Exploring books in their natural habitat
Books in the Wild is a Podcast about Books
In 1917, Mark Twain published a new novella titled “Jap Herron” about a young man from Missouri who left town to become a printers devil for a local newspaper. The weird part about all of this? Mark Twain died in 1910. The novel Jap Herron was purportedly transmitted entirely via Ouija board to writer Emily Grant Hutchings and her psychic medium partner, Lola V. Hays.
Read MoreNow that we are in October, we are getting into the Halloween spirit by talking about an infamous book called The Malleus Maleficarum, also known as The Hammer of Witches. A book responsible for fueling the heinous witch trials throughout medieval Europe for centuries.
We delve into book history and talk about the author and inquisitor Heinrich Kramer. Then we have a fantastic interview with rare books librarian Karen Wahl about her research on the printing developments of the Malleus Maleficarum, and a talk with writer and translator Valarie Williams about an 20th century supernatural scholar named Montague Summers.
For this episode, what I originally thought would be a fun witchy romp through book history, ended up being a little heavy, more than a little misogynistic, and a lot uncomfortable. So, I won't be getting into the gory details about the European witch trials on this podcast, but choosing to mainly focus on the Malleus Maleficarum itself and its author. There are plenty of gory details about the witch trials out there that you can easily find, trust me. Instead, I want to emphasize how powerful a book can be, for better or worse. The Malleus Maleficarum is after all, probably the most widely printed and bestselling book after the bible. It was the go-to witch hunting manual for centuries, and single-handedly altered the lore of witches forever.
Disclaimer: Although this a very tame version of the European Witch Trials and this episode is still very much safe for work and not explicit, there is some material that may be uncomfortable for very sensitive ears - I do mention parts of the human anatomy and talk about the inquisition of witches.
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What is book art exactly? What is an artist book? Are all art books book art? What do you mean by codex? Or livre d’artiste? Are you making these words up?
I have been getting questions like these for the past... seven or so episodes. So today I’m going to reel it in and start at the beginning with the book art basics. We have guests Ariel Hansen Strong and Faith Hale here today to play Book Art Trivia, and we have compiled the top 5 frequently asked questions which we will try to answer, and I got a new kazoo so you know we’re all in for a big treat.
For those playing along at home, I would love to hear your answers too, so feel free to comment on the episode post on booksinthewild.com or send me a message on Facebook or Instagram @BooksintheWildPodcast
Full Transcript of this episode here
Links:
Coyote Bones Press - use coupon code BOOKS at checkout for 10% off
Cloudship Creative - use coupon code BOOKS at checkout for 10% off
San Francisco Center for the Book - Degrees of Innovation exhibition opens October 13, 2017
Today we are on the hunt for missing punctuation. Like many letters and even entire words, quite a few good punctuation marks have been lost to modern English. In this episode, we’re going to track down some forgotten and elusive marks, from the mysterious Pilcrow to the playful interrobang. Today I have a very exciting noir-themed audio drama filled with questionable acting and an unforgivable amount of punctuation puns.
Read full transcript here.
Links / Cast:
Coyote Bones Press Use coupon code BOOKS for 10% off
Shady Characters by Keith Houston
Making a Point by David Crystal
Just My Type by Simon Garfield
The Unicode Consortium - Secret Society of Emoji Makers
Childhood Remastered Podcast (Sean plays Octothorpe)
Squatcher's Lounge Podcast (Jeff plays Interrobang)
Varmints Podcast (Paul plays Octopus)
In early 1916 on an excursion through the ruined city of Ypres, Belgium, British soldiers came across a damaged letterpress machine in a bombed out print shop. Over the next two years, Captain Frederick J. Roberts and his men produced twenty-three issues of gallows humor, poetry, and prose. In this episode, we’ll delve into some of the history, the process, and production of The Wipers Times.