This Week in Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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Posts Tagged: Mental Floss
How the Paperback Saved Civilization
With America gripped by the Great Depression, booksellers found that $2.75 put hardcover books out of reach for most readers. (A movie ticket then cost just 20 cents.) In 1939, with a full-page ad in the New York Times and ten titles, Robert de Graff changed the industry with the introduction of 25-cent paperback books. […]
...moreDo Authors Use Symbols on Purpose?
In 1963, a high-schooler named Bruce McAllister decided he would prove to his English teacher once and for all that the symbols she was asking students to find in books like The Scarlet Letter were not actually put there on purpose by authors. So he sent a survey out to 150 authors asking if they intended to […]
...moreBill Watterson Breaks Silence
All the new media will inevitably change the look, function, and maybe even the purpose of comics, but comics are vibrant and versatile, so I think they’ll continue to find relevance one way or another. But they definitely won’t be the same as what I grew up with. Mental Floss achieved the impossible and scored […]
...moreOrganic Keeping-on
Mental Floss’s brief history of the term “OK” is more than just all right. Using Allan Metcalf’s OK: The Improbably Story of America’s Greatest Word as a source, it covers not only the term’s birth, but also how it went the 19th-century version of viral and attained an almost miraculous staying power. Our rating: Overall, keen.
...moreInked Up Librarians
Mental Floss compiles tattooed librarians. As expected, much of the skin art is literary themed, but that is not to say that classic skull and bones motifs don’t make an appearance. Each tattoo’s origin is explained in detail and shed light on projects such as Brand Yourself A Librarian, which aims to unite prideful librarians. […]
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