Tag Archives: books

27 October 2016

Inside a used book

By icefogger


After reading Brazilian Adventure, I wanted to read more of Peter Fleming’s work, so when I stumbled across One’s Company in a used bookstore, I didn’t hesitate to buy it. 

While traveling recently I brought the book along and found tucked within it’s pages an old post card. 

The card is of Egmore Railway Station, Madras, and was mailed from India to an address in Ottawa Canada roughly 30 years ago. 


There are no words written on the post card other than the address. On the left hand side, where one would usually write with varying amounts of sincerity, “Wish you were here!” is a simple water color. 

A picture worth a thousand words. 

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2 September 2014

Get Stamped

By icefogger

Shakespeare and Company

I picked up a used copy of J.D. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” at a book store here in town. The page inside the front cover was stamped with Shakespeare and Company Kilometer Zero Paris.

Kilometer-Zero-Paris

A quick internet search took me literally to Kilometer Zero in Paris. “Kilometre Zero” is considered the official center of Paris; the geographic point from which all destinations in the Hexagon are measured.

Next to the cathedral Notre Dame sits the Shakespeare & Company bookstore. Founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919,it became a haven for writers like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein in the years prior to World War II. The bookstore was closed by the Nazis in 1940, but was reopened by George Whitman in 1951.

Shakespeare & Company - Paris

Today Shakespeare and Company stocks over 80,000 titles. Each book, whether used or new, leaves the store with the identifying stamp.

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19 March 2012

And Now a Word From One of Our Sponsors…

By icefogger

“All of us have hopes of being a poet, artist, discoverer, philosopher, scientist; of possessing the attributes of all these simultaneously. Few are permitted to achieve any one of them in daily life. But in travel we attain them all. Then we have our day of glory, when all our dreams come true, when we can be anything we like, as long as we like, and, when we’re tired of it, pull up stakes and move on. Travel — the solitude of the mountains, the emptiness of the desert, the delicacy of a minaret; eternal change, limitless contrast, unending variety.”
–Eric Lang as quoted by Robert Fulton Jr.

“One Man Caravan” has been on my to-read list for awhile now. It’s the story of Robert Fulton Jr’s 25,000 mile trek from London to Tokyo through 32 countries in 18 months on a customized twin-cylinder Douglas motorcycle at the age of 23.

Great. Now I’m back reading travel books.

Quote Courtesy of MAO Inc.

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22 February 2012

Well…actually…hmm…

By icefogger

Last night on The Colbert Report with author Ann Patchett debating bricks & mortar book stores vs. buying online:

Colbert: “One of the rare times that I read books is to escape, so I don’t have to talk to people.”

Patchett: “Right. But, if you never, ever talk to people, and you meet all of your needs on the Internet, you wake up one day and you are the Unabomber.”

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“I do things like get in a taxi and say, “The library, and step on it.”
— David Foster Wallace

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