Fun Friday Resources

This is a beautifully curated article on the gorgeously illustrated books from the 18th-c. dealing with the natural world. Books like this are still available, i.e., “coffee table books,” expensive, beautiful books — but can you imagine the experience a book like this would have given to someone whose horizon was only what they could literally see?

Even more — and free to download — images of the natural world available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Have some lovely old book illustrations from the website Old Book Illustrations.

I came across an article from kottke.org the other day about a Dutch graphic designer who would design more interesting spines for the books in his l library, and this sentence jumped out at me:

“When he didn’t care for what he saw poking out from a shelf (or when he needed to procrastinate) he would make his own spine for a book.” (emphasis mine)

Well, what’s not to like?

There are worse TASK AVOIDANCES. As I struggle to reorganize my study, it’s tempting to create yet another mess in order to avoid that particular task.