Brazil Gives Out Books That Double as Subway Tickets, Promoting Literacy & Mass Transit at Once

in Books, Design, Life, Travel | January 6th, 2016

One of the things I miss about liv­ing in a city with a sub­way sys­tem is the myr­i­ad thought­ful design ele­ments that go into man­ag­ing a per­pet­u­al flow of tourists and com­muters. New York’s sub­way map presents us with an icon­ic tan­gle of inter­lock­ing trib­u­taries resem­bling dia­grams of a cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem. The NYC system’s inge­nious­ly sim­ple graph­ic pre­sen­ta­tion of let­tered and num­bered trains, encir­cled in their cor­re­spond­ing col­ors, can be read by most any­one with a rudi­men­ta­ry grasp on the Eng­lish alphabet—from a new lan­guage learn­er to a small child. The Wash­ing­ton, DC sub­way sys­tem, though a much more pro­sa­ic affair over­all, whisks rid­ers through impres­sive­ly cav­ernous, cat­a­comb-like sta­tions, with bru­tal­ist tile and con­crete hon­ey­combs that seem to go on for­ev­er. The squig­gly lines of its col­or-cod­ed map like­wise promise ease of use and leg­i­bil­i­ty.

Ticket-Books_LPM-1-957x644

And then there are the hours of read­ing time grant­ed by a sub­way com­mute, a leisure I’ve relin­quished now that I rely on car and bike. So you can imag­ine my envi­ous delight in learn­ing about Brazil’s Tick­et Books, which are exact­ly what they sound like—books that work as sub­way tick­ets, designed with the min­i­mal­ist care that major tran­sit sys­tems do so well. And what’s more, they’re free: “To cel­e­brate World Book Day last April 23rd,” writes “future-for­ward online resource” PSFK, “[Brazil­lian pub­lish­er] L&PM gave away 10,000 books for free at sub­way sta­tions across São Paulo. Each book came with ten free trips.” Rid­ers could then recharge them and use the books again or pass them on to oth­ers to encour­age more read­ing, an impor­tant pub­lic ser­vice giv­en that Brazil­ians only read two books per year on aver­age.

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With sub­way map-inspired cov­ers designed by firm Agên­cia Africa, the books include The Great Gats­by, The Art of War, Ham­let, Mur­der Alley by Agatha Christie, Hun­dred Love Son­nets by Pablo Neru­da, and more (includ­ing com­ic col­lec­tions from Charles Schulz and Garfield’s Jim Davis). Watch an explain­er video at the top of the post and see some love­ly images of the book cov­ers above. The cam­paign won three tro­phies at the Cannes Lions Fes­ti­val in the cat­e­gories “Pro­mo,” “Out­door,” and “Design,” and has proved so pop­u­lar that pub­lish­er L&PM has expand­ed the project to oth­er Brazil­ian cities, giv­ing me yet more rea­son to vis­it Brazil. And if Tick­et Books makes its way to a sub­way-enabled city near me, I may con­sid­er mov­ing.

via PSFK

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Design­er Mas­si­mo Vignel­li Revis­its and Defends His Icon­ic 1972 New York City Sub­way Map

Com­muters Can Down­load Free eBooks of Russ­ian Clas­sics While Rid­ing the Moscow Metro

55 Cov­ers of Vin­tage Phi­los­o­phy, Psy­chol­o­gy & Sci­ence Books Come to Life in a Short Ani­ma­tion

Artist Ani­mates Famous Book Cov­ers in an Ele­gant, Under­stat­ed Way

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Bill Gates, Book Critic, Names His Top 5 Books of 2015

in Books | January 4th, 2016

When you think Bill Gates, you think Microsoft co-founder and big-time phil­an­thropist. Now you can add to the list, book crit­ic. This week­end, The New York Times pro­filed Bill Gates’ pen­chant for review­ing books on his blog, Gates Notes, and how (much like Oprah) when Gates gives a book a thumbs up, it moves copies. Many copies.

Above, you can watch a Gates-nar­rat­ed video high­light­ing his five favorite books of 2015. It includes: 1.) Thing Explain­er: Com­pli­cat­ed Stuff in Sim­ple Words by Ran­dall Munroe, which “explains var­i­ous subjects—from how smart­phones work to what the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion says—using only the 1,000 most com­mon words in the Eng­lish lan­guage and blue­print-style dia­grams”; 2) Mind­set: The New Psy­chol­o­gy of Suc­cess by Car­ol S. Dweck, a best­selling book that uses “clever research stud­ies and engag­ing writ­ing” to illu­mi­nate “how our beliefs about our capa­bil­i­ties exert tremen­dous influ­ence on how we learn and which paths we take in life”; and 3) Sus­tain­able Mate­ri­als With Both Eyes Open, a book writ­ten by Cam­bridge researchers that explores the ques­tion, “How much can we reduce car­bon emis­sions that come from mak­ing and using stuff?”. Oth­er books on Gates’ short list includes David Brooks’ The Road to Char­ac­ter and Being Nixon: A Man Divid­ed, by Evan Thomas.

You can find a num­ber of Gates’ book reviews in the Books sec­tion of his site.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Six Books (and One Blog) Bill Gates Wants You to Read This Sum­mer

Take Big His­to­ry: A Free Short Course on 13.8 Bil­lion Years of His­to­ry, Fund­ed by Bill Gates

View Bill Gates’ Mobile Library: The Books & Cours­es That Help Him Change The World

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The First Adult Coloring Book: See the Subversive Executive Coloring Book From 1961

in Books, Coloring Books, Politics | December 31st, 2015

Exec Coloring 1

Since the Har­ry Pot­ter craze began, we’ve seen young adult fic­tion gain mas­sive pop­u­lar­i­ty with adults, in ways some crit­ics have lament­ed as a trend that infan­tilizes the buy­ing pub­lic. (Some say the same about super­hero films and adult fans of boy bands). Katie Couric iden­ti­fied the phe­nom­e­non as “the rise of so-called Peter Pan activ­i­ties,” throw­ing “adult sum­mer camps and Lego leagues” in the mix. Crit­ics of Peter Panism can add anoth­er trend to their bat­tery of exam­ples: the rise of the adult col­or­ing book. Busi­ness Insid­er report­ed in April that “in Britain, four out of the top 10 Ama­zon best­sellers are col­or­ing (or colour­ing, as the Brits insist) books for adults.” Cur­rent­ly, Amazon’s top 20 best­sellers for 2015 includes three adult col­or­ing books. Among so many oth­er con­sumer signs and por­tents, adult col­or­ing books may indeed her­ald a com­ing apoc­a­lypse, at least for Rus­sell Brand, who won­ders, “What has turned us into ter­ri­fied divs that want to live in child­ish stu­pors?”

Well, whether “child­ish,” art ther­a­py or “Zen,” adult col­or­ing books meet a need mil­lions of grown-ups have to soothe their jan­gled nerves, and it seems almost cru­el to mock peo­ple so anx­i­ety-rid­den they’ve returned to kinder­garten reme­dies. Then again, it’s worth not­ing, as Smith­son­ian did recent­ly, “the adult col­or­ing con­cept is not exact­ly new.”

It dates back to the 1960s, when “book­stores explod­ed” with col­or­ing books geared exclu­sive­ly toward adults. The dif­fer­ence between then and now lies in the fact that those books were adult in con­tent as well as form—“satirical and sub­ver­sive,” offer­ing “a mock­ing look at Amer­i­can soci­ety.” The first of these, The Exec­u­tive Col­or­ing Book, arrived in 1961, fol­lowed by The John Birch Soci­ety Col­or­ing Book and many sim­i­lar titles “sat­i­riz­ing con­formism, John F. Kennedy and the Sovi­et Union,” among oth­er tar­gets. And yet, “Unlike the adult col­or­ing books fly­ing off the shelves today,” Smith­son­ian writes, “these books were not cre­at­ed with the inten­tion to be col­ored in.”

Exec Coloring 2

Take the two pages from The Exec­u­tive Col­or­ing Book above. The first, at the top, shows us our exec­u­tive prepar­ing for his day with the cap­tion “THIS IS MY SUIT. Col­or it gray or I will lose my job.” Above, a line of iden­ti­cal exec­u­tives boards a train. Ham­mer­ing home the point, we’re told “THIS IS MY TRAIN. It takes me to my office every day. You meet lots of inter­est­ing peo­ple on the train. Col­or them all gray.” A notable excep­tion to these drea­ry instruc­tions, below, tells us “THIS IS MY PILL. It is round. It is pink. It makes me not care. Watch me take my round, pink pill… and not care.” The con­tents of the pill may have changed, but the med­icat­ed work­er bee is still very much with us, though the gray flan­nel suit is a thing of the past.

Exec Coloring 3

Rather than giv­ing its tar­get audi­ence a chance to become kids again, The Exec­u­tive Col­or­ing Book pokes fun at the ways in which pam­pered exec­u­tives of the Mad Men-era could them­selves be shal­low man­chil­dren. One page, below, shows the executive’s sec­re­tary with the cap­tion “THIS IS MY SECRETARY. I hate her. She is mean. I used to have a soft, round lady. But my wife called her papa.” Anoth­er (bot­tom), rem­i­nis­cent of the busi­ness card scene in Amer­i­can Psy­cho, shows us the executive’s impor­tant phone: “THIS IS MY TELEPHONE. It has five but­tons. Count them. One, two, three, four, five. Five but­tons. How many but­tons does your tele­phone have? Mine has five.”

Exec Coloring 4

From its faux-leather cov­er to its final page of busi­ness-speak gib­ber­ish, the whole thing is a mas­ter­ful­ly sim­ple, self-con­tained piece of con­cep­tu­al art. The next pub­li­ca­tion by the same authors, The John Birch Col­or­ing Book, made its inten­tions a lit­tle more obvi­ous. A Sun­day Her­ald review quotes from its intro­duc­tion: “This book is respect­ful­ly ded­i­cat­ed to Dwight D. Eisen­how­er and many oth­er loy­al Amer­i­cans who have been maligned by extrem­ist groups.” One cap­tion reads “This is our eagle. We cut off his left wing. Now he is an all Amer­i­can eagle. But he flies only in cir­cles.” The “Birchers will have to learn to smile,” writes the review­er, as the book “spare[s] not their feel­ings.” Not like­ly. Rather than sell­ing relax­ation, the adult col­or­ing books of the 60s were “engaged,” wrote Mil­ton Brack­er in a 1962 New York Times review, “in polit­i­cal war­fare.”

Exec Coloring 5

via Smith­son­ian and Ad to the Bone

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Down­load 15,000+ Free Gold­en Age Comics from the Dig­i­tal Com­ic Muse­um

Read Mar­tin Luther King and The Mont­gomery Sto­ry: The Influ­en­tial 1957 Civ­il Rights Com­ic Book

Dr. Seuss Draws Anti-Japan­ese Car­toons Dur­ing WWII, Then Atones with Hor­ton Hears a Who!

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Old Book Illustrations: Free Archive Lets You Download Beautiful Images From the Golden Age of Book Illustration

in Art, Books, Literature, Magazines | December 17th, 2015

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Need­less to say, before the devel­op­ment and wide­spread use of pho­tog­ra­phy in mass pub­li­ca­tions, illus­tra­tions pro­vid­ed the only visu­al accom­pa­ni­ment to reli­gious texts, nov­els, books of poet­ry, sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies, and mag­a­zines lit­er­ary, lifestyle, and oth­er­wise. The devel­op­ment of tech­niques like etch­ing, engrav­ing, and lith­o­g­ra­phy enabled artists and print­ers to bet­ter col­lab­o­rate on more detailed and col­or­ful plates. But what­ev­er the media, behind each of the mil­lions of illus­tra­tions to appear in man­u­script and print—before and after Gutenberg—there was an artist. And many of those artists’ names are now well known to us as exem­plars of graph­ic art styles.

It was in the 19th cen­tu­ry that book and mag­a­zine illus­tra­tion began its gold­en age. Illus­tra­tions by artists like George Cruik­shank (see his “’Mon­stre’ Bal­loon” above”) were so dis­tinc­tive as to make their cre­ators famous. The huge­ly influ­en­tial Eng­lish satire mag­a­zine Punch, found­ed in 1841, became the first to use the word “car­toon” to mean a humor­ous illus­tra­tion, usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a humor­ous cap­tion. The draw­ings of Punch car­toons were gen­er­al­ly more visu­al­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed than the aver­age New York­er car­toon, but their humor was often as pithy and oblique. And at times, it was nar­ra­tive, as in the car­toon below by French artist George Du Mau­ri­er.

physiology-courtship

The lengthy cap­tion beneath Du Maurier’s illus­tra­tion, “Punch’s phys­i­ol­o­gy of courtship,” intro­duces Edwin, a land­scape painter, who “is now per­suad­ing Angeli­na to share with him the hon­ours and prof­its of his glo­ri­ous career, propos­ing they should mar­ry on the pro­ceeds of his first pic­ture, now in progress (and which we have faith­ful­ly rep­re­sent­ed above).” The humor is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Punch’s brand, as is the work of Du Mau­ri­er, a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor until his death. You can find much more of Cruik­shank and Du Mau­ri­er’s work at Old Book Illus­tra­tions, a pub­lic domain archive of illus­tra­tions from artists famous and not-so-famous. You’ll find there many oth­er resources as well, such as bio­graph­i­cal essays and a still-expand­ing online edi­tion of William Savage’s 1832 com­pendi­um of print­ing ter­mi­nol­o­gy, A Dic­tio­nary of the Art of Print­ing.

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Old Book Illus­tra­tions allows you to down­load high res­o­lu­tion images of its hun­dreds of fea­tured scans, “though it appears,” writes Boing Boing, “the scans are some­times worse-for-wear.” Most of the illus­tra­tions also “come with lots of details about their orig­i­nal cre­ation and print­ing.” You’ll find there many illus­tra­tions from an artist we’ve fea­tured here sev­er­al times before, Gus­tave Doré (see “Gor­gons and Hydras” from his Par­adise Lost edi­tion, above). As much as artists like Cruik­shank and Du Mau­ri­er can be said to have dom­i­nat­ed the illus­tra­tion of peri­od­i­cals in the 19th cen­tu­ry, Doré dom­i­nat­ed the field of book illus­tra­tion. In a lauda­to­ry bio­graph­i­cal essay on the French artist, Elbert Hub­bard writes, “He stands alone: he had no pre­de­ces­sors, and he left no suc­ces­sors.” You’ll find a beau­ti­ful­ly, and mor­bid­ly, 19th cen­tu­ry illus­trat­ed edi­tion of 17th cen­tu­ry poet Fran­cis Quar­les’ Emblems, with pages like that below, illus­trat­ing “The Body of This Death.”

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Not all of the illus­tra­tions at Old Book Illus­tra­tions date from the Vic­to­ri­an era, though most do. Some of the more strik­ing excep­tions come from Arthur Rack­ham, known pri­mar­i­ly as an ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry illus­tra­tor of fan­tasies and folk tales. See his “Pas de Deux” below from his edi­tion of The Ingolds­by Leg­ends. These are but a very few of the many hun­dreds of illus­tra­tions avail­able, and not all of them lit­er­ary or top­i­cal (see, for exam­ple, the “Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy” cat­e­go­ry). Be sure also to check out the OBI Scrap­book Blog, a run­ning log of illus­tra­tions from oth­er col­lec­tions and libraries.

pas-deux-768

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Gus­tave Doré’s Dra­mat­ic Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy

An Illus­tra­tion of Every Page of Her­man Melville’s Moby Dick

Har­ry Clarke’s 1926 Illus­tra­tions of Goethe’s Faust: Art That Inspired the Psy­che­del­ic 60s

William Blake’s Hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry Illus­tra­tions of John Milton’s Par­adise Lost

Aubrey Beardsley’s Macabre Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Sto­ries (1894)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Werner Herzog Creates Required Reading & Movie Viewing Lists for Enrolling in His Film School

in Books, Film | December 14th, 2015

“Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read… read, read… read,” Wern­er Her­zog once said. “If you don’t read, you will nev­er be a film­mak­er.” The direc­tor of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitz­car­ral­do, and Bad Lieu­tenant: Port of Call New Orleans has­n’t dis­tanced him­self from that pro­nounce­ment in assem­bling the cur­ricu­lum for his Rogue Film School, which we first fea­tured last year. Her­zog’s uncon­ven­tion­al crash-course in auteur­ship may promise to cov­er “the art of lock-pick­ing, trav­el­ing on foot, the exhil­a­ra­tion of being shot at unsuc­cess­ful­ly, the ath­let­ic side of film­mak­ing, the cre­ation of one’s own shoot­ing per­mits, the neu­tral­iza­tion of bureau­cra­cy, and gueril­la film­mak­ing,” but it also demands that its stu­dents hit the books.

Here, from the Rogue Film School’s about page, we have its required read­ing:

And its sug­gest­ed read­ing:

Like a more stan­dard film school, Her­zog’s pro­gram also has a required film-view­ing list, which includes a few of my own favorite direc­tors (though with noth­ing by Her­zog him­self, not that any stu­dent igno­rant of the man’s work would want to enroll in the first place):

Once these mate­ri­als have filled your head with visions of big-game hunt­ing, rebel­lion and counter-rebel­lion, Roman agri­cul­ture, ven­tures into ter­ra incog­ni­ta, com­ing of age in the third world, and the Texas School Book Depos­i­to­ry, will you then find your­self able to make a film? Only if you take these lists as but a start­ing point, and keep on read­ing, read­ing, read­ing, read­ing, and read­ing, as well as watch­ing, watch­ing, watch­ing, watch­ing, and watch­ing. And what about oth­er triv­ial mat­ters, like financ­ing? In more of Her­zog’s own, direct words (though sure­ly said in jest): “Rob a bank, for god’s sake!”

Note: The image used to high­light this post on Twit­ter and Face­book was tak­en by Erinc Salor, and it’s avail­able by Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Herzog’s Rogue Film School: Apply & Learn the Art of Gueril­la Film­mak­ing & Lock-Pick­ing

Wern­er Her­zog Picks His 5 Favorite Films

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

Wern­er Her­zog Gets Shot Dur­ing Inter­view, Doesn’t Miss a Beat

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Hear Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Read by His Great-Granddaughter, Monica

in Books, K-12, Literature, Radio | December 14th, 2015

In Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries where Christ­mas is cel­e­brat­ed, A Christ­mas Car­ol, Charles Dick­ens’ sec­u­lar Vic­to­ri­an tale of a Grinch restored to hol­i­day cheer, usu­al­ly plays some part.

How many chil­dren have been trau­ma­tized by Marley’s Ghost in the annu­al rebroad­cast of the half hour, 1971 ani­mat­ed ver­sion, fea­tur­ing the voic­es of Alis­tair Sim and Michael Red­grave as Scrooge and Bob Cratchit?

Per­son­al­ly, I lived in mor­tal fear of the cowled Ghost of Christ­mas Yet to Come from Scrooge, a movie musi­cal ver­sion star­ring Albert Finney.

Adap­ta­tions have been built around every­one from the Mup­pets to Bill Mur­ray.

And in some lucky fam­i­lies, an old­er rel­a­tive with a flair for the the­atri­cal reads the sto­ry aloud, prefer­ably on the actu­al day.

It’s a tra­di­tion that Charles Dick­ens him­self observed. It must’ve been a very pic­turesque scene, with his wife and all ten of their chil­dren gath­ered around. (Pre­sum­ably his mis­tress was not includ­ed in the fes­tiv­i­ties).

Even­tu­al­ly, the torch was passed to the next gen­er­a­tion, who mim­ic­ked and pre­served the cadences favored by the mas­ter.

Dick­ens great-grand­daugh­ter, nov­el­ist Mon­i­ca Dick­ens, who nar­rat­ed a con­densed ver­sion of the clas­sic tale in 1984, above, was schooled in the fam­i­ly inter­pre­ta­tion by her grand­fa­ther, Hen­ry Field­ing Dick­ens, who said of his famous father:

I remem­ber him as being at his best either at Christ­mas time or at oth­er times when Gad’s Hill was full of guests, for he loved social inter­course and was a per­fect host. At such times he rose to the very height of the occa­sion, and it is quite impos­si­ble to express in words his genial­i­ty and bril­lian­cy amid a bril­liant cir­cle.

Before the read­ing, Ms. Dick­ens shares some charm­ing anec­dotes about the orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion, but those with lim­it­ed time and/or a Scrooge-like aver­sion to jol­ly intros can skip ahead to 7:59, when Big Ben chimes to sig­nal the start of the sto­ry prop­er.

Her read­ing orig­i­nal­ly aired on Cape Cod’s radio sta­tion, 99.9 the Q. The read­ing will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Charles Dick­ens’ Hand-Edit­ed Copy of His Clas­sic Hol­i­day Tale, A Christ­mas Car­ol

A Christ­mas Car­ol, A Vin­tage Radio Broad­cast by Orson Welles and Lionel Bar­ry­more (1939)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Hear Ray Bradbury’s Classic Sci-Fi Story Fahrenheit 451 as a Radio Drama

in Audio Books, Books, Literature, Radio | November 19th, 2015

fahrenheit 451

Last week we fea­tured a list of 100 nov­els all kids should read before grad­u­at­ing from high school. Cho­sen by 500 Eng­lish teach­ers from all over Britain, the list hap­pens to have a lot of over­lap with many oth­ers like it. Invari­ably, these kinds of young adult read­ing lists include Ray Bradbury’s nov­el of dystopi­an cen­sor­ship and anti-intel­lec­tu­al­ism, Fahren­heit 451.  Why, I’ve always won­dered, should this nov­el be pitched almost exclu­sive­ly at teenagers, so much so that it seems like one of those books many of us read in high school, then nev­er read again, even if we are fans of Bradbury’s work?

A strange dis­con­nect emerges when we look at the his­to­ry of Bradbury’s nov­el as a teach­ing tool. Although most high school stu­dents are pre­sent­ed with free­think­ing as an ide­al, and giv­en cau­tion­ary tales of its sup­pres­sion, their own edu­ca­tions are just as often high­ly cir­cum­scribed by adults who fret about the effects of var­i­ous bad influ­ences.

Whether, as a stu­dent, you read the bowd­ler­ized or the “adult” ver­sion of Bradbury’s nov­el, per­haps it’s time to revis­it Fahren­heit 451, par­tic­u­lar­ly now that free­doms of thought, belief, and expres­sion have again come under intense scruti­ny. And in addi­tion to re-read­ing Bradbury’s nov­el, you can lis­ten to the 1971 radio play above. Pro­duced in Van­cou­ver by the CBC (and re-broad­cast in recent years by the Radio Enthu­si­asts of Puget Sound pod­cast), the abridged, one-hour adap­ta­tion by neces­si­ty changes the source mate­r­i­al, though for dra­mat­ic pur­pos­es, not to express­ly soft­en the mes­sage. Ray Brad­bury’s rep­u­ta­tion may have been tamed over the decades. He became late in life an avun­cu­lar sci-fi mas­ter, pri­mar­i­ly known as a writer of books for high school stu­dents. But at one time, his work—and sci­ence fic­tion in general—were so sub­ver­sive that the FBI kept close tabs on them.

If you like the Fahren­heit 451 adap­ta­tion, you can hear many more Brad­bury sto­ries adapt­ed into clas­sic radio plays at our pre­vi­ous post.

Also note: Tim Rob­bins has nar­rat­ed a new, unabridged audio ver­sion of Fahren­heit 451. It’s avail­able via Audible.com. You can get it for free with Audi­ble’s 30-day free tri­al. Get more details on that here.

via SFF

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Who Was Afraid of Ray Brad­bury & Sci­ence Fic­tion? The FBI, It Turns Out (1959)

Sci-Fi Leg­end Ray Brad­bury Cre­ates a Vision­ary Plan to Redesign Los Ange­les

Ray Brad­bury: “The Things That You Love Should Be Things That You Do.” “Books Teach Us That”

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Charles Dickens (Channeling Jorge Luis Borges) Created a Fake Library, with 37 Witty Invented Book Titles

in Books, Letters, Literature | November 17th, 2015

dickensshelf

I don’t know about you, but I’ve sort of always asso­ci­at­ed Charles Dick­ens with the kind of humor­less moral­ism and didac­tic sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty that are hall­marks of so much Vic­to­ri­an lit­er­a­ture. That’s prob­a­bly because the work of Dick­ens con­tains no small amount of humor­less moral­ism and didac­tic sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty. But it also con­tains much wit and absur­di­ty, inven­tive char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and rich descrip­tion. While nov­els like the short Hard Times, pub­lished in 1854, can seem more like thin­ly veiled tracts of moral phi­los­o­phy than ful­ly real­ized fic­tions, oth­ers, like the strange and whim­si­cal Pick­wick Papers—Dick­ens’ first—work as fan­ci­ful, light­heart­ed satires. The big, bag­gy nov­els like Great Expec­ta­tions, Bleak House, and A Tale of Two Cities (find in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks) man­age to skill­ful­ly com­bine these two impuls­es with his own twist on the goth­ic, such that Dick­ens’ work is not over­whelmed, as it might be, by ser­mo­niz­ing.

For all of this tidy sum­ma­tion of that giant of Vic­to­ri­an let­ters, one adjec­tive now comes to mind that I would nev­er have pre­vi­ous­ly thought to apply at any time to the writer of A Christ­mas Car­ol: Bor­ge­sian, as in pos­sessed of the scholas­tic wit of 20th cen­tu­ry Argen­tine writer Jorge Luis Borges. I’m not the first to note a resem­blance, but I must say it nev­er would have occurred to me to think of the two names in the same sen­tence were it not for an extra-cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ty Dick­ens engaged in while out­fit­ting his Lon­don home, Tavi­s­tock House, in 1851. Let­ters of Note’s sis­ter site Lists of Note brings us the fol­low­ing anec­dote:

[Dick­ens] decid­ed to fill two spaces in his new study with book­cas­es con­tain­ing fake books, the wit­ty titles of which he had invent­ed. And so, on Octo­ber 22nd, he wrote to a book­binder named Thomas Robert Eeles and sup­plied him with the fol­low­ing “list of imi­ta­tion book-backs” to be pro­duced.

You can see the complete—completely Borgesian—list below. Borges is of course well known for invent­ing titles of books that have nev­er exist­ed, but seem like they should, in anoth­er dimen­sion some­where. His inven­tion of alter­nate real­i­ties, and pub­li­ca­tions, man­i­fests in most all of his sto­ries, as well as in odd­i­ties like the Book of Imag­i­nary Beings. Like Borges’ made-up books, Dick­ens’ con­tain just the right mix of the self-seri­ous and the ridicu­lous, so as to make them at once plau­si­ble, cryp­tic, exot­ic, and hilarious—both Pick­wick­ian and, indeed, pro­to-Bor­ge­sian.

His­to­ry of a Short Chancery Suit
Cat­a­logue of Stat­ues of the Duke of Welling­ton
Five Min­utes in Chi­na. 3 vols.
Forty Winks at the Pyra­mids. 2 vols.
Aber­nethy on the Con­sti­tu­tion. 2 vols.
Mr. Green’s Over­land Mail. 2 vols.
Cap­tain Cook’s Life of Sav­age. 2 vols.
A Car­pen­ter’s Bench of Bish­ops. 2 vols.
Toot’s Uni­ver­sal Let­ter-Writer. 2 vols.
Orson­’s Art of Eti­quette.
Downeast­er’s Com­plete Cal­cu­la­tor.
His­to­ry of the Mid­dling Ages. 6 vols.
Jon­ah’s Account of the Whale.
Cap­tain Par­ry’s Virtues of Cold Tar.
Kan­t’s Ancient Hum­bugs. 10 vols.
Bow­wow­dom. A Poem.
The Quar­rel­ly Review. 4 vols.
The Gun­pow­der Mag­a­zine. 4 vols.
Steele. By the Author of “Ion.”
The Art of Cut­ting the Teeth.
Matthew’s Nurs­ery Songs. 2 vols.
Pax­ton’s Bloomers. 5 vols.
On the Use of Mer­cury by the Ancient Poets.
Drowsy’s Rec­ol­lec­tions of Noth­ing. 3 vols.
Heavyside’s Con­ver­sa­tions with Nobody. 3 vols.
Com­mon­place Book of the Old­est Inhab­i­tant. 2 vols.
Growler’s Gruffi­ol­o­gy, with Appen­dix. 4 vols.
The Books of Moses and Sons. 2 vols.
Burke (of Edin­burgh) on the Sub­lime and Beau­ti­ful. 2 vols.
Teaz­er’s Com­men­taries.
King Hen­ry the Eighth’s Evi­dences of Chris­tian­i­ty. 5 vols.
Miss Bif­fin on Deport­ment.
Mor­rison’s Pills Progress. 2 vols.
Lady Godi­va on the Horse.
Mun­chausen’s Mod­ern Mir­a­cles. 4 vols.
Richard­son’s Show of Dra­mat­ic Lit­er­a­ture. 12 vols.
Hansard’s Guide to Refresh­ing Sleep. As many vol­umes as pos­si­ble.

As Fla­vor­wire reports, design­er Ann Sap­pen­field cre­at­ed her own fake book­bind­ings with Dick­ens’ titles (see some at the top of the page, cour­tesy of the NYPL). These are part of a New York Pub­lic Library exhib­it called Charles Dick­ens: The Key to Char­ac­ter that ran in 2012–13. You can read Dick­ens orig­i­nal let­ter to Thomas Robert Eeles in The Let­ters of Charles Dick­ens here.

via Lists of Note/Fla­vor­wire

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Charles Dick­ens Gave His Cat “Bob” a Sec­ond Life as a Let­ter Open­er

Charles Dick­ens’ Hand-Edit­ed Copy of His Clas­sic Hol­i­day Tale, A Christ­mas Car­ol

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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