The Little Leather Library Collection consists of 101 books, 3-1/4” x 4,” published by the Little Leather Library Corporation of New York.  The miniature books are bound in imitation leather and characteristic of the Redcroft edition published between 1920-1924.  The Little Leather Library Corporation of New York was the first company to mass-market inexpensive books in the United States.  The corporation, founded in 1916 by Albert Boni, Harry Scherman and Maxwell Sackheim, made available a wide variety of classics by authors including Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Morris, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats in miniature editions.  Only the first two editions were bound in real leather.  When first published, the little books were sold at the Woolworth’s chain.  By the early 1920s, the books were advertised in popular magazines, selling in National Geographic from 1922 to 1924. Sometimes a miniature classic might appear in a cereal box as a promotion.  Robert K. Hass, Inc., Publishers took control of the Little Leather Library Corporation in 1924.  Boni later established Modern Library Publishing Company, of which Random House Publishers would become a subsidiary company. Scherman and Sackheim as well as Hass were later involved in the establishment of the Book of the Month Club.  https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86d604k/    

Jurassic Park, later referred to as Jurassic World, is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs.  It began in 1990 when Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment bought the rights to Crichton's novel Jurassic Park before it was published.  The book was successful, as was Steven Spielberg's 1993 film adaptation.  The film received a theatrical 3D re-release in 2013, and was selected in 2018 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".  Crichton's 1995 sequel novel, The Lost World, was followed by a 1997 film adaptation, also directed by Spielberg.  Crichton did not write any further sequels in the series, although Spielberg would return as executive producer for each subsequent film, starting with Jurassic Park III (2001).  In 2015, a second trilogy of films began with the fourth film in the series, Jurassic World.  The film was financially successful, and was followed by Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022).  The Jurassic World films were co-written by Colin Trevorrow, who also directed the first and third installments in the trilogy.  Jurassic World Rebirth, a new film set after the preceding trilogy, was theatrically released on July 2, 2025, without Trevorrow's involvement.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(franchise)   

John Michael Crichton (1942–2008) was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker.  His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films.  His literary works heavily feature technology and are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres.  Crichton's novels often explore human technological advancement and attempted dominance over nature, both with frequently catastrophic results; many of his works are cautionary tales, especially regarding themes of biotechnology.  Several of his stories center on themes of genetic modification, hybridization, paleontology and/or zoology.  Many feature medical or scientific underpinnings, reflective of his own medical background.  Crichton received an MD from Harvard Medical School in 1969 but did not practice medicine, choosing to focus on his writing instead.  Initially writing under a pseudonym, he eventually published 25 novels in his lifetime, including:  The Andromeda Strain (1969), The Terminal Man (1972), The Great Train Robbery (1975), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), Jurassic Park (1990), Rising Sun (1992), Disclosure (1994), The Lost World (1995), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999), Prey (2002), State of Fear (2004), and Next (2006).  Four more novels, in various states of completion, were published after his death in 2008.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton   Surname is pronounced "cry-ton”.  https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/crichton-michael-1942-2008    

Johann Zinn and the Cinderella Flower: From Eyesore to Beloved Zinnia 
April 6 is the anniversary of the death of Johann Zinn, who died young at the age of 32.  Johann accomplished much in his short life, and he focused on two seemingly disconnected areas of science:  human anatomy and botany.  From an anatomy standpoint, Johann focused on the eye.  He wrote an eye anatomy book and became the first person to describe the Iris.  Today, several parts of the eye are named in Johann’s honor, including the Zinn zonule, the Zinn membrane, and the Zinn artery.  As a young man, Johann was appointed the University Botanic Garden director in Göttingen (pronounced "Gert-ing-en").  He initially thought the University wanted him to teach anatomy, but that job was filled, so he took the botany job instead.   One day, Johann received an envelope of seeds from the German Ambassador to Mexico.  After growing the plants, Johann wrote about them, drew the blossoms, and shared the seed with other botanists throughout Europe.  Like most botanists in the 1700s, Johann corresponded with Linnaeus.  Johann’s reputation as a bright, young garden director--and the fact that he tragically died young from tuberculosis--spurred Linnaeus to name the flower Zinnia in his honor.  https://thedailygardener.org/ota20210406/    

April 20, 2026

 

Felix Arndt (1889–1918) was an American pianist and composer of popular music.  His mother was the Countess Fevrier, who was related to Napoleon III. His father, Hugo Arndt, was Swiss-born.  Educated in New York (his music teachers included Carl Lachmund), Arndt composed songs for the famous vaudeville team of Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes, and recorded over 3000 piano rolls for Duo-Art and QRS Records.  Arndt is interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, NY.   Arndt is best remembered for his 1915 composition "Nola," written as an engagement gift to his fiancée (and later wife), Nola Locke.   It is sometimes considered to be the first example of the novelty piano or "novelty ragtime" genre, published by Sam Fox Publishing Company.  It was the signature theme of the Vincent Lopez orchestra, and a top ten hit for Les Paul in 1950.  A vocal recording by Billy Williams, featuring lyrics by Sunny Skylar, became a minor hit in 1959.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Arndt 

Frances Taft Grimes (1869-1963) was an American sculptor, best remembered for her bas-relief portraits and busts.  Grimes was born in Braceville Township, Ohio, the daughter of two physicians, and grew up in Decatur, Illinois.  After attending local schools, she operated a sculpture studio in Decatur for about two years, before moving to Brooklyn, New York City to study at the Pratt Institute.  Following graduation from Pratt, she worked from 1894 to 1900 as the assistant to her former teacher, sculptor Herbert Adams, who called her "the best marble-cutter in America".   During the summers, she joined Adams and his wife, Adeline, at the Cornish, New Hampshire art colony.  It was there that she met sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens, who persuaded her to join him as his full-time studio assistant.  Grimes worked with the terminally-ill Saint Gaudens from 1900 to his death in 1907.  She stayed on at Saint Gauden's studio to finish several of his commissions, including the Phillips Brooks Memorial at Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts (dedicated 1910);  and eight larger-than-life caryatids for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, which she executed from his sketch models.  She recorded her experiences at Cornish in her unpublished "Reminiscences" (Special Collections, Dartmouth College Library).  Following six months in France, Italy and Greece, she moved to New York City in 1908, taking a studio on Macdougal Alley in Greenwich Village.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Grimes    

Forest Hills is a neighborhood in the central portion of the borough of Queens in New York City.  It is adjacent to Corona to the north, Rego Park and Glendale to the west, Forest Park to the south, Kew Gardens to the southeast, and Flushing Meadows–Corona Park and Kew Gardens Hills to the east.   The area was originally referred to as "Whitepot". The current name comes from the Cord Meyer Development Company, which bought 660 acres (270 ha) in central Queens in 1906 and renamed it after Forest Park.  Further development came in the 1920s and 1930s with the widening of Queens Boulevard through the neighborhood, as well as the opening of the New York City Subway's Queens Boulevard Line.  Forest Hills has a longstanding association with tennis:  the Forest Hills Stadium hosted the U.S. Open from 1915 through 1977 and the West Side Tennis Club offers grass courts for its members.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Hills,_Queens    

A zine is a magazine that is a "noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter".  Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. A fanzine (blend of fan and magazine) is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share their interest.  Zines are popularly defined within a circulation of 1,000 or fewer copies; in practice, however, many are produced in editions of fewer than 100.  Among the various intentions for creation and publication are developing one's identity, sharing a niche skill or art, or developing a story, as opposed to seeking profit.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine   

April 17, 2026

William McKendree Carleton (October 21, 1845–December 18, 1912) was an American poet from Michigan.  Carleton's poems were most often about his rural life.   In 1869, he graduated from Hillsdale College, (where he was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity) and delivered on that occasion the poem, "Rifts in the Cloud".   After graduating from college in 1869, Carleton first worked as a newspaper journalist in Hillsdale.  He had been in the habit of writing poetry as a youngster.  His first significant work published was "Betsey and I Are Out", a humorous verse about a divorce that was first printed in the Toledo Blade, and reprinted by Harper's Weekly.  Carleton wrote this poem at the age of 25, when he worked as editor of the Detroit Weekly Tribune.   In 1872 he published "Over the Hill to the Poor House" exploring the plight of the aged and those with indifferent families.  This piece captured national attention and catapulted Carleton into literary prominence—a position he held the rest of his life as he continued to write and to lecture from coast to coast".   In 1878, Carleton moved to Boston, an important literary and publishing center.  There he married Anne Goodell.  They moved to New York City in 1882.  Carleton remained active in his college fraternity and served as the New York City Delta Tau Delta alumni chapter's president.  In 1907, he returned to Hudson as a renowned poet. Carleton's quotes became well known in the US during his lifetime.   With the Public Act 51 of 1919, the Michigan legislature required teachers to teach at least one of his poems to their students, and October 21 was officially named as Will Carleton Day in Michigan.  Schools in Michigan named for him include Will Carleton Academy in Hillsdale, and Will Carleton Middle School in Sterling Heights.  A section of the M-99 in Hillsdale is dubbed Will Carleton Road.  The village of Carleton in Monroe County, Michigan, is named for him, and the road on Carleton's northern border, separating Monroe and Wayne counties, is Will Carleton Road.  On June 24, 2007, it was reported that "the neglected burial plot of the family of rural Michigan poet, Will Carleton, whose 1872 work, Over the Hill to the Poor House, thrust him into national prominence, is getting a makeover".  Musician Van Dyke Parks is his grand-nephew.  He took the title for his album Clang of the Yankee Reaper from one of Carleton's poems.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Carleton    

The first evidence we have of zero is from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago.  There, a slanted double wedge was inserted between cuneiform symbols for numbers, written positionally, to indicate the absence of a number in a place (as we would write 102, the '0' indicating no digit in the tens column).   The symbol changed over time as positional notation (for which zero was crucial), made its way to the Babylonian empire and from there to India, via the Greeks (in whose own culture zero made a late and only occasional appearance; the Romans had no trace of it at all).  Arab merchants brought the zero they found in India to the West.  After many adventures and much opposition, the symbol we use was accepted and the concept flourished, as zero took on much more than a positional meaning. 

The Babylonians displayed zero with two angled wedges.

The Mayans used an eyelike character to denote zero.

The Chinese started writing the open circle we now use for zero.

The Hindus depicted zero as a dot. 

The word cipher was once used as another name for zero.  Sometimes, the term goose egg is used as an informal way to refer to zero, especially in the context of a score.  Zero is commonly used in a general way to mean none or nothing.  Synonyms for this sense of the word include nil, naught, nought, and aught.  More informal synonyms for zero in the sense of nothing include zip, zippo, zilch, nada (the Spanish word for “nothing”), diddly, and diddly-squat.  The word zero can also be used as a verb meaning “to reduce to zero.”  The verb phrase zero out is more commonly used, as in Zero out these totals.  The concept of zero is ancient, with recorded use dating back to ancient Mesopotamia.  The word zero has been used in English since at least the 16th century.  It comes from Italian, from the Medieval Latin word ​​zephirum, from the Arabic sifr, meaning “empty” or “zero.”  The word cipher comes from this same Arabic root, which is a translation of the Sanskrit word śūnyā, meaning “empty.”  Zero can be used as a noun, an adjective, and even a verb.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_the_number_0_in_English   

The first performance of the oratorio Messiah by George Frideric Handel took place in Dublin on April 13, 1742.  Wikipedia 

April 15 is the day Italian Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, declared by the International Association of Art to be World Art Day to celebrate the fine arts.  Wiktionary    

April 15, 2026