Howard Yeend, creator of thingsinbooks.com, a Web site where people can post photos and explanations of the items they’ve found in books, said one of the most interesting things he’s found is a letter from the book’s author. The book is “The Early Dominicans” by R.F. Bennett and in the letter, dated 1937, the author writes, “You have often said you wanted a copy of my silly work, when it was published, so now I send it herewith.” Photos of the letter and its complete text are posted on Yeend’s site.

Yeend, who lives in Oxford, England, launched thingsinbooks.com in July 2008.

“I think part of the appeal is that it’s somehow magical to be able to browse over the random leftovers of someone else’s life. These things are more than just trash, they’re markers; they direct us to a point in someone else’s life,” Yeend wrote in an e-mail.

…

A grocery receipt from 1987 in the Northeast branch collection shows that someone paid 15 cents for a sweet potato. Pieces of paper from everyday life can also be found in Lewis’ shoebox, which held a Carolina Power & Light bill from 1960 addressed to Leslie Gruber. Gruber, a Wilmington resident who worked for the Star-News and Morning Star for nearly half a century, owed the company $16.50 in June 1960.

For Owens, trashing these scraps and photographs is hard to contemplate. “I don’t want to think about it,” she said. “I feel like I eventually have to thow it away, but it’s painful . . . I’m in denial.”

More in the Wilmington Star

Sounds like a fascinating book- interesting “that the sorts of landscape pictures preferred by 8-year-olds around the world seem to mirror the types of flat, savannah-like vistas in which their distant ancestors may well have thrived.”

More of Anthony Gottlieb’s excellent NY Times review.  Also, briefly noted in The New Yorker.

As Gottlieb points out, Dutton spends some time on forgery and plagiarism (see earlier essay on the subject).  We’ll post more on his thoughts here- especially around found art.  In an essay on his website he writes:

“But by now it should be obvious that the strict demarcation between art and craft as I’ve begun to explain it exists only in the philosopher’s imagination.  In the first place, almost all traditionally acknowledged art involves, indeed, requires craft, requires the application of technique.  At least it has historically, and the training for practitioners in all of the arts has involved the mastery of techniques (though this differs among the arts: training as a musician requires a more rigourous and structured course of technical preparation than training as a novelist — writing good novels isn’t any easier than playing the piano well, but the training for it is less routinised).  Thus for the last 2500 years it might be said at least that craft of some sort has been considered a necessary condition for artistic practice — a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition.  And in this respect, one way to understand the appearance of Found Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art on the modern scene. All of these movements are in part attacks on the very place of craft in art — attempts to produce art without craft.  (For that very reason, among others, I believe these schools of art do not have a vital future ahead of them. )”

I wonder- is there not craft in Duchamp’s selection of an item, for instance, or in other forms of found art?  Not going indict Dutton on this point without reading his book, but seems he’s less than charitable on this subject.

Dutton on Brian Lehrer Show:

Austin is publishing a book, and is accepting submissions that may end up in the book (if you’re lucky and artful).  Check out his contest here.  And while you’re at it, please enter the Friday Poegle Contest.