“It is not the intrinsic value that counts, but rather the beneficial effect on the subject.” In other words, the purpose of a hobby is to make *you* better. So say Charles William Taussig and Theodor Arthur Meyer in their 1924 book. Set your sleep timer for 30 minutes and listen to why you should have “an extravagant interest.”

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus recording! Go to https://buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras. Put in a few bucks and download my reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s delightfully self-satirical essay “The Philosophy of Furniture,” and thank you!

Listen to advice on the importance of learning to draw, then get tips on painting panels, stiles, cornices, moldings, etc., flowers, fruits, etc., etc. If you make it to the end you may wake up wanting to paint the interior of your home with “colors of a chaste and pleasant character,” creating “sweet harmony” and avoiding the vulgar “gingerbread style” of decoration!

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

Tonight’s episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep brings you some pages from “Haney’s Manual of Sign Painting” from 1897, revealing secrets of how to mix pigments and select and prepare wood to make a sign with “a sweet harmony of tone, a chasteness of composition, upon which the senses can rest with entire satisfaction.” Free on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon podcasts, or directly from here.

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

Tonight’s episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep brings you an English history of mazes and labyrinths, published in 1922.

Travel from ancient Egypt and Greece to medieval France and Italy in search of mazes and their purpose. If you stay awake long enough you’ll get lost among the wooded hilltops of southeast England looking for a famous turf “Mizmaze” of unknown date.

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

Tonight’s episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep brings you advice from 1920 on how to draw trees.

In a book published by an English pencil manufacturer, author Edward C. Clifford tells us that artists before the mid-1800s depicted trees with stereotyped “foliage gestures” and showed them growing in absurd settings and combinations. Instead, artists should study the anatomy of landscapes and trees… oak, elm, hornbeam, horse chestnut, laburnum, larch, and more. If you stay awake long enough you’ll hear mistletoe listed as a parasite, along with fungi.

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

Listen to the NASA press release from April 26, 1961, announcing the first astronaut flight of Project Mercury. Hear details of the astronaut's many tasks during a 15-minute up-and-down flight featuring five minutes of weightlessness. This was the mission flown by Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961, although the press release does not name the pilot who would be selected to fly.

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!