Friday, December 25, 2009

Read The Story Behind Jung's Red Book in Today's New York Times

One of the most surprising successes this season was The Red Book, a beautifully produced collection of Carl Gustav Jung's work. Priced at $195, we never expected to have the demand it did, and as a new store, we honestly didn't think we could sell one.

Well, maybe one, to our very special customer mentioned in the story in today's edition of The New York Times. (I don't normally use last names, but since he's quoted in the accompanying article, he's now a public figure!). I've known Dennis Paul ever since I was a bookseller back at the Harry W. Schwartz Iron Block store downtown, and he was a lawyer nearby. A friend and customer of David Schwartz, he's always been interested in books that celebrate and explore the life of the mind.

He's also been one of my most loyal supporters at Boswell. Not that he isn't shopping elsewhere, as he is a book-obsessed man who can't help it. Believe it or not, it's one of the things I love about him. He also, by the way, was able to make sure that the weather for the bookstore was about the best it could be. (You wondered why the entire state of Wisconsin was covered in snow except for the East Side of Milwaukee? That was Mr. Paul.)

Anyway, this post is one of my thank you's to Paul--another is finding an advance copy of an upcoming philosophy book. We'll see how that goes! If you missed the link earlier in the piece, here again is the link for Motoko Rich's "Dreamy Sales of Jung Book Stirs Analysis."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Mr Paul is one of the nicest and best read men I know. He was a great customer of mine at Audubon Court Books. I happened to just run into him at your shop a couple of weeks ago and was able to catch up and answer his ever present question"What are you reading?" Nice to see him and Daniel quoted in the NYT. BTW I am reading Fateless by Imre Kertesz.

Todd Laurence said...

One of the least understood concepts that Jung advanced is
his theory of "acausality" - simply
meaning that another aspect of
reality are acausal events, i.e.,
"meaningful coincidences." Jung
believed that everything in nature
is based on balance, .... hot, cold,....up, down,....left, right,
etc, etc.
The final conclusions are based
on his many years of conversations
with the Nobel laureate physicist,
Professor W. Pauli, and together
they concluded that the 'natural
numbers' are a tangible connection
between the spheres of matter and
psyche. In other words, number is
pre-existent to consciousness, and
forms the most primal archetype of
order in the human mind.

This article offers some highlights
to the theory, with appropriate
comments from senior researchers
at Princeton University:


http://knol.google.com/k/todd-laurence/nostradamus-star/22fnyh0hdx7qq/7

Worth reading: "atom and archetype"-Jung/Pauli letters,
1932-1958....