By: Joshua Glenn

Check out the entire series. *** *** HiLobrow.com offers thanks and praise to Luc Sante for these images from his collection. Do Murger and Zola count as highbrow? Not sure. Still… *** *** HILOBROW COVER […]

By: Joshua Glenn

Long Island, Summer of 1954 — what’s that hardcover book that Marilyn is reading? Daphne du Maurier’s Mary Anne? Irving Stone’s Love is Eternal? Can’t… quite… make it out. Can we zoom in, please? Oh!

By: Joshua Glenn

OK, maybe “highbrow” is not the way to describe the books we’re going to display in this series. But esteemed, anyway. Check out the entire series. *** *** *** HILOBROW COVER GALLERY: Orwell’s 1984 | […]

By: Joshua Glenn

By: Matthew Battles

Hardcore anti-legend and bibliophile Glenn Danzig talks about his library, which seems to be located in a grotto bathed in the glow of bioluminescent aquatic creatures. His bookishness calls to mind Jorge Luis Borges, who […]

By: Matthew Battles

The hilo grip on culture may be esoteric, but it’s intimate and comprehensive. It’s a storied jazz combo from the mid-twentieth century — featuring Grammy winner Gene Puerling! It’s a high-concept, low-budget film festival ( […]

By: Joshua Glenn

Hi-Lo Foods is a Jamaica Plain, Mass., supermarket whose sign we’ve always found inspirational.

By: Matthew Battles

YouTube channel of the week: poetryanimations, where portraits and photographs of the likes of Baudelaire, Dickinson, and Tennyson are moved to recite their works, often in the poets’ own voices. My attention was captured by […]

By: Matthew Battles

Wong Fei Hung (played by the great Kwan Tak Hing) gives Master Ko a writing lesson. From The Magnificent Butcher (1979), directed by Sammo Hung.

By: Matthew Battles

We’d like to think the L and the B signify Low Brow. But they more likely represent the initials of engraver M. Lucas Brunn, who made this memento mori in Germany around 1600. From the […]

By: Matthew Battles

Among the photos making the social-media rounds in the aftermath of the Turkish Airlines crash in Amsterdam yesterday was this haunting image: It was posted on Twitter by @Serguei with a caption (in French): “It” […]

By: HILOBROW

In the game Clue there’s a library, but no little plastic book to use as a murder weapon. What’s up with that? Should be able to do in Col. Mustard, in the Library, with the […]