Sites We Like: Book Mania!
He had us at “first and only book blog from the Philippines.” “He” being Archie, the proprietor of Book Mania!, easily one of our favorite literary Tumblr sites–but don’t take our word for it. Book Mania! is featured in the Tumblr Spotlight: Books and is one of, if not the only, sites that uses “Back” and “Forth” for its pagination links.
The thing about Archie is that he’s not just organized–he has tabs for Admired Libraries, Bookshelves, and more–but he has an eye for bookish things that are both cool and beautiful. Have you seen this library before? Nope, neither had we. How about this one? Again, first time. Even if you are among the fortunate who had already seen both, Archie’s selection of the striking and important should make you happy anyway.
Book Mania! has been around for less than two years, and we hope it sticks around for much longer, especially as its Bookshops tab makes us crave visits to exactly those–shops, not stores, places of business that are designed for the activity of browsing rather than for the purpose of holding inventory. In photos featuring places from Brattle Books in Boston to Leakey’s of Inverness (housed in an 18th-century church), this is Tumblr at its most elegiac: The pictures speak for themselves and directly to us about a changing literary landscape.
However, our favorite thing about Book Mania! may be Archie’s Excerpts tab–this is one that could go on, and on. It’s a terrific use of the Tumblr “quote” function, and wholly individual. Yet even as the individual behind the “we” writes this, s/he remembers the first time this quote flew off of a page and directly into her/his heart.
Thank you, Archie.
