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26.05.08.
No news today
...
I'm off to play in Norfolk, so no news until my return on June the
3rd.
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23.05.08.
How to judge
a book by its cover
We might not like to admit it, but most of us choose our books on
the basis of a quick read of the back cover. So what makes a good
blurb? ... more
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A new, better
e-book
Most book lovers rebel at the idea of e-books. Reading book-length
electronic texts has not, to put it mildly, caught on. But with
growing awareness of the need to be green, it's an idea whose time
may finally have come. E-books will save trees and reduce emissions
from the manufacture and shipping of paper and books. And new and
better e-book “readers” – dedicated hand-held devices for displaying
electronic text – are finally making this a viable alternative ...
more
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Eminem to
write a children’s book
Eminem has announced that he plans to publish his own children’s
book entitled Daddy, Why’s Mama a Dirty Whore? The book will help
fathers explain to their children why they have a terrible mother
... more
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Unknown Rimbaud
text found in France
An unknown work by the French 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud has
been uncovered in a newspaper back issue in his hometown in northeastern
France, a local bookseller said on Thursday ... more
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Mozart manuscripts
in Czestochowa?
An unknown amount of scores penned by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may
be kept in the archives of the Jasna Gora Monastery – the Polska
daily has learnt ... more
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22.05.08.
Greats of
US literature pressed into diplomatic service
For the second time in recent years, US literature is being pressed
into the service of international relations. In association with
the US State Department, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
has announced details of a literary cultural exchange with Egypt
as part of the NEA's Big Read campaign to encourage reading among
American citizens ... more
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BookRabbit
takes on Amazon
Social shopping website BookRabbit, which allows users to browse
other members' bookshelves online, has launched its website promising
to beat Amazon.co.uk on price on more than 100,000 titles ... more
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Surrealism's
founding texts sold
The only known manuscript of French poet Andre Breton's "Manifeste
du surrealisme," which had a profound influence on 20th century
art, was sold on Wednesday with eight other works for 3.6 million
euros ($5.67 million) ... more
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Schnitzler’s
hidden manuscripts explored
His work has been a major influence on Stanley Kubrick, David Hare
and Tom Stoppard and was admired by contemporaries including Sigmund
Freud. Now, more than 75 years after his death, unpublished letters
and drafts by the Austrian Jewish playwright Arthur Schnitzler are
being put on public display for the first time ... more
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20.05.08.
Morgan Library
& Museum exhibit prayer book
The Morgan Library & Museum will put on special exhibition beginning
May 20 an extremely rare Renaissance illuminated manuscript, the
Prayer Book of Queen Claude de France (1499–1524), created around
the time of her coronation in 1517. It is the most important single
illuminated manuscript acquired by the Morgan in the last twenty-five
years and will go on view in the East Room of the historic McKim
building ... more
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Oxfam rare
books go under hammer
Rare books donated to Oxfam shops, including a first edition by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is due to be auctioned ... more
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Charity begins
at home for this bookseller
GotBooks.com's competitors accuse Ticehurst of duping the public
and snatching up oodles of free inventory for his business. "I've
heard that," Ticehurst says, "and they couldn't be more wrong. A
lot of work and expense goes into our business" ... more
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Project digitizes
works from the Golden Age of Timbuktu
From Timbuktu to here, to reverse the expression, the written words
of the legendary African oasis are being delivered by electronic
caravan. A lode of books and manuscripts, some only recently rescued
from decay, is being digitized for the Internet and distributed
to scholars worldwide ... more
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19.05.08.
Map thief
says sorry
A British thief was sentenced to one year in prison for stealing
several maps dating from the 16th and 17th centuries from the Danish
Royal Library in 2001, reported Politiken newspaper ... more
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Bound to
be classics
Those who collect hypermoderns—books published in the past 20 years
or so—are the cowboys of the antiquarian book trade, investing in
the most speculative niche in this otherwise staid market. They
scout and bet on future greats, scooping up first editions that
they think, and hope, will eventually become classics ... more
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A 21st-century
Gutenberg
Working in a Toronto garage, Michael Torosian creates rare - and
very pricey - books ... more
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Jack Kerouac's
"On the Road" in Texas
The scroll manuscript of Jack Kerouac's novel "On the Road" will
be displayed through June 1 in the Harry Ransom Center's exhibition
"On the Road with the Beats" at The University of Texas at Austin
... more
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James Bond
books are forever
Joseph Connolly got hooked on 007 when he was 12 and has been busy
collecting the novels - from paperbacks to first editions - ever
since. Here he provides a bookworm's guide ... more
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16.05.08.
Einstein's
letter on religion sells for £170,000
A letter in which Albert Einstein branded religious beliefs as "childish
superstitions" and the "product of human weaknesses" has been sold
at auction in London for £170,000 to a private collector, smashing
the world record for a letter by the great scientist ... more
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Shock raid
on secondhand bookshops
Secondhand booksellers in Cape Town were shocked when they were
told this week they had to fork out R1000 for not having a secondhand
goods trading licence ... more
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Reviled poet's
work fetches high price at auction
William McGonagall struggled to sell his famously awful poems on
the streets of Dundee in the 19th century, but a collection of his
broadsheets has today been sold for £6,600 at auction ... more
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Ancient Rama
pictures in unique exhibition
Nearly 120 ancient paintings charting the life, struggles and eventual
triumph of the legendary Indian king Rama go on show to the public
on Friday for the first time at the British Library. The highly
detailed and lavishly illustrated pictures which date from the 17th
century were formerly bound together in book form and available
only for scholarly study ... more
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15.05.08.
30,000-volume
window on the world
For the last seven years, I’ve lived in an old stone presbytery
in France, south of the Loire Valley, in a village of fewer than
10 houses. I chose the place because next to the 15th-century house
itself was a barn, partly torn down centuries ago, large enough
to accommodate my library of some 30,000 books, assembled over six
itinerant decades. I knew that once the books found their place,
I would find mine ... more
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Funny prize
from Rosen
Children's laureate Michael Rosen has stepped up his mission to
put the pleasure back into reading by creating a prize for the funniest
children's books. The Roald Dahl prize, which will be administered
by the charity Booktrust, is said to be the first of its kind ...
more
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Mission Kashmir
to save manuscripts
“This border state, having the largest repository of manuscripts
in North India, with an estimated 20,000 rare texts books and manuscripts
in over 12 languages, is shortly involving writers and religious
scholars, who will decipher all the rare documents before being
digitalised,” cultural academy secretary Zafar Ahmad Manhas said
... more
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Woman arraigned
on charges of stolen documents
The wife of a man accused of stealing rare items from libraries
has been arraigned in Great Falls, accused of helping her husband
sell stolen documents on the Internet auction site eBay ... more
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Controlled
chaos
From Dostoevsky to Burroughs to pulp sci-fi, Ian Curtis devoured
offbeat literature. Jon Savage, writer of a new film about Joy Division,
explores the impact of the front man's reading on the band's lyrics
... more
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14.05.08.
Penn Libraries’ Hidden Treasures
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant of $450,000
to the University of Pennsylvania Libraries to reveal the treasures
of the Henry Charles Lea Library collection to a wider world. The
Mellon Foundation’s generosity will open new avenues of scholarship
by facilitating local and global access to this unique collection,
which is comprised of printed and manuscript materials documenting
medieval and early modern Church history and the Inquisition ...
more
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Revealingly
yours, Philip Larkin
Postcards dug from the bottom of a box have given one Oxford librarian
tantalising insights into the poet’s work ... more
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Confessions
of an unrepentant book collector
I've been one of them for about 45 years. Of course, if my wife
has anything to do with it, I've squeezed my last volume onto a
shelf. "One more book, and I'll call the folks in the white coats
and tell 'em we have a case of bibliomania on our hands," she is
fond of saying ... more
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13.05.08.
Waterstone's growth 'good but surprising'
Waterstone’s growth in like-for-like sales of 6.6% for the last
16 weeks of its financial year was a “good and surprising” result,
according to a retail analyst ... more
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Benefits
of bedtime reading
Reading to young children stimulates their development and gives
them a head start when they reach school, according to researchers
who have reviewed studies on the effects of reading. Apart from
helping their reading, sharing a bedtime story with a child promotes
their motor skills, through learning to turn the pages, and their
memory. It also improves their emotional and social development
... more
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Four ancient
manuscripts seized
Yemeni security services have confiscated four ancient manuscripts
of the holiest Book of Quran while a person was trying to sell them
in a market of the Old City of Sana'a ... more
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Publishers
consider dropping paper catalogues
arperCollins announced Monday that it was planning to make their
listings of upcoming releases available only online, calling the
current system both economically and environmentally indefensible
... more
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2,100-year-old
Isaiah Scroll on rare public display
For the past 40 years, the 2,100-year-old Isaiah Scroll has been
kept in a dark room with temperature and humidity controls, far
from the public eye. A few days ago, in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary,
the Israel Museum put the parchment scroll on display in the Shrine
of the Book - for two months only ... more
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09.05.08.
German president voices shame at 1933 book burning
Germany's president on Friday marked the 75th anniversary of the
1933 book-burning that was an emblematic step in the Nazis' seizure
of power, voicing his country's shame for actions that he said faced
little resistance at the time ... more
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After 30
years, black archive gets a permanent home
A small patch of grass in Brixton currently represents London's
only nod to the arrival of the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought
Caribbean immigrants to England in 1948. But now, a corner of Windrush
Square is to become home to a unique archive celebrating not only
the stories of the migrants, but centuries of black history in Britain
... more
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Rare maps
of city find their way to sale
Rare Victorian maps of Edinburgh – as well as hand drawings of the
city's first tram routes – are to be included in the world's biggest
charity book sale. The collection was gifted to organisers of the
annual Christian Aid fundraiser, being held this weekend at St Andrew's
and St George's Church on George Street, Edinburgh ... more
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08.05.08.
Medieval to Modern
Since 2003, the National Gallery of Art in Washington has acquired
an exceptional group of drawings, prints, and rare illustrated books,
which are the focus of the upcoming exhibition Medieval to Modern:
Recent Acquisitions of Drawings, Prints, and Illustrated Books,
on view May 4 through November 2, 2008, in the West Building Prints
and Drawings Galleries ... more
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Books not
bombs
The National Library in Sarejevo still stands in ruins, 16 years
after Serbian military forces shelled the building and destroyed
over 90% of its priceless contents. The European Union and the Austrian
government have helped rebuild the roof and the atrium. Last year
Spain offered a little over $1 million to finish the reconstruction.
But the boarded-up windows and pock-marked walls of the gorgeous
late-19th century, Moorish revival building remains a powerful symbol
of the international community’s half-hearted approach to Bosnia
... more
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Surrealist
manifesto to be auctioned in Paris
The only known manuscript of the French poet Andre Breton's "Manifeste
du surrealisme," the founding text of the Surrealist movement, is
to be offered for sale later this month, auctioneers Sotheby's said
on Tuesday ... more
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St Bride's
unveils line up for type event
St Bride, the printing and graphic arts library, has announced the
line-up of speakers for its seventh annual design conference. The
event will take place on 15-16 at Bridewell Hall, London ... more
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The Works
sale confirmed
Beleaguered discount bookseller The Works has been bought by private
equity company Endless. The deal will save about 2,200 jobs and
was struck last Friday ... more
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Photographer's
papers reveal image-conscious Larkin
Poet's downbeat letters to Fay Godwin among archive acquired by
British Library ... more
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06.05.08.
Comics buyer's price guide to use auction results
Comics Buyer's Guide (CBG), the world's longest-running magazine
about comics, has announced that it will use actual sales results,
from both Heritage Auction Galleries and Atomic Avenue, as the basis
for its monthly price guide.
"Reality-based pricing such as this has
never been attempted before," said CBG Editor Brent Frankenhoff.
"In the past, price guides for comics have been determined by projected
prices or retailer opinion, but we are now in a position to use
real market data, based on actual, closed transactions to set the
prices in our guide ... more
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Lean times
at Edith Wharton's
The fate of The Mount, novelist Edith Wharton's Lenox home, is still
uncertain. The grand house and gardens, a national historic landmark
that welcomes visitors, needs $3 million to avoid foreclosure ...
more
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Faber launches
print-on-demand classics
Could out-of-print books be a phenomenon of the past? That's the
question that will be facing publishers, agents and authors after
the launch on June 2 of a new imprint from Faber and Faber designed
to make available a large number of titles which until now have
been out of print ... more
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The baron
of bibliomania
Bibliophilia: the love, and collecting, of books. No problems there:
the odd fit of extravagance, possibly, but everything more or less
under control. But watch out. The next step up may be bibliolatry:
an extreme fondness for books. And beyond that lies bibliomania:
a mania for the collection and possession of books. That can be
very dangerous territory ... more
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Mystery deepens
over German poet Schiller's skull
A painstaking two-year investigation to determine which of two skulls
belonged to Friedrich Schiller has found neither is a match, prolonging
a 180-year-old mystery over the celebrated German poet's remains
... more
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01.05.08.
For a book to touch you, you need to touch it
A book - as in the thing itself - is not a work of art, but a miracle
of design. Which makes the V&A's new exhibition extremely frustrating.
Featuring books and book-influenced works by contemporary artists
from Matisse to Damien Hirst, Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book
is a beautiful morgue, where ranks of stylised books sit behind
glass like crisp butterfly corpses pinned to velvet ... more
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New kids
take on the dotcom dinosaurs
This week sees the launch, initially in the US and Canada, of an
eBay "killer" named Wigix.com which is unashamedly aiming at the
solar plexus of the most successful online auction site in the world.
The trouble is, it is extremely difficult to shift an incumbent
with a dominant market share ... more
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The 40 books
that inspired Sebastian Faulks
They range from the delights of Dr Dolittle to the darkness of A
Clockwork Orange, the books that should be on everyone's shelves
... more
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Books a catalyst
for Minneapolis neighborhood revival
The city tried to rebrand the area as a technology corridor, but
not a single dot-com materialized. Instead, three nonprofit organizations
formed a partnership in 1999, bought three adjacent warehouses and
renovated them into Open Book, which says it is the largest — if
not the only — literary and book arts center in the United States
... more
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Premier hopeful
of Timbuktu project cash
It appears that the US$3-million (about R22-million) needed to complete
the manuscript archiving project at Timbuktu has been secured from
a Dubai donor, Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Wednesday.
... more
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