Brattlecast

In the pilot episode of Brattlecast, proprietor Kenneth Gloss discusses the history of one of America's oldest rare and antiquarian bookshops. Learn the story of George Gloss and his son Kenneth: the Brattle's journey from historic Brattle Street through urban renewal, a disastrous fire, and the business of secondhand bookselling today.

Today in the studio we have an album of vacation photos from the 1890s, taken by an anonymous but well traveled amateur photographer. Interest in collecting these sorts of vernacular photos has been increasing, in part because the work of well known photographers has become prohibitively expensive, but also because of their unstaged quality and fascinating candor. With these pictures we travel around the world, but also back in time, catching glimpses of everyday life at the edges of scenic vistas and tourist attractions. Come with us, on today’s #brattlecast.

Good books are always a gift, especially when they’re.. well, given as one. A thoughtfully chosen vintage travel guide or piece of ephemera can jog memories of a vanished world, encouraging the recipient to reminisce and share stories about their own life. On this episode we’re discussing the specialized book-gifting preferences of some of our regular customers, one of whom Ken always keeps in mind when material on pre-revolutionary Cuba comes into the shop. Whether it's for the holidays, a birthday, or just because, sometimes the best presents are the ones that take us back into the past.

On this week’s episode we’re talking about friend of the shop Edward Bernays. Known as “the father of public relations,” Bernays had an enormous influence on the way that products—and politics—are marketed to the American public. He sold Lucky Strike cigarettes as ‘Torches of Freedom’ and he helped sell the idea that a modestly left-leaning Central American government was a communist menace in our own backyard. More importantly for our purposes, during the post-war housing boom he persuaded builders to include bookshelves in new homes, in a clever effort to sell more books. Learn more about Bernays, including how he met Ken, on today’s #brattlecast.

At an event to mark the release of Jordan’s new book (On Air: My Fifty-Year Love Affair with Radio), fellow author and CEO Victoria Bondoc gave a thought-provoking talk on overcoming adversity. Ken has learned some lessons about resilience from having his family’s only slightly insured bookshop burn down one cold February morning, destroying all the books inside and creating a plume of smoke so large that his friend could see it from a passing airplane. Fortunately, you don’t have to wait for your own bookshop to catch fire, but instead can hear what the experience taught Ken about the importance of community, keeping busy, and making tough decisions on this week’s #brattlecast.

In this episode we’re talking about the great American poet Walt Whitman. A few exciting Whitman items have come into the shop recently, and we have them here in the studio with us today. There’s a signed photograph, a first edition copy of Leaves of Grass, and a slightly later edition that was owned by the artist and illustrator Elihu Vedder and comes with handwritten notes between Vedder and Whitman. We’ll also discuss the poignant—and very rare—Civil War letters written by Whitman on behalf of wounded Union soldiers, one of which Ken was lucky enough to appraise on an episode of Antiques Roadshow.

In the studio with us today we have a somewhat surprising volume: Travels in Space: A History of Aerial Navigation, published in 1902, a year before the Wright Brothers’ historic flight. Although it may seem that the history of aviation had yet to be written at the time, people had already been taking to the skies for over 100 years, in hot air balloons, zeppelins, gliders, and a host of other more dubious—and sometimes fatal—contraptions. In this aeronautical episode we’ll talk about Travels in Space, early works of science fiction, a rare pamphlet by the Wright Brothers themselves, and much more.

Today in the studio with us we have a group of primary school textbooks from the mid-1800s. Because so many of these books were printed and distributed, they’re not especially monetarily valuable, but they're still interesting and fun to flip through, and they make great gifts for teachers or recent graduates. On today’s episode we’ll talk about first reading primers with charming illustrations, geography books that reveal the pervasive biases of the times in which they were written, and a Spanish textbook defaced by a student who would go on to greatness. Join us for a look at the schooldays of the past, on this educational #brattlecast.

Not many people go to the graveyard to buy books, but not many people are Ken Gloss. He stopped by Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery the other day to pick up a collection of works by some of the cemetery’s permanent residents: Anne Sexton, E. E. Cummings, Eugene O'Neill, and William Lloyd Garrison. Inspired by Mount. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Forest Hills is a garden cemetery, a lavishly landscaped, park-like setting, built to provide not only a resting place for the dead but a surprisingly pleasant place for the living to bird-watch, stroll, or simply reflect. In addition to its illustrious occupants and sylvan setting, Forest Hills boasts memorial sculptures by Daniel Chester French, Martin Milmore, Thomas Ball, and many others. Join us today as we talk tombs, tomes, books, and bones on a hauntingly interesting #brattlecast.