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A pen and paper sketch of the woods.

Reading the Environment: Book Artist Melissa Jay Craig

It’s a digital age, but we’re still mad for paper! Even as readers embrace the connectivity and convenience offered by iPads and Kindles, there are still many good reasons to celebrate a book’s physicality. In Ploughshares’ Book Arts series, we’ll be looking at some of the artists, curators, and craftspeople who work to keep things…

stock photo image of old, antique books stacked on top of each other

Crowdsourcing the Canon: Literary Merit in Science Fiction

  Imagine the carefully catalogued books available in your favorite library. The rows on rows and stacks on stacks, categorized with little regard for how they participate in the literary canon. There is, in libraries, a certain egalitarianism about book order. A follows B. Yet when the cover is opened, the number of cancelled due dates are…

photo of a small, white french bulldog standing a bench wearing a dog hoodie that is white and red striped, with the hood pulled over its head

I Can Haz Earnestness?!: Anthropomorphism, Irony and Two New-ish Books By Well-Known Authors Named David

Animals: so hot right now. OK, but first, full disclosure: I am a dog person. I volunteer at the Humane Society. I socialize with people I met at the dog park…outside of the dog park. I’m always finding dried beef liver in my pockets (note: dried beef liver rehydrates in the wash!). I’m frequently invited…

photo of the exterior of St. Mark's Bookshop featuring a sidewalk with a person in motion, walking past a bike rack

The Modern Bookstore: An Interview with St. Mark’s BookShop Co-Owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy

I remember the first time I went to St. Mark’s Bookshop. I had just skipped out of an orientation session my first week of freshman year at NYU, and decided to explore the area by myself. It was the first time I was walking New York’s vibrant streets alone, a thousand miles away from my…