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QUICK LINKS
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Weller Book Works
607 Trolley Square 801.328.2586
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Casual book talk and news with Catherine.
at Coffee Connection in Trolley Square
NO BC ON JANUARY 3 BECAUSE OF THE INVENTORY
LIT-KNIT
Craft Circle.
Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday
6-8 pm
January 11 & 25
and February 8 & 22
SALT CITY SLAM
Open mic, featured poet, and Poetry Slam for
$5.
Last Monday of every month
8-11 pm
January 30 and February 27
THE COLLECTORS' BOOK SALON
Collectors' Chat and refreshments.
On January 27, our speaker is Tony Weller with book collecting.
On February 24, our speaker is Paul Draper with rare magic books.
Last Friday of every month
6:30-9 pm
Collectors' Chat 7:30 pm
January 27 and February 24
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From Tony Weller
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Welcome to 2017. Weller Book Works opened in Trolley Square five years ago on January 6! It's hard to believe half a decade has passed since our relocation. We are busy with the new store and haven't spent much time looking back. When asked if I miss Main Street, it occurs to me that I don't think about it that often. If I do get sentimental, it is the pre-internet, pre-big box downtown I miss. But here in Trolley our days are filled with alluring books and really interesting readers, many who know our past and others for whom we are new. It pleases me when someone who's never heard the name Weller says, "This place is really cool. Where'd you get all these books? How long have you been around?" We get excited about books of the season and those of the past millennia. We plan author events and bookish activities, and we read. We appreciate convenient free parking. We love our new store and hope you do too.
Like many, I am troubled by many things in our present culture. I am overflowing with ideas about utopian worlds but this is not the place for that. I am trying to feel good about this New Year, but I am confused and embarrassed by what is happening in our country. We are on the cusp of significant change. I fear in the short term, we are retrenching toward futile fears. Maybe a bit more strife and we can get serious about real workable principles and futures. Americans should never again be forced to vote for least disliked candidates. If our elections worked well, our choices would be hard because candidates would all be so wonderful. I get cynical because I am a frustrated idealist who believes that people are basically good and that mostly circumstance, misery, threat, hunger and insecurity cause abusive bad behavior. We have not yet achieved the levels of justice and equality required to check this proposition, and it is certainly not my own. Sadly, human history is a series of conquests and subordinations. Yet, we have loads of wisdom and knowledge. We have overcome many of the hardships that beleaguered our forebears. We understand how things fail. Yet, there is strife and violence, hunger and wealth, bigotry and fear. Do we accept them because they existed all through history? We can do much better. But not sooner than we recognize that some of our practices and believes came about for reasons that have changed. We learned things. We invented things. We got healthier and we wrecked things. The circumstances of our era are unlike any known to humankind. We won't find solutions to our challenges in historic models because all likely precedents were predicated on conquest, extraction and ever-growing population, things we can no longer abide or afford.
I am baffled and disturbed by the politics of our Nation. Nonetheless, my belief in the essential goodness of humans enables me to face this New Year with head unhung. We Homo-Sapiens may be slow learners but a look at the long arc of history shows, we eventually get things right, or maybe our children do.
In the bookstore, we buy, sort, describe, locate, sell and read books. Through them, we reach places distant in space, time and mind. We build ourselves from experience. Readers can choose from the whole of humanity. Books use words, the same things we use to think. Words mean things, otherwise, krith bowrnie dasgep nimjorg blix. To dismiss meanings is discognitive - one might as well grunt.
We are resilient people. I believe that the best of humanity will overwhelm the meaner elements that have been too prominent over the last several months. For me, I guess our bookstore was sort-of like the proverbial cave, albeit a well-lit one. Coming of age here in the 1970s, I thought battles for civil rights and equality of sexes had been won. Sadly, I now must admit that social diseases I thought had been mostly cured were merely in remission. Let us hope present demonstrations of intolerance and hatred are death throes.
A democracy cannot be expected to be better than the wisdom and intelligence of its citizens. I am fortunate to work with books, the most influential invention ever. Read more books this year. We'll help you. Talk with persons who disagree with you. Thank you for letting Weller Book Works supply you with the nutrients with which you grow your knowledge, your mind and your soul. We'll also help you cook, dream or simply color.
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Store Events
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 1 -
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4
Store closed for New Year's Day and inventory.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 6:30 PM
Alan Bernheimer
, translator of the French book
Lost Profiles
,
Memoirs of Cubism, Dada and Surrealism
by Philippe Soupault will be joined by
Alex Caldeiro
for a special dada event! Join us for a book presentation, a dada performance and film, as well as a Q&A. Bernheimer will also sign copies of the book.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 8 PM
Free play reading of
Bakersfield Mist
, by
Stephen Sachs
. Maude, an unemployed fifty-something living in a trailer park, has bought a painting from a thrift store. But she's now convinced it's a lost Jackson Pollock. So a New York expert is coming to authenticate the painting. Inspired by true events, this hilarious and thought-provoking comedy-drama asks vital questions about what makes art and people truly authentic. Presented by
Wasatch Theatre Company
and directed by
Amanda Caraway
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 SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 3 PM
Twin Peaks Party
to celebrate the release of the third season sometime mid-2017! Join us for a pie-baking contest, with give-aways, and theme-related books to help you wait for the big premiere.
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Best Weller's Pick for January-February Fiction
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The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter
PublicAffairs
9781610395717
Publisher's Price: $25.99
Our Price: $20.79
Review by Frank "Luddite" Pester
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Analog Zone!
We are approaching a generation of young people that grew up on digital media. That generation is discovering a world of analog. "Analog gives us joy of creating and possessing real, tangible things". Analog also engages our senses. We feel the subtle surfaces of paper. The flow of ink on its surface. The sensual snaps of a record needle flowing through vinyl groves. The act of chemical reactions as a photo develops. The volume of a book resting in our hands. The precision of gears going through their gyrations.
Literary food critic and journalist David Sax has written an entertaining book of the analog world that was supposed to have died a few years back but is now seeing a resurgence. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, Sax looks at several analog media, like vinyl, paper, film and board games. He describes in a journalistic manner how entrepreneurs have taken these and built viable businesses to market these media. The second part is where he really gets going, discussing the ideas of analog media such as books, the return of brick-and-mortar retail stores. Sax shows how digital media has affected the work place and education and how they are coming back with a more analog approach.
In the end, the author puts forth that it is not a choice between black and white, digital or analog, but a mixture of grays. "And it's often analog - perhaps less efficient, less perfect, less speedy - which best captures those human imperfections, creating a tactile interface with the world." Not only an important book for our times, but a book that presents interesting ideas of how to deal with the glut of information now besieging us. Not the final word on the topic but a good introduction to fuel our idea juices.
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Rare Book Spotlight
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Modern Packaging Magazine's
Packaging Catalog
and
Modern Packaging Encyclopedias
! Four thick cloth-bound trade publications containing a plethora of examples of commercial packaging design. Pages range from $90 to $200 per volume. Each contains articles and bound-in samples of materials and printing from several commercial sources. The insertions are especially exciting. We have volumes from 1945, 1946/47, 1948 and 1951. Prices range from $95 to $200
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Weller Book Quirks - Tony Weller
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Interesting things happen or are discovered here. These piqued my amusement rec
ently:
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 Brent Ashworth, proprietor of B. Ashworth's in Provo and collector of amazing autographs and books led the Collector's Chat at the Collector's Book Salon last October. Brent showed our guests awesome rare autographed documents of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson and some truly rare books. I asked him to bring a physically impressive item which he saved until last. It was a large, probable 18th century, folio volume, maybe 16 or 18 inches tall, with metal clasps. It was leather bound with wooden boards and bore the title
Historia Universalis. Brent placed it on the floor between our guests. When he opened it, two additional boards folded out and a third one with the right-sized hole in it, folded up horizontally to make a seat. This odd old book is really a seat for a chamber pot.
- I found a short book review in a book, the title of which I omit. I like the comments much. Here they are:
I don't like it. [It] is a very confusing book. It jumps around a lot. I want to read a novel that makes sense! And what does the picture on the cover have to do with anything?
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For more about our
events,
staff reviews, and
rare book acquisitions, please see our
newsletter archive.
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