be a necessary third space and safe space, especially in a world and culture that often feels increasingly unanchored. The Butterflies & Aliens Library has certainly been that for us, and we’re cautiously hoping we can return a bit more of that love in 2025.
But in the meantime, a quick little post of some random bookish things from 2024…
Winston: Some early in the year acquisitions from Paper Birch Books, The Prints & The Paper, and the Daisy Chain Book Company in Edmonton!
Pictured are the A-Z of Letterpress by Alan Kitching, The Frood: The Authorized and Very Official History of Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Jem Roberts, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts by Douglas Adams, Frog and Toad Are Doing Their Best written by Jennie Egerdie and illustrated by Ellie Hajdu, and 100 Word Zombie Bites: An Undead Drabbles Anthology edited by Valerie Lioudis.
Stacey: I haven’t purchased many books this year but have found some wonderful and weird second hand books through Salamander Salt Curio. Very niche and very cool.
Acquisitions include Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England by John Putnam Demos, a vintage copy of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind, and Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll by Peter Bebergal.
Winston: Summer road trip to the coast meant visiting a bunch of bookstores in Victoria, BC, and all through the BC interior. Highlights include a number of additions to the alphabet book collection!
The pictured book pile includes 101 Ways to Kill a Zombie written by Robb Pearlman and illustrated by Dave Urban, Edward Gorey’s The Glorious Nosebleed, West Coast Wild ABC written by Deborah Hodge and illustrated by Karen Reczuch, A Floral ABC by Elizabeth Cameron, S is for Salmon by Hannah Viano, From Acorn to Zoo by Satoshi Kitamura, Amphigorey Too by Edward Gorey, An Alphabet of Old Friends and The Absurd ABC by Walter Crane, Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson, and LEGO: The Art of the Minifigure by Brian Barrett.
Stacey: Second hand acquisitions from Fair’s Fair in Calgary. Again very niche and creepy but absolutely my jam…
Acquisitions include In Search of Dracula: A History of Dracula and Vampires by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, CryptoFiction Classics: Weird Tales of Creepy Crawlies: A Fine Selection of Fantastical Short Stories of Mysterious Insects and Spiders, Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow, and The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present by Ronald Hutton.
Winston: Grand opening of the new Porch Light Books in Edmonton!
Acquisitions include The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers, The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes, Gutenberg’s Fingerprint by Merilyn Simonds, A Book of Books by Abelardo Morell, Five Hundred Years of Book Design by Alan Bartram, and a signed copy of The University of Alberta Library: The First Hundred Years, 1908-2008, by Merrill Distad.
Stacey: Ultimate second hand score at Fair’s Fair after my bucket list Stray Cats concert at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City in August. I love that music is book adjacent (I mean tell me lyrics aren’t poetry – fight me) and that while being very burned out and dealing with a multitude of issues this year, I have found extreme joy in rediscovering the power of live music post-pandemic.
Pictured is A Stray Cat Struts: My Life as a Rockabilly Rebel by Slim Jim Phantom.
Because even though we lean heavy into the bookish here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library, like most modern libraries we have a deep love for all the arts, multimedia, culture, music, movies, theatre, and of course books whether printed, audio, digital, or occasionally cut up.
From the both of us then, a wish for a thoroughly art-filled 2025!
And Happy Reading!
— Stacey & Winston