Musty-smelling old books are my jam. The ones I like best have beautiful designs carved into worn hardbacks, patterned endpapers, and thick pages sporadically covered with obscure marginalia. They come with secret histories, impenetrable and mysterious pedigrees of ownership that are all but untraceable. The physical books are weighty, concrete treasures unto themselves. But what of their contents?

They vary, of course, from the sublime to the mundane, from classics to curiosity pieces. All are miniature time capsules. For that alone they have value.

In related news: I want to read all of these books. Maybe you do, too. What an impossible dream to have, my friends! It’s never going to happen. 

I won’t stop buying them, though, as they are so lovely, enlightening, enchanting, entertaining, affordable, plentiful…

Thus was born the idea for the newest regular feature on A Small Press Life.

Louise Tiffany Reading by Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1888. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Introducing Merrily I Read:

It’s simple, really: follow me as I read and review a musty-smelling old book, a few chapters at a time, from start to finish. I’ll not be reading ahead–my impressions will be fresh, off-the-cuff, and (hopefully) witty and intelligent. What say you, dear readers? Shall we throw the spotlight, once again and however briefly, on some fine, fun, and largely forgotten old books?

Let’s do this thing!

Book #1: Girl About Town by Katherine Pent.