The Canon of Aphrodisia; published by First Bite Press

Posted on July 23, 2024 by J. Davis

Possibly one of the most delightful surprises I had at this year’s CODEX was meeting Stephanie Kimbro Dolin and learning about her First Bite Press.

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Notes from the CODEX IX International Biennial Book Art Fair & Symposium

Posted on February 10, 2024 by J. Davis

I got to spend a day in the book heaven of CODEX in Oakland after a six year layoff due to the pandemic. It was good to be back and inspiring to see the fair get bigger and bigger. It took all of four hours or more to walk past every exhibitors table even though I mainly only stop at presses that produce fine press literature and not ones that create book art objects. If there’s nothing to read, I rarely stop. Even so, I was so rushed that I took no photos and had little time to thumb through the books; choosing rather to engage in conversations with the printers and others staffing the tables.

The books I was hoping to see were the Prototype Press Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the Arion Press Winnie-the-Pooh, and the new Thomas Paine from Foolscap Press. Suffice it to say that all three of these would have come home with me if I had a book benefactor!

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No Reply Press: an interview with Griffin Gonzales, Part II

Posted on December 26, 2023 by J. Davis

This is the second part of an interview and visit I did with Griffin last year. Enjoy!

My soapbox with respect to private press publishing, and to a lesser extent fine press publishing, is that so much of what is published is the writings of the same old men from the western canon. I think we need more women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ writers, as well as more literature in translation. You’ve done a better job than most with your books by Kuzmickas, Adichie, Diadchenko, Le Guin, de Beuvoir, Zecchini, etc.

Thoughts?

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No Reply Press: an interview with Griffin Gonzales, Part I

Posted on November 30, 2023 by J. Davis

I had the luck to visit with Griffin at his No Reply press when passing through Portland in the early fall. We have been collaborating on this interview for the last few months and I was hoping to get some photos of the press to support it while there. We got so engrossed in talking and in drinking tea in the press room that I got almost no photos. Oh well. I love my camera but I don’t like to miss too much life while behind the lens.

I broke the interview into two parts for readability and because I just couldn’t edit it down. Too much good stuff. Here is Part I:

Books and reading have been part of my life as long as I can remember. While I don’t have memories of being read to, I have vivid memories of the children’s books we had in our house. I still have a copy of a letter I wrote to my grandmother stating I had “started my library,” meaning I had a new desk with shelves above it that I was beginning to fill with books. As an auto-didact, books are my primary tool for learning.

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Preludes by T. S. Eliot; published by No Reply Press

Posted on July 27, 2023 by J. Davis

Upon receiving the beautiful edition of T. S. Eliot’s Preludes from No Reply Press, I realized that I have never reviewed my cherished Arion Press of The Wasteland. Mostly because even though I cherish that edition and love the poem, I’m very intimidated by it. So, I guess that is why I never “reviewed” it. Maybe this post will be a prelude to giving my thoughts on his famous poem, whether it ends up being in the upcoming No Reply Press edition or the long out of print Arion Press edition or both.

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Reading about 2022 in Review

Posted on January 24, 2023 by J. Davis

Somehow, I haven’t done a reading review since 2019 but I’m trying to motivate out of the pandemic induced malaise and post more on TWBE; so here you go.

In 2022 I read 67 books and about 20,000 pages. That’s up from the 62 I read and posted about in 2019, and down from the 81 and 84 I read in 2020 and 2021, respectively. I don’t know if I’m reading faster or more or reading smaller books. I definitely am staying home more since the pandemic, so that’s probably the biggest factor. The lockdown period definitely had an effect! And while this year’s list is only padded with one graphic novel, there are definitely some shorter prose and poetry works in the list.

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Animal Farm by George Orwell; Published by the Arion Press

Posted on January 2, 2023 by J. Davis

Now, why in the world was I looking for a happy ending to this book? Or even a happy(ish) ending? This is George Orwell of 1984 and I’m reading it in 2022.

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The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; Published by the Mad Parrot Press

Posted on April 27, 2022 by J. Davis

I’ve read this personal fave from my youngster days many times and have a hard time resisting new editions, especially handmade private press editions that feature one of my favorite illustrators. As they say, with every re-read of a book you pick up new impressions and nuances, especially if the allusions and lessons are buried in it by crafty and skilled writers, and even more so when you read at different times and situations in your life. This read three things stuck out at me: one in the Mr. Badger chapter, one in The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and one in Toad’s Adventures.

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Consider the Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher; Published by The Prototype Press

Posted on April 7, 2022 by J. Davis

Well, I swore off oysters a couple of decades ago after a reaction that I attributed to them. It was easy because I was just exploring them after refusing them while I grew up along the Chesapeake Bay and other places along the East Coast where they were popular. And mostly I ate them with immoderate amounts of cocktail sauce and horseradish, which I love much more than the mollusk itself. But after reading this book, I might have to give them one more try. In particular, I’m curious about Oyster Stew, a simple dish my Baltimore grandfather apparently loved and that gets a lot of love here from M. F. K. Fisher.  She raves about the stew at the Doylestown Inn in particular, of which she says

“It was as good as he had said, the best in the world, and as all the other people had told me…mildly potent, quietly sustaining, warm as love and welcomer in winter.”

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Eight World’s Wives by Carol Ann Duffy; Published by Fine Press Poetry

Posted on December 8, 2021 by J. Davis

I’ve been a poetry lover as far back as I can remember. At my age, that probably started, I think, with The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. The first “serious” poetry I remember, and by that I simply mean more serious subject matter and not any knock on Dr. Suess, was from a 1932 edition of The Standard Book of British and American Verse I grabbed from my Nana’s shelf as a teen. From that anthology, my earliest favorites were Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt, which is still a favorite, and The Prisoner of Chillon by Lord Byron. Those poems are all pretty straight-forward. And while I also love to tease the meaning out of more obscure and complex poems, sometimes it’s nice not to work too hard, especially when so much in the world and in life right now is hard enough.

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