(Yes, I am enjoying my subscription).
Book shelves series #7, seventh Sunday of 2012: In which I photograph a coffee table.
We have three coffee tables. This is one of them (it’s next to the unit I photographed last week). Like many folks’ coffee tables, I suppose, it gets littered with books; the books on this one tend to rotate. Pictured above: lots of recent books acquired, including the Aira on top and Stuart Kendall’s new translation of Gilgamesh. There’s also the new issue of Lapham’s Quarterly and, for some reason (can’t remember) George Saunders’s Pastoralia. The Kindle is also there: my daughter and I read the first three comics in a colorized version of Jeff Smith’s epic graphic novel Bone—amazing stuff, and the color adds depth and beauty to an already beautiful book. I took this photo on a Friday afternoon, or maybe Friday evening (or night). I was drinking wine.
The big book is Walton Ford’s Pancha Tantra, which my lovely wife gave me for Christmas. Some images:
I was a relatively consistent subscriber to Harper’s magazine from 1997 to 2006, with brief flirtations after that year. Anyway, at some point my subscriptions to Harper’s, The Believer, McSweeney’s, etc. became too much. Just didn’t have time to read them all. I’m down to one subscription a year. Last year it was The Paris Review—and I very much enjoyed it. This year: Lapham’s Quarterly. The quarterly is right up my alley—short selections from (seemingly) 100s of authors. The back:
The magazine also features plenty of art selections, as well as tables, graphs, and other editorial content—but on the whole, Lapham’s Quarterly reminds me of my favorite aspect of Harper’s, the “Readings” selections.
Biblioklept 