Carpe Libra

A guy by the name of Jay Walker has an incredible personal library. This is the kind of thing that makes a reading guy drool. The pictures in the article are very cool.
The chandelier is from a James Bond movie. He has a Sputnik satellite, plus thousands of books. The library covers 3,600 feet [...]

Ilan Ramon was an astronaut on the Columbia disaster of 2003. All on board were killed, obviously, when the Columbia blew up.
There was a survivor of the disaster though, Ilan Ramon’s diary! It was found in a field in Texas after apparently surviving a 37 mile fall to earth!
Pages from the diary were put on [...]

Forbes came out with a list of the top paid authors from the past year. Here are the top five.
1. J. K. Rowling–$300 million!
2. James Patterson–$50 million
3. Stephen King–$45 million
4. Tom Clancy–$35 million
5. Danielle Steel–$30 million
Most of the money comes from movie deals and such like. Most of it also comes from writing about the [...]

In our nursery rhyme, we think that Humpty Dumpty is an egg. He’s not. He’s a cannon.
Georgie Porgie is about George Villiers.
Hey diddle diddle ode pokes fun of life at the court of Elizabeth I.
A new book is coming out by Sam Foster explaining the true meanings behind nursery rhymes. It’s not on Amazon yet [...]

Since it’s absolutely no fun to watch the stupid Cubs implode once again, I have found something else for you to watch during baseball games: the grass.
The New York Times has an article on David Mellor, groundskeeper for the Boston Red Sox and inventor of the artistry done in grass fields. He even wrote a book [...]

Here’s yet another unique idea for a bookshelf: the inverted bookshelf. The books hang upside down! How weird is that!

This is too cool! It probably doesn’t have anything to do with Carp, although Carp does contain the book, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Some timber engineers (guys who make stuff out of wood) were asked to recreate a Roman siege weapon for a BBC/Discovery Channel show. They did. Now the giant catapult [...]

September 27-October 4 is Banned Books Week. You can go here for a nice list of banned books, many of which are on the Carp 500.
In honor of banned books week, pick up a banned book and read it. Why? I don’t know, seems like the thing to do. Celebrate freedom! Every man lives, not [...]

Bibliomania is a web site devoted to giving free copies of classic literature. The site also includes study guides and other stuff to help you get the most out of classic literature.
Many Carp books are available here for free, online versions anyway. If you are looking for some free ways to read Carp books, here [...]

Many of the books on the Carp 500 are just awful, awful in so many ways. Thus, I feel somewhat responsible for being in a position to recommend them, or encourage people to wallow in the mire of cultural pig pens.
Reading literature, and things written by people who read literature, it is quite obvious that [...]