30.09.05
Judging
a book by the cover saves having to read it
I knew a person who used old
books to pave his kitchen. It was colorful and drew a lot of comment, but it was
lumpy and difficult to sweep. I don't recommend it, particularly if you intend
to read the books again. It is unpleasant to turn a page and come across a bit
of egg or a scrap of bacon...more
Add a comment Browsing
for books and humping dogs
I should have noticed a hidden menace the moment
I walked in. I should have picked up on the tell-tale signs the instant I walked
into the second-hand bookshop. The absence of customers, for one...more
Add a comment Stolen
book trail leads to Germany
An employee at a respected German auction house
has been arrested in connection with receiving stolen goods, including a hoard
of valuable antique books stolen from the Royal Library in Sweden and other libraries...more
Add a comment Do
books have a future? Well, yes
An attempt to start a "great debate" about
whether printed books would disappear in 10 years and whether reading would be
a basic skill had a resounding rebuff yesterday. None of the 5,500 teachers, academics,
employers, parents and pupils who responded to the Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority's "national conversation on the future of English" thought either question
worth considering...more
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29.09.05
Zellweger
lands Beatrix Potter role
The biopic is expected to begin filming on location
in the UK in March, according to movie bible Variety. The film will be partly
animated and examine Potter's struggle for independence in Victorian England...more
Add a comment Internet
grows as factor in used-book business
In barely a decade, online booksellers
have grown to account for two-thirds of the market for general-interest used books,
a trend that calls into question the future of brick-and-mortar stores devoted
to used books, according to a study financed by the publishing industry and released
yesterday...more
Add a comment Helen
Cresswell's literary legacy
Author Helen Cresswell, who has died aged 71,
became one of Britain's most popular children's writers by mixing fantasy with
humour...more
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27.09.05
Books
that pop!
L.K. Hanson talks to pop-up-book artists Robert Sabuda and Matthew
Reinhart about the art of the 3D book...more
Add a comment The
hidden tribes of the British Library
The British Library is a calm, civilised
place. Within its high-ceilinged, monastic rooms academics, writers, researchers
and students pass their days in silence, committed as they are to the noble pursuit
of reading. Who would have thought that these rarefied halls, a world away from
the polluted streets of nearby King's Cross, are a seething hotbed of elitism
and hierarchy? ...more
Add a comment Book
tells Maori to enjoy gambling, smoking and fatty foods
Maori have every
right to enjoy smoking, gambling and eating fatty foods and Maori health workers
who say otherwise are brainwashed "house niggers"...more
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26.09.05
When
Tolkien got precious with Lewis
CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were the closest
of friends, one struggling to make his fantasy world of Middle Earth a literary
reality, the other trying to convince friends his first book about Narnia deserved
to be published.
But new research has revealed that
their friendship was riven by the most bitter and personal of rows on everything
from literature to religion and even their choice of spouse...more
Add a comment Pulp
fiction makes Russia a literary gulag
The nation which gave the world Pushkin,
Tolstoy, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn, and which survived decades of creativity-suppressing
Communism, now finds itself pilloried as a land of pulp fiction - a literary also-ran.
Publishing experts admit Russian literature is in a state
of crisis and up-and-coming authors have been reduced to asking would-be readers
to pay for books in advance in order to make sure they get published...more
Add a comment New
books explore censorship
Two news books available in time for Banned Books
Week, Sept. 24 - Oct. 1, are by international censorship expert Nick Karolides
and published by Facts on File: The Encyclopedia of Censorship and "120 Banned
Books"...more
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24.09.05
50
years on, 'Lolita' still has power to unnerve
'Lolita' is unlike most controversial
books in that its edge has not dulled over time. Where "Ulysses" and "Lady Chatterley's
Lover," say, now seem familiar and inoffensive, almost quaint, Nabokov's masterpiece
is, if anything, more disturbing than it used to be...more
Add a comment Banned
Books Week
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed
during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event
reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted...more
And for an alternative view - Banned Books Week:
Smoke screen of hypocrisy...more Add
a comment
23.09.05
Sense
of renewal
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the living now evacuated,
relief efforts are focused on recovery and cleanup, but New Orleans museum directors
have their own set of woes. For them the city's losses will be measured in cultural
treasures lost. Watching the New Orleans story unfold,
Scott David Reinke, a conservation technician in the Preservation Department at
the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Hamilton Library, and Tom Klobe, director
of the UH Art Gallery, are feeling a sense of déjà vu...more
Add a comment Author
of The Bad Book is in the bad books
A book which depicts children running
across a busy road with their eyes shut and a boy setting fire to his head is
facing calls to be banned from libraries...more
Add a comment Is
the pen mightier than the Google gorilla?
Google might back down over its
library plans, but if authors think they can resist the onset of the digital age
indefinitely, they are reading from the wrong page...more
Add a comment Scouting
out rare books
Antiquarian bookseller Kenneth Gloss, proprietor of the
nationally known Brattle Book Shop in Boston, likens his job to a treasure hunt.
Selling books is only half of a bookman's trade, he says. The other half - scouting
- is where much of the excitement and challenge lies...more
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22.09.05
Oxfam
book sold for £21,600 at auction
A rare 400-year-old book which was given
anonymously to a British charity shop sold for 21,600 pounds at auction on Tuesday...more
Add a comment
All
booksellers should petition the Government to remove the charitable status of
Oxfam in relation to their abuse of their bookshop activities. They should be
paying the same overheads as the rest of us. - Ming Books. Random
acts of poetry
A poetry event, where poets will read to people in Galway
cafes, shops, libraries, hair salons, schools and at bus stops, will take place
in October. The idea for the event came from Canadian poet Wendy Morton. The event
was successful in Canada last year. The Galway event will feature nine published
poets and aims to celebrate poetry and literacy...more
Add a comment Bancroft
Library adds rare Biblia Rabbinica
The University of California, Berkeley,
has obtained a rare Hebrew Bible that has served as the foundation for almost
all Bibles published since its own printing in the early 1500s...more
Add a comment
21.09.05
The
World's Fair Collection of Alfred Heller at Christie's
The largest and
most diverse collection of mementos connected to World’s Fairs will be presented
on October 11 when Christie’s New York offers The World’s Fair Collection of Alfred
Heller. The collection consists of books, posters, stereoview cards, paintings,
photographs and ephemera from virtually every fair since and including the Great
Exhibition of 1851 in London, which attracted crowds to the magnificent Crystal
Palace...more
Add a comment T.S.
Eliot letters to godson auctioned
A collection of letters written by poet
T.S. Eliot to a beloved godson sold at auction Tuesday for $82,300, auctioneer
Bonhams said. The series of 50 letters to Thomas Faber, a member of the Faber
and Faber publishing family, includes poems and illustrations that formed the
basis of Eliot's 1939 children's book, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,"
which was dedicated to Faber...more
Add a comment Kennys
Galway bookshop to close
The High Street and Middle Street premises owned
by the company is to be leased out and all books will now be sold online, while
the gallery is re-opening at Galway's dock gate."You have got to move with the
times," Maureen Kenny, founder of Kennys Bookshop and Gallery, said yesterday
as the family confirmed the move to cyberspace and Galway's docks respectively...more
Add a comment
20.09.05
Display
of rare map has earth scientists Buffalo-bound
It is known as the map that
changed the world, William Smith's 1815 charting of Great Britain's underside.
The London Geological Society keeps its rare copy behind blue velvet curtains,
which are swept open three times a week for visitors. The
Buffalo library keeps its copy folded up in a box. At least it did. This week,
the map became the centerpiece of the first of a series of exhibitions meant to
showcase the library's 30,000-title Rare Book Collection, its multimillion-dollar
pride and joy...more
Add a comment Iraq’s
libraries: what recovery?
Under the auspices of the Middle East Library
Association, Jeff Spurr of Harvard University’s Fine Arts Library has authored
the most recent report on the condition of Iraqi academic libraries since the
American invasion...more
Add a comment Plan
to reopen Kepler's Books
Kepler's Books of San Francisco, the popular
independent book seller that shut down abruptly in August, is hoping to reopen
by October with financial support from patrons and business expertise from a new
board of directors, including three Silicon Valley executives...more
Add a comment A
record of the everyday
It may have been just a stack of old vinyl albums,
travel brochures, ticket stubs or even restaurant menus that were stashed away,
forgotten, in a cabinet. Though their importance pales in comparison to lost lives
and homes, the destruction of such relatively trivial items in the Katrina disaster
means key artifacts of identity, history and culture of the region are gone forever...more
Add a comment
19.09.05
Woodcuts
shine in rare book exhibit
One of the USA's foremost collections of early
woodcut-illustrated books has made its way to Southern Methodist University's
Bridwell Library. Organized by the Library of Congress, the exhibition titled
"A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books" includes 84 rare books
that are illustrated with woodcuts from the late medieval and early Renaissance
eras...more
Add a comment Who
made Nancy Drew?
Melanie Rehak investigates the origins of the world-famous
girl sleuth and discovers two remarkable, revolutionary women...more
Add a comment Fictional
character eBay auction wins over book fans
Stephen King fans around the
world spent much of last week on eBay, outbidding each other in an online auction
organized by prominent authors selling the right to name characters in their new
novels. Initially conceived as a creative fund-raiser for the First Amendment
Project, a struggling nonprofit that defends the free speech rights of writers
and artists, the auction quickly became the Internet site's most watched item...more
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17.09.05
Bath
Saves Ancient Manuscripts
Miles of ancient manuscripts could soon be given
a bath to save them from decay, scientists announced at the British Association
for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Dublin...more
Add a comment Book
Fair has tomes you didn't know you wanted
For Franlee Frank, today's book
fair in Henrietta is more than just a place for booksellers and book buyers to
meet. "People can see books there they didn't know they wanted," said Frank, the
owner of Greenwood Books on East Avenue in Rochester. "It will lift their spirits."...more
Add a comment In
Hall’s Bookshop they still ask for J.R.Hartley
The Yellow Pages advertisement
may be 20 years old but people still walk into the bookshop that featured in it
for a brief second and ask for a copy of Fly Fishing, by J. R. Hartley...more
Add a comment Donor
gives charity shop surprise bonanza
A rare 400-year book worth thousands
of pounds was given anonymously to a British charity shop more used to handling
hum-drum donations like unwanted presents and second-hand clothes. (Thanks to
Clive Keeble for the link)...more
It's
not clear to me why Bonhams think the inscription in this
copy makes it worth seven times their original estimate (£3,000 - £4,000),
or why they gave such a low original estimate, when the last copy sold at auction
in 1987 for £6,100. Add a comment
16.09.05
Selling
Books Online: Book Listing Services vs. eBay
Bookselling has always had
an aura about it that many people find attractive. The sellers, variously stereotyped
as garrulous old scholars, frustrated writers, postgraduate bookworms or gentlemanly
'Hugh Grant types,' are purveying a respected product. This image, and the sheer
love of books, has compelled people into the bookselling trade since the invention
of moveable type.
Simultaneously, many others, including
the barely literate, are attracted to bookselling by its mathematics. Few commodities,
particularly among collectibles, can be found so readily and converted into a
profit as easily as books...more
Add a comment The
art of making book art
"Read With Your Eyes, Not With Your Lips," the
current Show at Etherington Fine Art in Vineyard Haven through September, looks
at books as the subject matter for artist...more
Add a comment Naples
historic bookshop: Demonstrators stop eviction
The eviction of the historical
bookshop "Treves" in Via Toledo, Naples, has been postponed to 4 October. It's
the third attempt of the bailiffs to carry out the eviction, prevented once again
by the demonstrators, who blocked the way, while the owner pulled down the rolling
shutter...more
Add a comment Saving
Secondhand Bookstores
Nearly all of the secondhand bookstores in the vicinity
of Harvard University are gone. Some have relocated or become online booksellers.
Others are simply out of business. Either way, the decline of secondhand bookstores
represents a sad diminishment of the academic community in Cambridge, Mass., and
many other university towns...more
Add a comment
15.09.05
Rare
tome on Stroud Valleys for sale
I'm astonished by the books that still
occasionally walk in off the street. I'm afraid it's a dreadful article, but what
can you expect from our American owned, local press nowadays :) However, the book
is a truly monumental work, and it's a privilege to be its keeper for a while...more
Add a comment
10.09.05
No
News today...
I'm afraid TheBookGuide is away again, but he and the news
will return on September 15th. However, desperate news junkies can find links
to 1,000's of book related stories and articles in our archives.
09.09.05
Author
Smith raps English culture
Booker Prize nominee Zadie Smith has attacked
British culture, describing England as a "disgusting" and "terrifying" place.
"When I think of England now I just think about the England that I loved, and
it's just gone," she said...more
Add a comment New
Orleans book project struggles
Hurricane Katrina has made an inner-city
book project an even greater story of defying the odds. A year ago, New Orleans
high school teachers Abram Himelstein and Rachel Breunlin started the Neighborhood
Story Project, a way for students to write about where and how they live...more
Add a comment Taubmans
lose hold on Sotheby's
The Taubman family loosened its grip on the Sotheby's
auction house yesterday through a deal that allowed it to cash in $168m (£90m)
of shares. The deal allows Alfred Taubman, who served a prison term after being
convicted of fixing commissions with Sotheby's rival Christie's, and his family
to almost halve their holding in the auction group to 12.4%...more
Add a comment Did
'lost' manuscript cost scholar fame?
Even when he found the manuscript
jammed into the back of a filing cabinet, author Robert Gordon didn't recognize
exactly what he had. Wrapped in a powder-blue cover, it was a long-lost piece
of blues history: the 1941-1942 field study manuscript that chronicles black music
and culture in rural Mississippi...more
Add a comment
08.09.05
Potter
author unveils 3D portrait
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has unveiled
a portrait of herself at the National Portrait Galley. The writer, who rarely
makes public appearances, posed twice for artist Stuart Pearson Wright at her
mansion in Perthshire...more
Add a comment Noted
book dealer backed
People stepped up at a rally and city council work
session Tuesday and pledged their talents, dollars and support to re-open Kepler's,
the beloved corner bookstore in Menlo Park...more
Add a comment Bragg's
12 books that changed the world
The veteran broadcaster, novelist and
pundit is to host a new television series next year - The Twelve Books that Changed
the World. His selection, announced yesterday, is idiosyncratic - it includes,
for example, the first rule book of the Football Association - but is also surprising,
refreshing maybe, for its seriousness...more
Add a comment 'Gatsby'
first edition fails to sell on eBay
Tom Baldwin of Baldwin's Book Barn
was anticipating fierce bidding that could have netted up to $100,000 for a first
edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel "The Great Gatsby." But more people
gathered to watch than to bid. Just one person, a California book collector, offered
Baldwin the minimum $25,000 bid for the book...more
Add a comment
03.09.05
No
News today...
TheBookGuide is away for a few days but he and the news
will return on September 7th. However, desperate news junkies can find links to
1,000's of book related stories and articles in our archives.
02.09.05
Shock
closure of Kepler’s Bookstore
One of the Bay Area’s best known independent
retail bookstores abruptly closed its doors Wednesday morning, shocking employees
and customers. After 50 years in business, the store appears to be giving up its
pricey location next to Cafe Barrone after years of increased competition with
online book retailers...more
Add a comment Challenges
to library books on the rise in 2004
Attempts to have library books removed
from shelves increased by more than 20 percent in 2004 over the previous year,
according to a new survey by the American Library Association...more
Add a comment Shakespeare
was a political rebel who wrote in code
A code-breaking book which aims
to change the image of William Shakespeare and reveal him as a subversive who
embedded dangerous political messages in his work is to be published in Britain...more
Add a comment
01.09.05
How
Kepler’s Bookstore changed the world
A memorial history of the Menlo Park
bookstore that became a culture unto itself, and of the man who created it...more
Add a comment Two
men score in book treasure hunt
Two Arizona scientists traced the trail
of a real treasure hunt written into a children`s book and won a $450,000 prize...more
Add a comment Taking
ancient manuscripts to classrooms
The National Mission for Manuscripts
(NMM) is taking India's priceless manuscripts - age-old data preserved in papers
and palm leaves on history, astrology, medicine and religion - to the classroom.
With the 'Living World', the school outreach programme
aims at inculcating a sense of heritage conservation among youngsters, especially
students, as there are almost five million such manuscripts in the country...more
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