This is one of my favorite lines from Auntie Mame, the 1958 romp starring the extraordinary Rosalind Russell. This line is uttered by Mame’s nephew’s girlfriend, Gloria Upson. It’s a hilarious line because it instantly conveys how vapid the character is. And yet…it seems that’s precisely what books have become. Take a look at the interior of Warby Parker, the new primarily-internet eyeglass shop. It’s a lovely space, inspired by an old fashioned library. Notably, the books are arranged by that most relevant factor, binding color. Who would have thought Gloria Upson would be the forerunner of millenial culture? More importantly for our conversations, how do we teach law to students who experience most books through a search engine?
Posted by Darren Rosenblum on June 18, 2013 at 03:44 AM
Comments
I was asst manager of a used bookstore in 1973-74. “Decorator books” was an established category, not worthless only because of distinguished spines, thus sellable by the shelf foot to [natch] decorators. So the casebooks and hornbooks looked familiar when I started law school a few years later.
Posted by: Joan Howarth | Jun 21, 2013 6:01:39 PM