Over and Out, Atlanta Booklover’s Blog

Cal Gough Tools for Booklovers

After realizing it had been a full six months since I had posted an update to this blog, I finally realized it was high time to give up on this particular project.

The Atlanta Booklover’s Blog was a place to share my enthusiasm for All Things Bookish, but since I started it back in December 2008, other Internet sites have been doing an excellent job at this sort of thing. For example, on Facebook alone there are several book- and reading-focused pages that Constant Readers will informative and/or humorous. I especially recommend:

Discontinuing my already-infrequent updating of the Atlanta Booklover’s Blog will (theoretically) allow me to concentrate on updating more often my personal blog.

The Internet being what it is, the Atlanta Booklover’s Blog will continue to exist until I get around to asking the good people at WordPress how to “delete” it. In the meantime, I have migrated to the aforementioned personal blog some of my favorite features of the Booklover’s Blog, including my collections of quotations about books, about bookstores, about book collecting, about censorship, about the classics, about libraries, about reading, and about reading and writers.

Previous readers of this blog might also check out the three dozen websites, blogs, and newsletters listed in my personal blog‘s blogroll under the heading “Sites Cal Likes: Bibliophilia”:

Many thanks to those of you Out There who have read at least a few of the posts to this blog, to everyone who left a comment on a blogpost, and to all who may have found a factoid, essay, or cartoon to reinforce their own love of All Things Bookish.

Mid-Year Roundup of Bookish Humor

Cal Gough Bookish Humor

Most of the following gems were posted to Facebook within the past six months or so:

Source: Posted to Facebook July 5, 2023 by Because All The Books

Source: Posted by Scott Morash to Positively Book Crazy’s Facebook page, July 9, 2023

Source: Posted June 25, 2023 to Facebook by The Goodwill Librarian

Source: Posted to Facebook June 16, 2023 by Bookstr

Source: Posted June 18 by Leslie Lynch Gentz to Literary Jokes & Puns’ Facebook page

Source: Posted to Facebook June 6, 2023 by Awesome Librarians

Source: Posted to Facebook May 30, 2023 by Books – An Escape

Source: Posted to Facebook May 29, 2023 by Romance Books

Source: Posted to Facebook May 18, 2023 by I Love Book

Source: Posted to Facebook May 10, 2023 by Bookaholics

Source: Posted by Janet Dight May 3, 2023 to LIterary Jokes & Puns

Source: Posted to Facebook April 26, 2023 by Bookstr; graphic by Kayla Dunham-Torres

Source: Posted to Facebook April 18, 2023 by I Love Book

Source: Posted April 6, 2023 by Leslie Lynch Gintz to Literary Jokes & Puns’s Facebook page

Source: Cartoon by Zoe Si, posted January 30, 2023 to Facebook by The New Yorker Humor

Source: Posted to Facebook January 27, 2023 by Bookstr

Source: Posted to Facebook January 23, 2023 by The Reading Lists

Source: Posted by Scott Jones to The Laughing Librarian’s Facebook page, December 27, 2022

Source: Posted January 11, 2023 by Shannon Kyrie Kubala to Literary Jokes & Puns’ Facebook page

Source: Posted January 10, 2023 by Laura Lee to Literary Jokes & Puns’ Facebook page

Source: Posted January 9, 2023 by Joanne Fitzpatrick to The Laughing Librarian’s Facebook page

Source: Cartoon by Grant Snider; posted December 11, 2022 by Laura Lee to The Goodwill Librarian’s Facebook page

Source: Posted to Facebook December 22, 2022 by The Goodwill Librarian (via Pinterest)

Source: Posted August 24, 2022 by Jennifer Gallardo Kieves to Literary Jokes & Puns’ Facebook page

Source: Posted to Facebook December 4, 2017 by The Goodwill Librarian

Mid-Year Roundup of Bookish Quotations

Cal Gough Bookish Quotes

Below are a dozen bookish quotations posted to Facebook so far this year.

Source: Sarah Gordon’s Facebook page, via Garden of Bright Images Facebook page, June 23, 2023

Source: Posted June 25, 2023 by Faithy Jass to the English Literature and Linguistics Facebook page

Source: Posted to Facebook by Gloria Gough, via the May 22, 2023 post of Because All The Books

Source: Posted May 21, 2023 to Facebook by Sarah Gordon

Posted May 1, 2023 to Facebook by The Goodwill Librarian

Source: Posted April 28, 2023 to Facebook by Books – An Escape

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Source: Posted April 20, 2023 to Facebook by The Goodwill Librarian

Source: Posted March 28, 2023 to Facebook by BiblioCave

Source: Posted February 27, 2023 by Qaim Ali Haidery to English Literature and Linguistics’ Facebook page

Source: Posted February 18, 2023 to Bookstr’s Facebook page

Source: Quotation by Somerset Maugham posted February 16, 2023 by Inge Boulonois to Literary Jokes & Puns’ Facebook page

Posted January 5, 2023 to Facebook by The Goodwill Librarian

For many more bookish quotations (albeit without any eye-catching illustrations), click here.

Behold: The Vanity Bookshelf

Cal Gough The Bookish Home

We’ve all seen those boxes manufactured to resemble books. Many of us booklovers even own a few of these fake books, even if we’ve never gotten around to storing things in them (hidden storage being the ostensible purpose of these book look-alikes).

Many of us have marveled over photos of wallpaper, shower curtains, and bedspreads with images of bookshelves full of books.

And most of us have read about movie propmasters buying “books by the yard” to populate interior scenes of the movies they’re helping to create.

What you might not have known about, however, is that more and more interior designers are being asked by some of their clients to use book collections as props in their houses. Books they’ve never read and never intend to. Or they’re having installed in their houses wall-sized expanses of merely the spines of books rather than actual books.

That bookcase of beautiful vintage books you’re noticing at someone’s fancy house may actually be a facade hiding a Murphy bed!

An article (with numerous photos) published in today’s New York Times calls this decor trend the “fake book” phenomenon.

Read it and weep (or laugh, or admire, or reflect on the persistence of human vanity, or whatever).

Tips on “How to Read Better”

Cal Gough The Reading Life

Last October, the New York Times published, for the second time, an article written by xx that describes multiple ways of “improving” or at least adding variety – to one’s reading practices/routines.

The article is wide ranging in the types of recommendations it explores:

  • Choose the Right Book
  • Make a Reading Plan
  • Read More Deeply
  • Read More Critically
  • Explore Different Formats
  • Read More Socially
  • Enhance Your Post-Book Experience

Subscribers to the Times can read the October 2022 article online here.

National Public Radio’s website includes a 2020 list of similar tips for creating a more satisfying reading life.

On the Joys of Reading Slowly

Cal Gough The Reading Life

“There is something about churning through books that induces envy and even admiration, never more than at this time of year when piles of finished tomes are splashed across social media. Bragging rights seem to go to those who have read lots of books and read them quickly . . . .”

That’s how journalist Susie Mesure starts out her profile in The Guardian of Princeton professor and Chinese-American author Yiyun Li and Li’s thoughts on the advantages of eschewing the “devouring” of books.

Read Mesure’s article.

Say Hello to “Jesse The Reader”

Cal Gough Bookish Humor, Bookstores, The Reading Life

Jesse The Reader is a book-loving blogger who frequently posts humorous videos about the thoughts that run through his mind on his visits to bookstores, or when he contemplates his reading-related patterns.

For example:

Hyperlinks to all Jesse The Reader’s book/reading-related videos is here. His Facebook page is here.