30.06.05
17
Full Grown Elephants? That’s a Lot of Books
2004 saw a record of 195,000
new books released in the United States, a growth rate of 20,000 per year for
the last three years. 195,000 new titles, what does that mean? If the books were
shelved side by side one would need three miles of shelving...more Add
a comment 'Narnia'
claims its place in kids' book realm
The movie version of C.S. Lewis' beloved
children's story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, part of The Chronicles
of Narnia series, won't be in theaters until Dec. 9. But some booksellers are
getting ready to pull out artificial fir trees, fake snow and Narnia-inspired
stuffed animals...more Add
a comment Obituary:
Hovis Presley
Hovis Presley, who has died of a heart attack aged 44, was
a much admired, idiosyncratic figure on the comedy and poetry circuits...more Add
a comment British
Library predicts 'Switch to digital by 2020'
A study commissioned by the
Library, projects that, by the year 2020, 40% of UK research monographs will be
available in electronic format only, while a further 50% will be produced in both
print and digital. A mere 10% of new titles will be available in print alone by
2020...more Add
a comment
29.06.05
Rare
birds
In a shrinking market, San Francisco's antiquarian booksellers stay
eccentric...more Add
a comment Can
you say anything about the dead?
Lurid claims about Princess Diana have
made the front pages once again. But what are the restrictions on what you can
say about people who have died? ...more Add
a comment That
golden stream still rolls in
A signed copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf fetched
£23,800 at auction a couple of weeks ago. The buyer was anonymous. There is a
persistent rumour that Prince Philip has one of the world's best collections of
editions of the book...more Add
a comment Books
swept aside in bid to celebrate Russia's history
After 170 years of inhabiting
the buildings that housed the pre-revolutionary Senate and Synod, Russia's largest
and oldest archive, containing 6.5m manuscripts documenting history from Peter
the Great to the Bolshevik coup, is being evicted by the Kremlin...more Add
a comment
28.06.05
UK
readers deprived of world literature
Britain's literary scene is so parochial
that there is virtually a conspiracy against readers experiencing the best of
the world's literature, according to John Carey, the chairman of the judges for
the first International Man Booker prize...more Add
a comment Man
in court over Harry Potter book theft
A secret plot, a shoddy tabloid
reporter, a thief, a book, a gunshot and a trial. Only Harry Potter mania could
produce such amazing real life drama...more Add
a comment Curator
charged with book theft
More than 30,000 books, including 1,000 rare and
priceless items, are believed to have been stolen from the French national library
in Paris...more Add
a comment
27.06.05
Hamilton's
naked girl shots ruled 'indecent'
David Hamilton - the photographer whose
images hang in the US Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Danish
Palace - has had his multi-million-selling images of young, naked women and girls
officially branded as indecent in a landmark British ruling...more Add
a comment Jordan
bans Saddam novel
Critics judge it boring, but some in the Middle East
consider Get Out of Here, Curse You!, the latest novel by Saddam Hussein, dangerous...more Add
a comment Mutiny
over Brando auction bounty
War has broken out between the executors of
Marlon Brando's estate and his renegade eldest son, Christian. The screen legend's
47-year-old heir is furious over the way producer Mike Medavoy and the estate's
other overseers have handled this Thursday's auction of Brando's possessions at
Christie's...more Add
a comment
25.06.05
Audubon
Museum obtains rare Royal Octavo Series
Ordinarily, Don Boarman has been
hesitant to recommend items for the local Friends of Audubon support group to
purchase for the 67-year-old museum in Audubon State Park...more Add
a comment
A
house is not home without lots of books
Most of Donald S. Connery's prized
books - more than six decades' worth of collecting, from New York to Moscow and
from Japan to Connecticut - were languishing in boxes, incarcerated in solitary
cardboard confinement. Alas, it is the predicament of book lovers all over: What
to do with them all? Connery's solution was artful and extravagant...more Add
a comment The
first casualty
There is nothing plain or unbiased about facts, writes
Salman Rushdie...more Add
a comment My
romance with books
A bookshop - especially a second hand bookshop - is
an arsenal of explosives, an armoury of revolutions, an opium den of reactions.
A good bookshop sets the prophet against the priest, the democrat against the
tyrant, the prisoner against society, the has-nothing against the has-all, the
individual against the universe...more Add
a comment
24.06.05
Brando
memorabilia goes on block
A trove of the legendary actor's personal effects
is to be auctioned next week at Christie's in New York. To glance through the
catalog is to feel a voyeur's sense of poking through the closets and drawers
at the late actor's Mulholland Drive home...more Add
a comment
Memorabilia
dealer makes the most of pieces of history
An autograph dealer by trade,
Todd Mueller last year paid $12,500 for trash collected from in front of Hepburn's
New York apartment every week for six years...more Add
a comment After
2,600 years, a fourth poem by Sappho
A new poem by Sappho, one of the
greatest poets of Greek antiquity, is published today after its discovery in the
cartonnage of an Egyptian mummy...more Add
a comment
23.06.05
Detractors
divided over Hillary book
The online bookshop Amazon helpfully tells customers
ordering The Truth About Hillary what those who have bought the rather salacious
book about Mrs Clinton have purchased in the past...more Add
a comment
Which
reader are you...?
For many of us, the holidays begin not with the first
step on to the plane, nor with the slamming of the car boot, nor even with the
first argument about who's got the children's passports. Rather, it begins a few
days previously - with a visit to the bookshop and a luxurious half-hour browsing
the shelves...more Add
a comment India's
nationwide effort to rescue its written past
"Do you have any ancient
handwritten manuscripts here?" Dilipkumar Rana, the scholar, asks in a whisper.
"I have very few left now,'' temple manager Jaipal Jain says. "I threw many old
manuscripts into the river last year." "Why?" Rana asks anxiously." "I had
put them in the attic. Last year during the monsoon, the ceiling leaked, and the
water destroyed many of the manuscripts"...more Add
a comment
22.06.05
Step
right up, folks. Behold what amazes!
In his new book, "Extraordinary Exhibitions,"
Ricky Jay, master conjurer and historian of show business, has assembled such
a congress of marvels, wonders, prodigies and anomalies as Barnum himself would
have been proud to present...more Add
a comment State
of New Jersey snaps up unique documents
New Jersey seized its chance to
acquire some of the earliest known records of its beginnings yesterday in one
of the most significant sales of historical American documents in years...more Add
a comment A
new page in Google's books fight
Publishers have finally had a chance
to look at some of the details of Google's Print for Libraries project, a massive
effort to digitize books that some publishers fear could violate copyright laws.
So far, many publishers don't like what they see -- and they want Google to agree
to a six-month moratorium...more Add
a comment
21.06.05
Lennon
memorabilia at auction
London - A major collection of John Lennon memorabilia,
including an oil painting from his student days and a handwritten All You Need
Is Love manuscript, will go on sale in London in July, an auction house announced
on Monday...more Add
a comment Muslim
woman's erotic book a hit
An erotic novel by a Muslim woman, written under
a pseudonym, has become a hit in France and will soon be available in the United
States. "The Almond," written by a North African author under the name of Nedjma,
is a semi-autobiographical exploration of sexual freedom, reports The New York
Times...more Add
a comment Book
purge
Anthony Powell said: "Books do furnish a room". But there comes
a time in a book-lover’s life, well this book-lover's life, when they run out
of shelf space...more Add
a comment Tunnel
vision
Ian Jack is perplexed by an academic take on the Rev W Awdrey's
'funny little engine'...more Add
a comment
20.06.05
What's
my line?
Nobody was anybody on Broadway until they had been drawn by Al
Hirschfeld. David Leopold salutes the caricaturist who both loved and lampooned
the biggest stars of the 20th century...more Add
a comment 'Mein
Kampf' - going, going, gone
"It's kind of a delicate subject," he says
of the literary rant, published in the 1920s, that laid out Hitler's vision for
the "Aryan" race and served as a blueprint for his plan to exterminate the Jews.
"Normally, I reject anything that has to do with the Nazis, but these guys [Hitler
and the book's first owner] were so high up. The way they altered history transcended
their behavior"...more Add
a comment University
library dumps rare books
The Octagon library at Queen Mary, University
of London, in Mile End, east London, is in the process of refurbishment and decided
that it would have to dispose of its surplus books. These have now been dumped
in skips outside the library, to the outrage of staff and students...more Add
a comment
10.06.05
No
news today...
TheBookGuide is away for a few days but he and the news
will return on June 20th. However, desperate news junkies can find links to 1,000's
of book related stories and articles in our archives.
09.06.05
For
Sendak, 'cute' doesn't quite cut it
The title page of the new edition
of Bears, an old book by Ruth Krauss with new drawings by Maurice Sendak, shows
a teddy bear dangling by its neck from a rope. A noose in a children's book? Sendak
shrugs. "He's not dead. He's a toy"...more Add
a comment Serial
killer book scoops prize
American author Lionel Shriver yesterday won
the Orange Prize for Fiction, one of the most prestigious awards for female novelists
in English, for a story about a teenage mass murderer...more Add
a comment Google
woos book publishers
Search giant uses a publishing conference to promote--and
defend--its Google Print service...more Add
a comment Million
Dollar map sold at Christie's
The map responsible for giving America its
name sold at Christie's on Wednesdy for £545,600, or $1,002,26, a world record
price for any single sheet map at auction...more Add
a comment Fortunes
made in rare books
Panjiayuan in southeast Beijing is extremely popular
with vendors, scholars, and migrant workers alike due to the rare or antique books
sold there...more Add
a comment
08.06.05
Cold
finger - James Bond author was the real villain
The story of Erno Goldfinger's
vehement reaction when the author Ian Fleming appropriated his name - and aspects
of his character - with deliberate savagery for the villain and title of the James
Bond novel was disclosed on Wednesday...more Add
a comment
Second-hand
book shop closes door to its vault
One of Princeton's best-kept secrets
is closing it doors. For the past 35 years, Pat McConahay has run the Witherspoon
Art & Book Store, a second-hand book shop tucked away in the basement of the old
Princeton Bank & Trust building at the corner of Nassau and Bank streets...more Add
a comment New
work by Bach discovered
Berlin - Experts have discovered a previously
unknown work by Johann Sebastian Bach in documents taken from a German library
shortly before it was heavily damaged by fire, researchers said Wednesday...more Add
a comment
07.06.05
World's
largest Spider-Man collection for sale
The webbed wonder has reached a
new height this week on the world wide web with the launch of the largest private
Spider-Man memorabilia collection in the world through eBay through Giving Works,
the dedicated program for charity listings...more Add
a comment
Free
Bryson book for schools
The author Bill Bryson will send a free copy of
his recent book on science to every secondary school in Britain under a scheme
backed by the government and the Royal Society of Chemistry, it was announced
today...more Add
a comment
Prestigious
Cairo library goes online
The long-awaited online library of Al-Azhar,
the oldest and highest Sunni institution in Egypt, that aims to promote a moderate
image of Islam by making Al-Azhar’s holdings of manuscripts available online is
now accessible for those interested in knowing more about Islam...more Add
a comment
The
oldest new library
In 183 districts across India 10,000 researchers are
poring over every word on barks, leaves and stones for a database on ancient manuscripts...more Add
a comment
06.06.05
Bookshop
is haunt for ghost hunters
Anyone leafing through a paperback at Priestpopple
Books might think someone is reading over their shoulder. For loud footsteps,
slamming doors and glimpses of a shadowy figure are all part and parcel of running
the Hexham book store for owner John Patterson...more Add
a comment
The
humble book survives
Remarkably, Americans still spend more on books than
they do on moviegoing, recorded music, video games or DVDs. Despite all the advances
in technology, books still have no equal when it comes to telling complicated,
nuanced narratives...more Add
a comment
Monroe
phone book sells for $90,000
A painting by Marilyn Monroe was auctioned
off with her personal phone book with numbers for Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny and
scores of other celebrities for more than $150,000...more Add
a comment
04.06.05
Heaney
opens Lakeland centre
The Jerwood Centre, funded by the Jerwood Foundation,
the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Northwest Regional Development Agency and the European
Regional Development Fund, has already been hailed by the Civic Trust as "a breathtakingly
beautiful building of sheer simplicity"...more Add
a comment
Priceless
Shostakovich archive revealed
Mark Matsov, son of Dmitry Shostakovich’s
close friend, has revealed the secret archive relating to the famous Russian composer,
Reuters reports. His unique collection kept in an Estonian apartment consists
of 700,000 manuscripts and documents and 1,000 hours of concert recordings that
can shed new light on Shostakovich...more Add
a comment
Elvis
memorabilia going up for auction
On Monday, California State East Bay
broadcasting Professor Jim Forsher will auction nearly 250 Elvis Presley mementoes
-- from autographed records to personal notes -- that his mother collected while
working as a secretary to The King...more Add
a comment
'Stolen'
Potter book pair charged
Two men have been charged with weapons offences
after they were thought to be trying to sell a stolen copy of the new Harry Potter
novel to a newspaper...more Add
a comment
03.06.05
Shots
fired in Harry Potter sting
Two men were arrested today after shots were
fired during what is thought to be a deal involving a Sun reporter and a gangster
trying to sell a stolen copy of the new Harry Potter novel, police said...more Add
a comment
Watergate
book goes back up chart
The behind-the-scenes account of the Watergate
scandal is climbing back up US bestseller lists after the source of the book's
revelations was unmasked...more Add
a comment
Albanian
beats literary titans
Roth, Grass, Updike, Lessing, McEwan, Spark, Garcia
Marquez. It read like a rollcall of modern literature's titans and anyone scanning
the shortlist for the inaugural Man Booker International prize could have been
forgiven for missing the giant of Albanian letters nestling among them...more Add
a comment
02.06.05
The
Bancroft Library closed earthquake strengthening
The closing means that
Berkeley university must move 500,000 books, 50 million manuscript items and 2.8
million photographs ...more Add
a comment
Irish
History Leaps Into 21st Century
A Bronx-based institute has joined up
with universities around the U.S. and in Ireland to bring ancient works of Irish
literature and music to life...more Add
a comment
Hay
Radio
Couldn't make it to the Hay festival? There's no need to miss out
on Terry Pratchett, Alexander McCall Smith, Philip Pullman, David Mitchell and
a host of other literary stars as Hay Radio lets you listen to events live or
for up to 10 days after the broadcast...more Add
a comment
Toronto's
comics festival
When Peter Birkemoe, co-founder and co-owner of The Beguiling,
created the first Toronto Comic Arts Festival back in 2003, he knew he was onto
something...more Add
a comment
Fay
Godwin
Fay Godwin, who died on Friday aged 74, was the foremost landscape
photographer in Britain, and also collaborated with the poet Ted Hughes, going
on to produce portraits of other writers; her insight into the British countryside,
which led her to be compared with the great American photographer Ansel Adams,
was also her recreation, and she was president of the Ramblers' Association from
1987 until 1990...more Add
a comment
01.06.05
Deep
Throat book for sale
A book written and apparently autographed by the man
who has revealed himself as Deep Throat, the long-anonymous source from the Watergate
scandal, was being offered Wednesday for sale on EBay...more Add
a comment
Westminster
Abbey counters Da Vinci Code
Westminster Abbey has issued tour guides with
information sheets to help them correct the factual errors in the bestselling
novel The Da Vinci Code...more Add
a comment
Jane
Austen letter on display
A gossipy letter from Jane Austen to her sister
goes on display for the first time...more Add
a comment
Harry
Potter And The Library Sweepstakes
The biggest single print run in United
States history of 10.8 million copies will see the first copy signed by author
J.K. Rowling and donated to a library...more Add
a comment
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