Featured Book: Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings

This gorgeous and gorgeously produced volume entitled Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings is a collection of facsimile reproductions of manuscript items from the Emily Dickinson collections at the Amherst College Library Archives & Special Collections.  They comprise her jottings on envelopes or scraps of envelopes, and are almost all in pencil.  She apparently found a small stub of pencil (the image of one is included in the facsimile reproductions in the book) so easily tucked into a pocket as to be handy at any moment when words came to her.

Each scrap is reproduced photographically as well as transcribed.  One of my favorites is on a tiny scrap: "One note from One Bird Is better than a million words"

Featured Book: The Great War

In honor of Veteran's Day today, I thought it would be fitting to feature a book that we recently received here at the library.

Joe Sacco has written a number of graphic novels set in war-torn areas.  His latest work, however, is unique.  Modeled after the great Bayeaux tapestry, The Great War is a graphic panorama, 24 feet long representation of the first day of World War I's Battle of the Somme.  From General Haig viewing the field on the far left to bodies being buried on the right, we see details from cooks preparing meals, men moving into trenches and rum rations being dispensed.

Included is a booklet with an author's note, an essay on the battle by historian Adam Hochschild and an annotation of the panorama written by Sacco.