28.02.06
Capote
letter helps solve ‘Mockingbird’ mystery
A letter that Truman Capote wrote
in 1959 while living on Clarks Island off the Duxbury coast may settle a literary
mystery. The two-page letter touches on the controversy of whether Nelle Harper
Lee really wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird"
... more
Add a comment The
'Lost' world of Flann O'Brien
Forty years after the death of one of Ireland's
most eccentric literary stars, thousands of Americans are rushing out to buy his
work. Why? Because one of his books appeared on a hit television drama series
... more
Add a comment Dan
Brown stars in High Court tale of treachery
Dan Brown would have struggled
to come up with a tale more filled with pseudo-historical intrigue and claims
of treachery than the one revealed in Court 61 of the High Court yesterday
... more
Add a comment Totally
booked out
"It's not a normal town," said the grizzled man who picked me
up hitchhiking. As the rain lashed his battered car, I desperately hoped there
wasn't a bloodied axe in the boot. "It's the books. People come here for the books.
All year round, and more during the festival. It's odd, I think."
The
town is Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh side of the border between England and Wales,
and there are a lot of books - in fact, it has more bookshops per capita than
anywhere in the world
... more
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25.02.06
Electronic
ink may rewrite book publishing industry
Once upon a time, not too long
ago, people prophesied the end of the printed book (and magazine and newspaper).
That didn't happen, of course. As good as technology is, it couldn't match, let
alone beat, the experience of reading a printed book.
But
we're potentially on the cusp of a change. A new technology is now making it into
consumer products that just might make electronic books a viable alternative to
printed ones. It's called electronic ink, and it can make a computer display look
like a page in a printed book as opposed to a glowing screen
... more
Add a comment Comics
fans and heroes, discovered or masked
The first New York Comic-Con came
to Gotham City yesterday, where visitors were met by a life-size statue of (who
else?) Batman, constructed from Lego
... more
Add a comment Oxford
Bookshop forced out by rent rise
A bookshop on Oxford's Turl Street is
being forced to close following rent hikes by leaseholders Lincoln College. The
Janus Society, which is currently holding a closingdown sale, is the latest occupant
of a site which has housed bookshops since the end of the 19th century. It specialises
in academic books and describes itself as the purveyor of "books to whet and satisfy
the mind"
... more
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24.02.06
World's
first environment-friendly plastic book
China has published the world's
first environment-friendly plastic book written by a former scientific consultant
to the US president. Titled Cradle to Cradle, the book is authored by William
McDonough, who was also honoured as the 'Father of the Next Industrial Revolution'
... more
Add a comment UK
book fair dates grow by 5%
This February TheBookGuide is listing 33 more
fair dates in our Book Fair Calendar, than in
2005. These are mainly new ventures by novice organisers, or in a few cases, new
locations by existing organisers.
Early feedback from
some of the new organisers is quietly optimistic and provides a welcome contrast
to the visible contraction of some of the fairs we regularly visit. However, even
at those fairs where exhibitor numbers have continued to slide, some organisers
are reporting significantly increased visitor numbers.
Although
it's too early for a detailed analysis, these figures suggest that not only has
the overall decline in fairs stabilised, but that we are actually seeing a modest
growth of about 5%. This represents the first real growth
for five years and perhaps these new organisers will be able to build on there
initial succes. Add
a comment
22.02.06
Korea
and France to start talks on ancient books
A Korean government task force
on reacquiring ancient books stolen by French soldiers some 140 years ago left
for Paris today, seeking to reach a breakthrough in the negotiations that have
been rumbling on for over a decade
... more
Add a comment Potter
star buys Rowling document at Book Aid auction
Harry Potter star Daniel
Radcliffe has paid £30,000 at a charity auction for a family tree drawn by author
JK Rowling. Radcliffe, 16, who plays the schoolboy wizard on screen, bought a
handwritten history of the family of Sirius Black, his character's godfather.
The actor also successfully bid for handwritten works by writers Iain Banks and
Tom Stoppard, totalling £4,680
... more
Add a comment Royal
Society wants £1m book back
The Royal Society has begun legal moves to
halt the £1 million auction of a 17th-century manuscript charting the beginnings
of modern science. The papers were written by Robert Hooke, the Royal Society’s
first curator of experiments, and include the original minutes of meetings in
the 1670s and 1680s.
Members of the Royal Society,
founded in 1660, believe that the minutes must originally have been removed unlawfully
from its archives and, despite having been missing for more than 300 years, they
want them returned
... more
Add a comment Spider-Man
robs comic book store
A robber wearing a Spider-Man mask was caught on
surveillance video Tuesday stealing a set of rare comics from a store in Culver
City, Calif. Among the issues stolen were Fantastic Four #1, X-Men #1, and the
comic in which Spidey first appeared, Amazing Fantasy #15, valued at around $2,500
an issue
... more
Add a comment
21.02.06
London
cartoon museum opens
London's first cartoon museum, with 3,000 books and
1,200 images, covers three centuries, from Georgian Rowlandson watercolours of
ancient bawds selling off country maids to wrinkled rakes, to scurrilous suggestions
so recent that the ink is barely dry, teasing out the tangled affairs of Gordon
Brown, Tony Blair and George Bush
... more
Add a comment Final
chapter ends for Russian bookstore
A Russian bookstore in Maryland that
has long been a haven for immigrants, researchers and - some say - even spies
and CIA agents during the Cold War unexpectedly closed its doors last week when
the owner was evicted. Thousands of books, all in Russian and some still in plastic
packaging, were taken to the trash transfer station at Shady Grove to be recycled
... more
Add a comment Penniless
Alberta author lands fantasy book deal
An impoverished Canadian academic
who wrote a children's book while "living out of a suitcase" is set to become
a literary sensation. Matthew Skelton's book Endymion Spring has been bought by
the world's most respected children's publisher for a huge sum, translated into
14 languages, and the film rights have been sold to Warner Brothers
... more
Add a comment Irving
jailed for denying Holocaust
David Irving, the discredited historian and
Nazi apologist, was last night starting a three-year prison sentence in Vienna
for denying the Holocaust and the gas chambers of Auschwitz
... more
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20.02.06
A
new page in sporting history - the $100m book
In an age when publishers
are going for quantity rather than quality, one man has gone against the grain
and produced the most expensive sports book ever. Will Buckley meets the Coventry-born
investment banker who dreamt up the Opus collection
... more
Add a comment Collector's
Corner: James Bond
James Bond has been thrilling movie audiences for well
over 40 years ever since the first Bond movie "Dr. No" burst onto cinema screens
back in 1962. Interest in Bond will likely be greater with the release later this
year of "Casino Royale" - the first Bond film in several years. Most people are
familiar with Bond from the movies, and it is easy to forget that Bond had his
beginnings in print a decade before the first Bond movie
... more
Add a comment Crime
pays for bookshop assistant
Fact has become stranger than fiction again.
A Scottish book shop assistant who used to order novels is giving up his job after
being offered a five-figure advance for a trilogy of crime books of his own
... more
Add a comment Prodigy's
mission to turn children into literature lovers
She dashes off poems and
reads Voltaire in her spare time. Now Adora, eight, is coming to tell British
pupils how to writel
... more
Add a comment
18.02.06
Alibris
to target UK market
Yesterday I received the following from A.J. Kohn,
Director of Direct Marketing and Sales at Alibris:
'Alibris will be making significant changes in 2006
that will allow UK sellers to effectively sell and profit on our platform. I thought
it may be of interest to you and your readers in light of recent changes at ABE.'
''We understand that our current system doesn’t work
for many UK sellers. However, once these changes are complete, we believe Alibris
will provide the same type of service to UK sellers as we do to our North American
sellers.'
As
they say, watch this space. Add a comment
17.02.06
Swann
Galleries African Americana auction
For more than a decade, Swann Galleries
has been offering annual February auctions devoted to Printed & Manuscript African
Americana, in conjunction with Black History Month. This year, the auction will
be held on Tuesday, February 28. Swann is the only major auction house to conduct
regular sales of this important material
... more
Add a comment Blake
collection to be broken up and sold in New York
The British arts establishment
has reacted with anger and dismay to the announcement that an important collection
of watercolours by William Blake is to be broken up and sold at auction in New
York.
The group of 19 paintings was created in 1805
to illustrate a popular poem called The Grave by Scottish writer Robert Blair
but had been thought lost until five years ago when they turned up in a house
clearance in pristine condition
... more
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16.02.06
Ones
for the history books
At 34, Wornom is a rarity in the rare-book community,
which traditionally has been the province of men in their 40s through 60s. And
yet, as the 39th California International Antiquarian Book Fair draws collectors,
dealers, librarians and scholars to Century City this weekend, she represents
an important demographic: the hobby's future
... more
Add a comment Holy
comic book!
Holy terror, Batman! Gotham's under attack, and the caped crusader
is the only one who can kick al-Qaida's butt. That, in essence, is the plot of
the latest Batman comic book by leading graphic novelist Frank Miller
... more
Add a comment Hungary
unperturbed by Russian 'storage fee' for rare books
Budapest - Hungary's
foreign ministry on Thursday said that it had no choice but to pay a 400,000-dollar
'storage fee' to Russia for the return of rare books that Soviet forces looted
from Hungary after World War Two
... more
Add a comment
14.02.06
Boston
Bookfair canceled
The Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers'
Association (MARIAB) has, for this year only, canceled its Boston spring bookfair,
which in recent years had been held in March at the Cyclorama, Boston Center for
the Arts
... more
Add a comment New
York book oasis
Just off a busy street less than a block from Bloomingdale's,
the Argosy Book Store is a haven for book lovers. The car noise disappears as
the door closes. Inside, framed prints adorn the walls of a long main floor lined
with bookshelves and ledges filled with enticing reading
... more
Add a comment Cookbooks
are leftovers of good intentions
Despite the best efforts of celebrity
chefs to turn us into a nation of gourmands, the average Briton attempts to replicate
a mere 35 of the 1,000 recipes in the cookbooks that line the shelves of their
home. New research suggests that almost a third of the nation's estimated 171
million recipe books remain unopened
... more
Add a comment
13.02.06
Library
debates options with rare Lincoln print
The cash-strapped Brown County
Library is trying to decide what to do with a rare print of Abraham Lincoln that
it has owned for almost 100 years. Officials took notice when a similar print
fetched $358,000 at a 2002 auction. But history buffs say the library shouldn't
sell the photo without guarantees the print would remain accessible to the community
... more
Add a comment Bid
to save ancient manuscripts
South Africa has thrown its weight behind efforts
to preserve the priceless Timbuktu Manuscripts, ancient documents that hold the
key to some of the secrets of the continent’s history and cultural heritage -
and shatter the conventional historical view of Africa as a purely 'oral continent'.
A
consortium of South African businessmen plans to build a new library to house
between 200 000 and 300 000 ancient manuscripts currently housed in 24 private
libraries in and around the Malian city, and to train local librarians in the
preservation of a treasure trove that is threatening, literally, to disintegrate
... more
Add a comment Larkin
about in the attic
Tapes of Philip Larkin reading some of his poetry have
been discovered in the loft of a work colleague. The find of the tapes in a Hornsea
attic, which are still in excellent condition after 25 years gathering dust, is
exciting fans of the poet's work.
The tapes were among
a huge collection amassed by John Weeks, a former BBC sound engineer who headed
the sound department of Hull University, where Larkin was chief librarian for
30 years
... more
Add a comment
11.02.06
Turning
to crime
The British book-borrowing public is turning to crime, according
to the new Public Lending Right charts on last year's most popular authors in
public libraries
... more
Add a comment That's
not Leonardo Da Vinci
The intense and intriguing face which the world has
come to associate with Leonardo Da Vinci is actually not him at all, according
to one of Italy's top experts on the Renaissance genius
... more
Add a comment Google
bringing search to historical manuscripts
History buffs can search George
Washington's manuscripts online today for terms like "revolution," but only thanks
to the tireless workers who transcribed the hand-written documents into digital
form.
Soon,
many other hand-written historical documents could be made available for the public
to search -- and through considerably less effort -- if a research project funded
by Google Inc. and being executed by three universities works out as planned
... more
Add a comment
10.02.06
Bargain
bookstore sells $100,000 book
Most New Yorkers know the Strand Bookstore
as a place to browse for bargains, roll their eyes at rude employees, and pick
up a paperback for a dollar on a cart outside. But on January 28th, one anonymous
industrial figure plopped down a more significant sum for a book— $100,000 to
be exact.
The William Shakespeare Second Folio he
purchased was published in 1632 and had been in the Strand’s rare book collection
for over twenty-five years
... more
Add a comment Newly
donated papers shed light on war broadcasts
The World War II radio broadcasts
of Edward R. Murrow are now regarded as high points in the history of journalism,
vivid examples of how the spoken word can bring home events of infinite horror
and complexity from thousands of miles away. But when it came to preserving Murrow's
scripts and other papers from that time, few people had the foresight or the luck
to think of history
... more
Add a comment Sixpence
House: Lost in a Town of Books
Every book lover and collector needs to
be freeway close to a town like Hay-on-Wye, Wales, a cobblestone village of 1500
inhabitants and over 40 bookstores which stock so many books that their sheer
accumulated weight, according to the Paul Collins' whimsical, witty and muse-worthy
memoir Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books, "has created its own gravitational
pull"
... more
Add a comment
09.02.06
Library
book overdue for 61 years earns £3,500 fine
A public library book issued
in 1945 has racked up an overdue fine of NZ$9,000 (£3,500). The Punch Library
of Humour book was borrowed from the library in Rotorua, 288 miles north of the
capital, Wellington, 61 years ago, but was recently found among family belongings
in Marie Sushames's attic.
Ms Sushames was presented
with the fine on her 85th birthday, Rotorua's Daily Post newspaper reported yesterday.
The library's manager, Jane Gilbert, said she would be delighted to waive the
charges in return for the privilege of displaying a book which had been "out for
61 years"
... more
Add a comment Eureka!
Lost manuscript found in cupboard
A long-lost 17th century manuscript charting
the birth of modern science has been found gathering dust in a cupboard in a Hampshire
home. Filled with crabby italics and acerbic asides, the 520 or so yellowing and
stained pages are the handwritten minutes of the Royal Society as recorded by
the brilliant scientist Robert Hooke, one of the society's original fellows and
curator of experiments
... more
Add a comment Russian
manuscript describes 19th Century UFO sightings
'I found this document
in the personal archive of a Moscow senator Peter Poludensky, who worked for the
Tsar’s Secret Service and died in the middle of XIX century. Apparently the manuscript
attracted his attention for some reason,' says Alexander Afanasyev, an expert
of the Russian State History Museum, department of manuscripts
... more
Add a comment If
the Bancroft caught fire, what would you save?
Planning the US library's
centennial exhibition forced curators to make difficult choices: Marshall's nugget,
or a stunning edition of Chaucer? The selected items go on view at the Berkeley
Art Museum this weekend
... more
Add a comment
07.02.06
Biography
shakes off doubts about Shakespeare's abilities
Scholars periodically emerge
from their academic cocoons to announce their choice of the person responsible
for the poems, plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. Francis Bacon,
a contemporary of Will's, is often mentioned.
While
Peter Ackroyd does not engage in such literary conjecturing in his biography of
the great man, he does offer enough evidence about Shakespeare's life and times
to convince us that Will was indeed the literary genius whose plays written four
centuries ago are still regarded as the world's greatest literature
... more
Add a comment Comic
book sale prompts 2nd lawsuit
A Troy woman claims she was duped out of
more than 100,000 vintage comic books that are now being sold on eBay by a man
she says still owes her $30,000
... more
Add a comment Treasures
of California history on display
Some of California's most potent historical
relics -- many never before seen by anyone but curators and scholars -- are going
on public view for a nine-month run as UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library marks its
100th year on campus
... more
Add a comment
06.02.06
Waterstone's
founder 'in bid to buy back book chain'
Tim Waterstone, who founded the
eponymous book chain, is understood to be putting together a £250m (€366.5m) deal
to buy it back, it was reported today. Mr Waterstone, who stood down as chairman
of the group in 2001, is said to have secured funding for an offer from private
equity firms, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper
... more
Add a comment 'Texas
eye candy' to be sold off
Among his vast collection are football programs
from 1935, recordings and concert posters from legendary Texas singers such as
Willie Nelson and Bob Wills, and calendars from the early 1900s with names of
bygone towns and businesses.
But after heart surgery
and several failed efforts to sell his collectibles to museums or universities,
the 73-year-old retired salesman is cashing out all 18,551 items through a series
of auctions in Waco.
... more
Add a comment Tracking
African Americana
Mike Glenn of Atlanta has been collecting African Americana
only since 1997. But he figures it already would be tough to replicate his assemblage
of photographs, artifacts, and some 2,000 rare books. "I have things that are
unavailable now and that if I could find, I could never afford," says Glenn. He
isn't the only collector in the field experiencing sticker shock. Demand for these
objects is soaring, in part because of the rising affluence of African Americans
... more
Add a comment
04.02.06
Heritage
Auction Galleries to sell Lincolniana collection
Heritage Auction
Galleries will present an incredible collection of Lincolniana, manuscripts, autographs,
rare books, and Americana in their February 21 & 22 Signature Auction in Dallas
(with simulcast in New York City).
Anchored by the
Henry Luhrs & Lincoln Library Collection, this spectacular $5 million event contains
one of the most significant offerings of Lincolniana in decades, but is also remarkable
for the wide range of material included - from a leaf of the Gutenberg Bible to
a JFK pardon for a Marijuana conviction!
... more
Add a comment Book-plates
sometimes more valuable than books they adorn
The book-plate has been a
symbol of status and individuality for book collectors and owners alike for decades.
The creating of book-plates as a mark of ownership dates back to the 15th century;
the earliest ones probably were handwritten by the book-owners. These days, when
they come to auction mounted and framed, prices for book-plates can range from
$100 to several thousand dollars
... more
Add a comment New
virtual bookshop a hub for Scottish culture
A new e-commerce website showcases
15,000 books from Scottish writers and publishers and offers a wealth of Scottish
literary and cultural information. BooksfromScotland.com has been developed by
the Scottish Publishers’ Association with initial funding from the Scottish Arts
Council. It is seen as a valuable resource for people to learn more about Scottish
culture and literature
... more
Add a comment Queen's
scribe works on £2m handwritten bible
Calligrapher and Queen's scribe Donald
Jackson is producing the first handwritten Bible since the invention of the printing
press. Mr Jackson has completed four out of seven volumes, examples of which are
on show at the V&A in London
... more
Add a comment
03.02.06
Marilyn
Manson set to play 'Alice In Wonderland' author
Marilyn Manson has announced
his intention to play Lewis Carroll in a movie about the 'Alice In Wonderland'
author. The shock rocker hopes to star and direct in the self-penned "arthouse
horror" movie 'Phantasmagoria - The Visions Of Lewis Carroll'
... more
Add a comment Academic's
book collection will be history thanks to wife
As a historian he is expected
to be well read, but years spent trawling car boot sales buying thousands more
tomes for his book collection have driven his wife mad. Falling over books stacked
up in every room in the house, including the toilet, became such a nuisance that
Margaret Rothwell decided to set up an online auction to get rid of her husband
Victor's clutter
... more
Add a comment Tintin
in trouble: Congo book slammed
He wanted to save Snowy, but landed himself
in trouble. Tintin, the young reporter made immortal by the late Belgian writer-illustrator
Herge, is likely to be slammed by city animal rights activists over the way he
kills and mistreats wild animals in ‘Tintin in the Congo’ - the latest in the
24-part French comic series to be released in English worldwide
... more
Add a comment Lost
religious books restored to cathedral
Two religious books, including a
medieval Bible bearing the fingerprints and signatures of 14th century monks,
have been restored to Durham Cathedral after nearly 500 years lost in other collections.
The illuminated manuscript Bible in Latin was used by monks for 200 years before
the dissolution of Durham Priory by Henry VIII in 1539
... more
Add a comment
02.02.06
Bible
owned by Luther King's mom auctioned
The personal Bible of Martin Luther
King Junior's mother - containing her notations on King's birth, marriage and
death - has been auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars, auction house officials
said. New York-based Cohasco sold Alberta King's Bible for an amount in the "strong
five figures," said company vice-president Bob Snyder, declining to reveal the
selling price unless the buyer permits
... more
Add a comment Moscow
rabbi urges return of sacred Jewish books
The rabbi of a Moscow synagogue
has asked Russia's authorities to return thousands of "Jewish sacred objects"
seized by Soviet authorities. "There are 12,000 books of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
nearby, in the Lenin Library. This is the heritage of Lubavitcher Hasids," Yitzhak
Kogan told a news conference in the synagogue. The books should be moved back
into the possession of Hasidic Jews, he said
... more
Add a comment Rare
book by Alice author makes £4,800
The sought-after first-edition of Carroll's
1886 book Alice's Adventures Under Ground was given by the writer in January 1887
to Alexandra Kitchin, affectionately known as Xie. The book was expected to fetch
up to £3,000 after being put up for sale by the Duke of Gloucester to help pay
his father's death duties
... more
Add a comment Roof
repair to keep rare books dry
The irreplaceable books and manuscripts,
some dating back to medieval times, were becoming damp because of holes in the
rectory roof where rain was coming in. Now, English Heritage has donated £65,000
for much-needed repairs to the roof and guttering of the cathedral's rectory and
Librarian's Loft, where thousands of extremely rare and valuable books are kept
... more
Add a comment | 
