Melville House Books

Libraries & librarians

• Mexico’s library on wheels

  A jaw-droppingly beautiful mobile library is doing the rounds of Mexico City. A local arts nonprofit, Alumnos47, had been working for years to bring a brick-and-mortar library of art books… Read more »

• Prying guns from their cold, dead, well-read hands

  Meredith Schwartz reports in Library Journal about one Michigan library’s struggle to keep guns from between their stacks. The Michigan Court of Appeals heard oral arguments July 11th in the… Read more »

• Erotica and the state of publishing in Yemen

  It’s not just Fifty Shades of Grey: it seems that erotic literature is having a moment in Yemen, too. The Yemen Observer reports that street-side booksellers in Tahrir Square are… Read more »

• Wal-Mart store finally put to good use

  When a Wal-Mart location shut its doors in McAllen, Texas, it left behind a 124,500 square-foot building that was given back to the city—and rather than turn over the massive space to another… 1 / Read more »

• Library of Congress picks its 88 most influential books

  The Library of Congress has opened an exhibition this week celebrating “Books That Shaped America,” a display of 88 books that they’ve deemed to have the most influence on American… Read more »

• Burning books to save a library?

  This week, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival honors the most creative work in the ad industry, and one of the biggest winners is a campaign to save a small… 1 / Read more »

• A new plan for the NYPL?

  Writer Caleb Crain here pushes hard for compromise on the New York Public Library’s Central Library Plan (which has been covered previously on MobyLives here, here, and here). In Crain’s… Read more »

• Joseph Heller’s typewriter and desk on display at university library

  For fans of novelist Joseph Heller, a library at the University of South Carolina’s campus at Columbia is the place to go for Heller’s work and memorabilia. According to an Associated… Read more »

• Prison book program celebrates 40 years of freeing minds

  It’s the 40th anniversary of the Prison Book Program, based in Qunicy, MA, said to be the oldest such book donation program in the country, according to this story in… Read more »

• UK library, opened by Mark Twain, stripped bare by city council in middle of the night

  In a move that has been roundly denounced as cowardly by protestors, the Brent city council ordered the removal of all materials from the Kensal Rise Library — a decision… Read more »