| Book
News - TheBookGuide's
selection of book related news stories from around the world. March
2004 31.03.04.
Book role auction nudges £20,000
An auction giving members of the public
the chance to bid to appear in a book by a best-selling British author has raised
almost £20,000...more 31.03.04.
Hollett & Son close their Sedbergh shop
We are taking this action now
to disassociate our business from the proposed branding of Sedbergh as a Book
Town...more 31.03.04.
Tolkien Books Smash Auction Hopes
Rare volumes of JRR Tolkien’s Lord
of the Rings trilogy, including two copies signed by the author, fetched twice
their estimated value at auction today...more 30.03.04.
Michael Foot pledges Hazlitt library to trust
Mr Foot, 90, confirmed
yesterday that the cream of the 1,000 volumes filling much of a book-lined room
in his Hampstead home will pass to the Wordsworth Trust when, as he put it, he
"conks out"...more 29.03.04.
Artists create exhibit using hateful literature
Tim Holmes is seeking
artists from all over the country and maybe the world to contribute pieces to
a traveling exhibit made solely from the racist books ...more 29.03.04.
Charity shop given rare 'Lord of the Rings'
A charity shop manager
said today she was amazed to receive a set of first edition Lord of the Rings
books handed over by an anonymous customer...more 29.03.04
.Folklorist's priceless collection finds a home
The lifework of the
late legendary American folklorist Alan Lomax has been acquired by the American
Folklife Center in the Library of Congress...more 29.03.04.
British comic pair honoured with Paris show
Which literary characters
have done the most to promote Britain across the Channel? Not Hercule Poirot,
Oliver Twist or even Noddy, but two middle-aged toffs whose favourite expressions
are "By Jove" and "The devil". Their names? Blake and Mortimer ...more 28.03.04.
'Aladdin's Cave' of rare books found in home
When retired accountant
WS (Bill) Adams died in June last year aged 84, even his neighbours had little
inkling that his home was a shrine to the printed word, containing thousands of
rare books collected over the course of a lifetime...more 27.03.04.
The sad, mad life of Henry James
Colm Tóibín, author of the Booker-shortlisted
The Blackwater Lightship, does a fine line in repression. With that in mind, it
seems natural that Tóibín should turn to Henry James for his next fictional enterprise,
for James was a master at withholding information...more 27.03.04.
Edinburgh's World City of Literature bid
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson,
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver, even Toad and Ratty .
. . they are immortal names in the world of adult and children’s literature, and
they all originated in Edinburgh...more 27.03.04.
Harry Potter and the adult market
JK Rowlings
publishers will launch a renewed bid to sell her first four Harry Potter books
to grown-ups this summer, issuing them for the first time as "adult hardbacks"...more 26.03.04.
Libraries use Internet to entice readers
Patrons of the Dougherty County
Library open their e-mail every day to find a chapter or so of a book. The hope
is that these "five-minute reads" will get them to check the book out — or buy
it...more 26.03.04.
Sony launches true electronic book
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- the real one, not that Douglas Adams novel thingy - just came a step closer.
Sony has launched its first electronic book using what it calls "electronic paper"...more 26.03.04.
Rare books to go for £100,000
Hundreds of valuable books from the private
library of the late WS Adams, one of Edinburgh's most prominent accountants, are
to be sold at auction later this month and are expected to fetch more than £100,000.
...more 26.03.04.
Anyone can now sell books online
Used bookstores used to be just about
the only place to sell your old books. But times of have changed. Consumer Reports
says now anyone can sell books online for fast cash...more 25.03.04.
Distribution of Bible prompts complaint
A public school let an evangelical
group distribute Protestant versions of the Bible to students, prompting complaints
from a Roman Catholic mother...more 25.03.04.
Library Purchases Rare Items In London
Baylor University’s Armstrong
Browning Library recently added a number of major acquisitions to its world-famous
literary holdings through the purchase of 25 lots from the sale of the Halsted
B. Vander Poel Collection of English Literature at Christie’s in London...more 25.03.04.
Children's writer confesses mid-trial
A celebrated children's writer
dramatically changed his plea in mid-trial yesterday and admitted 11 indecent
assaults on young girl fans during the height of his fame in the 1960s...more 25.03.04.
Free books for children
Three free books each have been given to 460
children in Wales as part of the Reading is Fundamental project...more 25.03.04.
Mystic Pages
The Rosicrucian Museum hosts a new show of rare of esoteric
volumes...more 24.03.04.
Potter powers Bloomsbury profits
New editions of JK Rowling's Harry
Potter books - including versions in ancient Greek and Gaelic - are being planned
by publisher Bloomsbury...more 24.03.04.
Holding on with hope in the heart of Tampa
You are in no danger of
becoming a millionaire when you run a secondhand bookstore. You do it because
you love it. And you have to be half-crazy to be in the business in Tampa's ever-moribund
downtown...more 24.03.04.
Elvish is studied here
For 'Lord of the Rings' pilgrims, the journey
to Middle-earth ends in Milwaukee, the home of many of J.R.R. Tolkien's best-loved
works ...more
23.03.04.
Roman Polanski plans 'Oliver Twist' film
Oscar-winning director Roman
Polanski says his next film will be based on Charles Dickens' classic novel "Oliver
Twist"...more 23.03.04.
Author 'sexually assaulted young girls'
A children's author befriended
and groomed a young girl who was fascinated by his work to sexually assault and
rape her over a five-year period, a court heard today...more 23.03.04.
Newly found Rudyard Kipling story
The spring issue of the Kipling Society
journal has been published at the end of March since it was founded in 1927, nine
years before the author Rudyard Kipling's death. But this year - amid secrecy
and excitement...more 23.03.04.
Turn books to bedding
Households are being encouraged to turn telephone
books into bedding in an initiative starting this month...more 23.03.04.
Father of black history's library acquired
The Special Collections
and Archives Division has acquired the library of African-American historian Carter
G. Woodson, the first person to open the long-ignored field of black history to
American schools and scholars ...more 22.03.04.
Self-publishing will spur book industry
If Andy Kessler had published
Wall Street Meat the traditional way, it would be hitting bookstore shelves right
about now...more 22.03.04.
Charity donors role in the next Pullman novel
Twenty novelists are
giving readers the opportunity to buy literary immortality by bidding at a charity
auction for a part in their forthcoming books. ...more 22.03.04.
Librarian defends pot-growing how-to book
The director of the Teton
County Library has staunchly defended carrying a book about marijuana growing
...more 21.03.04.
Library anger over Murray archive row
The academic at the centre of
the row over the National Library of Scotland’s attempt to win the biggest lottery
grant in UK history has been accused of performing a volte-face as the controversy
descends into a quagmire of claims, counter-claims, suspicion and legal threats...more 21.03.04.
Conan Doyle sale disputed
The British Library is urging a halt to the
planned sale of 3,000 personal papers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in May by auction
house Christie's in London, England, until a dispute over the papers' true owners
-- one of whom may be the Toronto Public Library -- has been resolved...more 20.03.04.
Life's snippets gathered by collectors
Related to the word "ephemeral,"
or "short-lived," "ephemera" refers to all kinds of paper-based memorabilia collected
by people like Ragsdale ...more
20.03.04.
The Bookseller
Nicholas Clee on the latest news from the publishing
industry ...more 20.03.04.
Postcard exhibit traces change in Japan's culture
They recall the bygone
days, pre-telephone, fax and e-mail, when people actually corresponded by mail.
Vintage postcards offer a portal to the past, with images of grand hotels, riverboats
and railroad stations, department stores and movie stars. But do we appreciate
them as art?...more 20.03.04.
Battle for rare books
THE University of WA is locked in a legal battle
with the daughter-in-law of the late author Peter Cowan for control of a historic
book collection that dates back 400 years...more 20.03.04.
Move to stop criminals profiting from books
David Blunkett, the home
secretary, yesterday pledged to try to stop criminals like Ian Huntley and Maxine
Carr profiting from their crimes...more 19.03.04.
'Pop Culture' auction house sold
Baltimore businessman Steve Geppi
announced his purchase of Hake's Americana & Collectibles, a leading "pop culture"
collectible auction-house. Terms of the private company transaction were not disclosed...more 19.03.04.
Web craze for short course in literature
Can you really distil the
great works of literature into a paragraph? The exercise is as old as the hills
but now the craze is said to be sweeping the internet...more 18.03.04.
Earliest printed book put online by British Library
A website allowing
scholars, historians and anyone interested in the history and significance of
printing to explore in detail the British Library's rare copies of the Gutenberg
Bible (the oldest surviving printed book produced in the Western World) has been
launched...more 18.03.04.
Who are the comic collectors?
A rare first edition of the Beano has
been sold for £12,100, setting what is thought to be a new UK record for a comic.
How can it be worth so much and who on earth would want it?...more 18.03.04.
Few buyers for books by disgraced journalists
Jayson Blair and Stephen
Glass, two young journalists notorious for fabricating stories, have something
else in common: Both have written highly publicized books that few people are
buying...more 18.03.04.
A Samuel Johnson Trove Goes to Harvard
The Houghton Library at Harvard
University has inherited the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of material relating
to Samuel Johnson. It is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive compilations
of 18th-century rare books, manuscripts and personal correspondence...more 18.03.04.
Dissident thinking on display
NEWSPAPERS, rock bands, books, pieces
of art, radio channels: they are all different manifestations of samizdat, the
underground genre of opinions and expression not corresponding to the official
line in their aesthetics, form or content...more 18.03.04.
New illustrated Dr. Seuss biography
Over the last 15 years, Cohen has
amassed thousands of pieces of memorabilia that document Theodor Seuss Geisel's
life and work. That collection is the basis of his new, illustrated biography,
"The Seuss, the Whole Seuss and Nothing But the Seuss" (Random House, 390 pages,
$35), released this month...more 17.03.04.
Beano sells for £12,100
The Beano comic has been sold for a record
price of £12,100 after “enormously fierce” bidding, an auction house said. The
comic, dated July 30, 1938, is one of only 12 first editions of the Beano known
to exist...more 17.03.04.
UCLA library purchases key Wilde manuscripts
UCLA's William Andrews
Clark Memorial Library has acquired a college notebook kept by the 19th-century
wit, playwright and cult figure Oscar Wilde, as well as the original manuscript
of his homosexual lover's autobiography...more 17.03.04.
Bookshop quits Westminster
The man behind one of Westminster's most
improbable hits - the Politico's bookshop in London's political village - is this
week packing his bags...more 17.03.04.
Domesticated Goddess
"Dying is an art," said Sylvia Plath. But so is living, and she excelled
at both—not that her biographers, with one wise and big-hearted exception, have
noticed...more 16.03.04.
Grolier book shop to close
The book is about to close on the nation’s
oldest all-poetry store, as the Grolier Poetry Book Shop is forced under by competition
from chain bookstores and the Internet...more 16.03.04.
Conan Doyle papers 'to fetch £2m'
A lost collection of personal papers
belonging to Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been found...more 16.03.04.
Orange prize longlist revels in diversity
The Orange prize for women's
fiction publishes a longlist today which underlines its evolution from a British
feminist ghetto towards Britain's most international literary award...more 15.03.04.
Ancient
map at core of new debate
A University of Minnesota library treasure is
cited as evidence that Chinese explorers reached the Americas first...more 15.03.04.
Library forging ahead with Murray archive bid
The National Library
of Scotland is planning to buy the John Murray Archive for a reduced price of
£33 million with the help of the Scottish Executive, lottery funding and the public
purse...more 14.03.04.
`Little Black Sambo' is not worth pain
As a child, I adored the story
of Little Black Sambo. I thought Sambo incredibly brave and wily. I, too, wanted
to watch tigers whirl themselves into a pool of golden butter and then eat 169
pancakes fried in that butter...more
14.03.04.
Poe's literary influence is forevermore
Author
Edgar Allen Poe, the creator of the modern detective story, is featured in a number
of new books, both fact and fiction....more 14.03.04.
Eng lit as it is now writ
Read all about it - why writing has radically
changed - in Randall Stevenson's final volume of the Oxford English Literary History
series, The Last of England?...more 14.03.04.
Rare books highlight fly-fishing
The Toppan Library hosts an assortment
of rare fishing titles equaled by only a few collections in the United States...more 13.03.04.
The Bookseller
Nicholas Clee on the latest news from the publishing industry...more 13.03.04.
New picture of Dr. Seuss emerges
It was the genius of Theodor Geisel,
aka Dr. Seuss, to narrate his slightly surreal and beguiling world with a singular
doggerel that mesmerized baby boomers, instilling in many a love of reading ...more 13.03.04.
Rare books open a window on past
A rare collection of more than 7,000
books has been unearthed from beneath cobwebs and dust...more 12.03.04.
Books that changed the world - for a while
Sixty years ago this week,
George Orwell reviewed a work by a little-known Austrian professor and refugee
from Hitler, FA Hayek. It was called The Road to Serfdom, and Orwell didn’t think
much of it...more 12.03.04.
Publishing mainly white and middle class
Publishers love to hype ethnic
minority writers such as Zadie Smith and Monica Ali. But, behind the scenes, publishing
offices are overwhelmingly white, middle class and, in the top jobs, male dominated...more 12.03.04.
Bookseller at war with Tolstoy and cancer
When A. David Schwartz thought
he was dying of cancer some months ago, he found a companion for his dark moments
of chemotherapy and depression, a cranky old Russian who could argue the big questions
of life with him: predestination, the existence of God and the mechanisms of history...more 11.03.04.
New book about slave raids on Europe
North African pirates abducted
and enslaved more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of
raids which depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, according to new
research. ...more 11.03.04.
Dan Dare reprint series announced
In March 2004, Titan books will begin
publishing a new hardcover, library edition series of graphic novels collecting
the classic British comic strip Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, taken from famed
boys adventure comic The Eagle...more 11.03.04.
A paradise of pages
More than 115 vendors will have stacks of books,
maps, autographs and other paper collectibles at the Florida Antiquarian Book
Fair in St. Petersburg...more 10.03.04.
Archbishop praises author accused of blasphemy
Philip Pullman, the
best-selling author with a widely advertised contempt for organised religion,
has found an unlikely champion in the Archbishop of Canterbury who has risked
the wrath of fundamentalists by praising the National Theatre's adaptation of
the author's His Dark Materials as a "near miraculous triumph" ...more 10.03.04.
Disney buys up Judy Blume books
A series of films based on books by
the children's author Judy Blume are to be turned into Disney movies ...more 10.03.04.
Peters book shop loses lease, set to close
Sandy Petrosky, of Washington,
has lost the lease on Sandy's Book Shoppe, and must close. So with 40,000 books
remaining on wooden shelves, she's turning the page, ending this chapter of life
and closing the cover March 31 on the 23-year-old bookstore ...more 10.03.04.
The origins of genius
Joan Winterkorn has rifled through the lives
and leavings of many of the good and great. She worked on the Churchill papers,
the archives of actor Laurence Olivier and of scientist Francis Crick, co-discoverer
of DNA...more 09.03.04.
Aiken left behind legacy of literature
Joan Aiken, who died in January
at the age of 79, wrote poetry, plays and short stories for all ages, but it was
for her children's books that she was best known...more 09.03.04.
Brought to book
Ronald Jordan has been described as a latter-day Fagin.
He's the man behind the biggest book-stealing operation Britain has ever seen.
But how did his very public criminal activities go unpunished for so many years?
...more 07.03.04.
Disney pins $100m hopes on Narnia
CS Lewis's tales of an enchanted
world reached through a wardrobe are to hit the big screen as Hollywood studios
seek to repeat the success of JRR Tolkien's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings...more 07.03.04.
How Hemingway gored his rivals
A fierce and foul-mouthed tirade by
Ernest Hemingway against his literary rivals has surfaced after nearly 80 years
and is expected to fetch up to £30,000 at auction...more 06.03.04.
For the love of Books
Bibliophiles will find kindred spirits in “At
Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries”...more 05.03.04.
Beatrix Potter had more to offer world
Peter Rabbit books gave her
the fame and fortune she needed to pursue other interests...more 05.03.04.
New chapter for a town time forgot?
World Book Day started in Blaenavon
at 7.45am, when James McDonald sold two Terry Pratchett paperbacks for £3.50 to
a customer surprised that even the newsagents at the top of the town had turned
into a bookshop...more 05.03.04.
Murder and antiquity
John Dunning is an antiquarian book dealer who's
written three novels about a cop who becomes an antiquarian book dealer. The first
of those novels, "Booked to Die" (1992), is a valuable book, making Dunning a
rare-book dealer whose book about a rare-book dealer is a rare book...more 04.03.04.
Books are not eggs
Our rich and varied literary life is under threat from
proposals for a new pricing structure on what we read says Philip Pullman...more 04.03.04.
Rowling talks about Harry Potter books 6 and 7
J.K. Rowling participated
in a live chat with school children this morning to celebrate World Book Day.
In the course of this chat she gave some very interesting information about the
future of Harry Potter books, including the fact that she might go back and revise
all the books once they're finished...more 04.03.04.
World Book Day Online Festival
Today, World Book Day, Thursday 4 March
2004, sees the launch of the 2nd World Book Day Online Festival, where all events
happen virtually, on the Internet. Last year's Festival attracted readers from
100 countries, and we hope to see even more this year...more 04.03.04.
Medieval book 'should return to Norfolk'
A Norfolk heritage group has
called for a beautiful medieval book of psalms to be returned to the county before
it goes under the hammer...more 02.03.04.
Excellent catch of fishing books
It is said some of the best fishing
is to be found in print. Angling undoubtedly has the finest and largest literature
of all sport...more 02.03.04.
In defence of romance
Isabel Wolff is proud to be part of the romantic
fiction tradition that includes the Brontës, Tolstoy and Austen ...more 02.03.04.
Jack and Jill in single mother shock
Britain's most popular nursery
rhymes, recited by generations of parents to their children, are teeming with
references to bed-hopping royals and teenage sex, according to a book on the origins
of 24 playground ditties...more 02.03.04.
10 facts about Dr Seuss
It's the 100th anniversary on Tuesday of the
birth of the children's writer, Dr Seuss, author of classics such as The Cat in
the Hat, and Green Eggs and Ham...more 02.03.04.
£33m deal to save Murray literary archive
A £33 million deal has been
agreed to save Britain's greatest private literary archive, which includes the
original manuscripts of works by Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott and Benjamin Disraeli
and more than 150,000 letters...more 02.03.04.
HCL Obtains Rare Manuscripts
After months of financial belt-tightening,
Harvard College Library (HCL) announced last Friday that a major donation of rare
18th-century books, paintings and artifacts has checked in to Houghton Library...more
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