English
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The Purpose of Reading
‘Why are we reading, if not in the hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatise our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our…
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Clarice Lispector reflecting about The Instant
‘The instant is this one. The instant is of an imminence that takes my breath away. The instant is in itself imminent. At the same time that I live it, I burst into its passage into another instant.‘― Clarice Lispector
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Ralph Waldo Emerson on Productivity
‘If any of us knew what we were doing, or where we are going, then when we think we best know! We do not know today whether we are busy or idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us. All our…
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The Soul of the Bookstore
‘The bookstore comprises books that have chronometers. As they come and they go, these books compose the bookstore. Too often our impatience as retailers relegates books to the dustbin before the upper chamber of their hourglass has emptied.‘― Jeff Deutsch
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The Art of Time
‘Bookselling is an art, and art takes time and divides it up as art sees fit.‘― Zadie Smith
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The Destinies of Books
‘Books have destinies as objects, and people appointments with them.‘― Gotham Book Mart
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The Mission of the IAS: Research Without Boundaries
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner and intended to be a paradise for scholars, with no students or administrative duties. One of the institute’s first faculty members was Albert Einstein who got a position there in 1933 when he had to flee nazi Germany. In 2023 the IAS…
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Book Publishing: Balancing Care and Profit
‘A caring for books preeminent to a purely business concern, is anything but an anti-business point of view. Instead, it is good business and only establishes that the time table for book publishing success may often be different from the time table of other industries viewed statistically.‘― Peter Mayer
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Amazon Book Selling and the Ethics of Wealth Accumulation
‘Modern mass merchants like Amazon have fallen sway to perhaps the most insolently futile idea that ever beguiled men through their vices: that wealth can be gained irrespectively of the consideration of its moral sources. ‘― John Ruskin
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The Value of Gifts vs Commodities
‘A commodity has value and a gift has not. A gift has worth. ‘― Lewis Hyde
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