In the introduction to her short story collection Ghosts, Edith Wharton wrote that the titular subjects of her compilation “require two conditions abhorrent to the modern mind: silence and continuity” to become present in the corporeal world. These elements seem to be all the more imperiled amid our fragmented hyper-mediated age.
Continue readingWhile browsing for a Christmas present for my wife at a local independent bookstore (Little City Books in Hoboken, New Jersey, which deserves its own review), I happened upon a counter display of tiny books published by Biblioasis, a small, independent publishing house in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
The books belong to the Christmas Ghost Stories series with titles by Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, M.R. James, and other authors. Each pocket-sized book includes cover art and illustrations by Seth (Gregory Gallant), the cartoonist behind Palookaville. I picked up one of the exquisitely-designed volumes. While leafing through the stitched–yes, stitched, not glued–pages, I marveled at the quality of the paper stock and the heft of the publication. This felt like … well, a true book. A valuable object unto itself.
Another Town on the Hudson 