At one of America's oldest bookshops, there are just as many stories to be told outside the pages as in them. Join bookseller Kenneth Gloss and co-host Jordan Rich as they share entertaining conversations and histories surrounding Boston's favorite spot for bibliophiles.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher & Google Play Podcasts.
He's received a postcard from the South Pole, gotten into an absurd exchange with a member of Monty Python, and worked in close quarters with live grenades: it's all just another day on the job for Kenneth Gloss, proprietor of the Brattle Book Shop. On this explosive Brattlecast Ken talks about the wonderful weirdos and strange situations that have enlivened his years in the bookselling business.
On this day in 1942 tragedy came to Boston in the form of the deadliest nightclub fire in history. The Cocoanut Grove's intentional lack of exits and extremely flammable Polynesian decor doomed 492 people, injured hundreds more, and changed the way we think about doors forever. Ken kindles our interest with a fascinating and scary personal scrap book of the fire and its aftermath in this blazing hot episode of #brattlecast.
In this episode Ken shows off a bound volume of Harper's Weekly from 1863, and flipping through it with him is like peering into a fascinating time capsule from the Civil War era. Harper's employed some of the best journalists, artists, and photographers of the time, and in its pages eye-witness battlefield reportage and sentimental woodcut illustrations of homesick soldiers share space with advertisements for dubious health tonics and prosthetic limbs.
