Stuff We Found While Weeding

The Skeleton in Armor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by A.V.S. Anthony. This is the 19th century equivalent of a coffee table book, but only if your coffee table is rather small. The famous Longfellow poem is meted out one couplet at a time over 94 pages. Each page of text is followed by remarkable engravings of the knights and ladies described in the poem. It is all so wonderfully romantic.

Doggerel: Great Poets on Remarkable Dogs, with linocuts by Martha Paulos. Not just another collection of dog poems, these are all by the greats: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (“The dog trots freely in the street…”), Ezra Pound (“When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs…”), John Ciardi (“A dollar dog is all mixed up. A bit of this a bit of that.”), and the sublime Ogden Nash (“The dog is man’s best friend. He has a tail on one end. Up in front he has teeth. And four legs underneath.”). All this is humorously illustrated by Martha Paulos’ woodcuts, which could be a book on their own.

Shrinklits: Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down to Size, Maurice Sagoff. Looking for Cliff’s Notes that are even smaller than Cliff’s Notes? You can find them here summarized succinctly and hilariously in rhyme.
Here are the beginning lines of Oliver Twist:

Workhouse orphan asks more gruel—
Zap! He’s out. The world is cruel.

Or how about these lines first lines of Jane Eyre:

My Love behaved a bit erratic;
Our nuptial day Brought truth dramatic:
He had a wife, Mad, in an attic.

And of course there is always good old Beowulf:

Monster Grendel’s tastes are plainish.
Breakfast? Just a couple Danish.

What is weeding?

-- Sue, Main Library