Sublime

That tracings of lampblack fallen in a beaker really knocked me down the other day. A gorgeous observation. Who knows if the phenomenon is true, but it’s enough that one can imagine it and the image astounds.

That’s the trick with Blood Meridian — the book, for me, soars not on the shock factor of the gore, which is so gruesome it’s all you can see

Now: the second-best of times.

his ridged forehead looks like one of those domed beehives you see representing Industry in medieval woodcuts.

Arthur Bostwick’s The American Public Library (4th edition; New York: Appleton, 1929) and Francis Drury’s Book Selection (Chicago: American Library Association, 1930).

“Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa.”