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Someone somewhere (where else, one of the blogs) was wondering if selling books second hand was legal. That set me searching (still) and, as is always the case with surfing, I chanced upon other very interesting links and parked my attention at each of these spots. Here we go, logging them for revisits:

The History of the Book - the papyrus to parchment to paper story. Did those early readers lament papyrus losing to parchment and all? We would have created a ruckus I bet.

Why is everyone linking to Uncommon Arrangements? In the last two days of catching up I've forgotten how many times this link showed up. And we go around saying gossip is bad!

My Father's Library:

My father's lifelong relationship with books mirrored Hugh Hefner's relationship with bimbos; day and night, he always had to have several within reach. He slept with a pile of them on his bed. He drove with a couple of them open on the seat next to him. While traveling, someone, usually the smallest in the family, had to trail him with a book bag as if it were the President's nuclear football.
...
When I was still young enough not to repeat tales like this to my mother, Dad brought me to Sonoma to visit a fellow Jack London fanatic with a bookstore right next to the Jack London Ranch. "Here's something for the collection," Dad's jovial book pal said, pulling out from his desk drawer a large clear plastic bag filled with gray powder. "Jack's niece," he announced. "She died without any relatives, so now I've got her remains." Dad examined the proffered bag with fascination. The air between the two men filled with unspoken genetic speculations, price calculations and home-storage ideas. One of them--I'd like to remember it as being Dad--finally broke the silence: "Probably best to spread them over his grave?" There should be a punctuation mark for regret.

If one may be so bold as to make a small suggestion while posting NY Times (and other articles which require signing in) links, one would say, rather than its normal url, clicking on the print button in the NY Times page and linking to that print url will:

a. parse the mandatory sign-in

b. fit the article in a single page.

(better reading experience for all those poor souls who have to rack their brains for the username/pwd and/or seek bug-me-not's assistance)

For instance, the print URL of Uncommon Arrangements

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About me

  • I'm Echo/Lavanya
  • From Chennai, India
  • So, we are curious now? My folks named me Lavanya, and it does have a meaning. I named myself Echo, for this blog. And that has a meaning too. Therefore, I have more than one name; I can walk; I can talk; I can read; I can even write; I can count - 9 'I's already and that is absolutely disgusting; I can also lie about numbers. Do you need to hear more?
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