Reading about the reading life: September 1, 2017 edition.

Welcome to another edition of "Reading about the reading life" here at The Itinerant Librarian. This is where I collect stories about reading and the reading life. Basically, these are items related to reading, maybe writing and literacy, that I find interesting and think my four readers might find interesting as well with a little commentary. As with other features I do on this blog, I do it when I have time or feel like it. Comments are always welcome (within reason).

 It has been a while since I've done one of these posts. I think we got some interesting things this week, so let's have a look: 

• There is a bookstore in Moscow, Russia where you can learn more about Chinese culture. Story via Sputnik News.  
• Here is a look at Kuala Lampur's second largest second hand bookstore. The kind of place I could get lost in. Story via The Malay Mail.
• A piece on the prolific Timothy Lea, writer of "dirty books." Ah, the good old times of the 1970s. He was well known for his "Confessions of. . . " series. Story via Dangerous Minds. 
• Do you keep a notebook or work journal? I am referring to a notebook you carry around for daily notes, so on. What do you do when you fill it up? What do you transfer over to a new notebook? If you struggle with  that question, here are some suggestions of what to transfer to your new notebook. Via Quo Vadis blog. 
• The New Republic has a piece asking if the Pendejo In Chief is ruining book sales. Go read it to find out. I thought this was an interesting piece overall. 
• The Washington Post has yet another lament about the "death of reading." Big whoop.
• However, rest reassured that reading is not dying. Robert Klose tells of how he became a reader in this piece from The Christian Science Monitor. 
• This is not so much literacy or books or such, but I found it interesting. National Public Radio (NPR) looks at the world of Pyrex collectibles. Yes old Pyrex, as in made in the U.S. before it sold out to China, is highly durable. Your parents had it. My mom had a few (no idea what happened to them though). Now they are highly collectible, and not just to gather dust. Some people are still cooking with them. 
• The Atlantic has a piece on men who pretend to be women, or rather take female pseudonyms, to write books. It is often to write thrillers and crime fiction that appeal to the women's market. This is not per se, but it is an interesting piece. 
• The New York Times recently featured an interview with Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress.
• Via The Millions, a look at the trend of "sexy backs and headless women" in female literature books. 
• On some good news for library users, at least in New York and Los Angeles, if you are a library card holder for those places, and you like good films, you can now stream films from the Criterion Collection with your library card. Story via FactMag.
• Atlas Obscura has a look at the history of those vanity books I have no idea who the hell buys, the Who's Who books.
• The New York Times reports that Spanish is thriving in the United States.
• On another historical note, The New York Times reports on the closing of The Buenos Aires Herald. During the years of dictatorship in Argentina, that newspaper stood up to the regime and reported on disappearances and other crimes. The bad economy did what the dictatorship could not: get it to close down.