blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

We all know that it’s big, important, and crucial to our culture. After that, the details get vague. The truth is that the Library of Congress has a fascinating history, as well as a pretty cool present, and we’d like you to be as informed about the library as those that use it are about the world we live in. Read on to find out how the Library of Congress became the library of the people, and how it literally rose from the ashes and became an institutional gem in our nation’s history.

Rarely can a work be called “unique” and truly earn that qualifier. The Golden Notebook is that unicorn in literature that is recognized as one of a kind, or as the Oxford Companion to English Literature terms it, "inner space fiction." It's a novel in four parts, (or is it one?) that reflect the narrator’s feelings about communism, and include a novel within a novel, a personal diary, and then the final depiction wherein the previous three become one, glorious, Golden Notebook. Each part is revisited, overlapping with one another, and the whole thing is a reading experience like no other.

Hans Christian Andersen is a strange and fascinating figure who wrote a great many stories for children. His name is synonymous with love, splendor, and the wonderment of childhood. His own childhood was less than perfect, existing in deep poverty as the child of an illiterate washerwoman. He left his first life at 14 to find a new one with a wealthy family. He spun this fortune into a career in the arts, finding his mark with children’s stories in 1835. From there he remained a servant to the child’s ear, and his work has spawned retellings, both comical and romantic, for generations since.

On March 31, 2016, author, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust concentration camp survivor Imre Kertész passed away. Today, we pay tribute to him and all that he taught us through his life and work.

To experience the Holocaust before the word was invented, before it had historical context, before it was what it has become in our cultural narrative, when it was just something that was occurring, when the larger questions of humanity were beyond reason and the truth of what was necessary boiled down to moment-to-moment survival...this is the story of the man who won the Noble Prize in Literature in  2002,  Imre Kertész.

Mario Vargas Llosa may be one of the finest writers of his generation, but that is not all the man does. His passion for language is coupled with his passion for book collecting and a desire to do great works as well as write them. Among numerous other endeavors, he is finding his place on the stage, and he has recently donated two massive collections to the Arequipa Regional Library. Along with his ongoing commitment to donate further from his personal collection, this donation brings the total number of volumes into the tens of thousands.  

Most of us who have children, or have been children, can find ourselves murmuring, “A told B and B told C, I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree” the way others absentmindedly hum a song from the radio. The knowledge that he once wanted his work to be compared to jazz music is no great surprise, as Bill Martin Jr. penned many books like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom—a story about an alphabet made up of naughty lowercase letters who climb up a coconut tree and are sent crashing down only to be rescued by their uppercase parents—all geared towards the inquisitive, rhythm-hungry minds of children.

The list of Caldecott Award Winners—those books that have been recognized by the Association of Library Service to Children for being the most distinguished American picture book for children—is long and varied. The Little House, Madeline, Where the Wild Things Are, Frog Went A-Courtin’, and many more famous books might come to mind when thinking of the Caldecott honor. However, there are more than a few unusual treasures that you’ve probably never heard of. Now we bring them off the shelves, clear some dust, and introduce you to these winners of one of the highest honors in children’s book publishing.

The role of journalist is a multifaceted one. Between investigating, thinking, writing, and trying to be heard, journalists have the propensity to make a huge impact on society and their readers. This is a list of five such British journalists who—through actions, words, and a desire to shape the minds of the citizens they wrote for—changed the world. 

What is a bookworm, anyway? Is it the baby of a beetle? A living creature that loves books? A larvae placed there by a moth? Why do we care, again?

If you're interested in learning more about how to identify and beat the bookworm in order to keep your books and collection safe, you're in the right place. Read on for our best bookworm-busting strategies.

Book collecting can be a complex and varied activity, hobby, or profession. First editions, rare editions, signed editions, provenance...these are all areas in which one needs to be educated. But what if you want to collect, but don’t necessarily want to take a master’s course to do it? Even better, what if you just want to collect what you love, and love what you collect? One possible solution is to become a collector of children’s books.