23.12.06.
Seasonal
stuff
I was hoping to find an opportunity to write another seasonal tale
of books and booking, but alas ... So I'm afraid you will have to make do with
a little recycled something, dredged from the archives and written at a time when
few visited the site. Happy Christmas - see you in 2007. Add
a comment Pearls
before ...
Cast iron cold in the grudging early morning light; scenes from
Bruegel spring to mind. Figures in ill-fitting clothes, with bad teeth and worrying
haircuts, scurry across the grim tarmac. Judging by their stiffness of limb, some
must be wearing their entire wardrobes ... more Add
a comment
22.12.06.
FBI's
John Lennon files finally released after 25 years
A surveillance report
on John Lennon by US intelligence services has finally been released after a lengthy
court battle ... more Add
a comment Dastardly
deeds proclaimed in handbills
The murderous, amusing and downright mysterious
history of Wearside is recorded in a collection of 150-year-old handbills now
being catalogued by Sunderland Antiquarian Society ... more Add
a comment Twentieth
Century Fox benefit sale
The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) has
announced that Twentieth Century Fox has culled its archives and donated more
than 200 rare documents including signed contracts and internal memos to be sold
at auction to benefit the Fund. One of the highlights is a Memo from 1946 advising
that Norma Jean Dougherty's professional name be designated as Marilyn Monroe
... more Add
a comment BookFinder's
Top 10 out-of-print books of 2006
There's a decidedly Do It Yourself trend
apparent in the top 10 most sought-after out-of-print books of 2006. Popular titles
include the rare Football Scouting Methods, Vincent Price's Treasury of Great
Recipes, and The Principles of Knitting, as well as classic self-help title The
Secret of Perfect Living and running novel Once a Runner. ... more Add
a comment
21.12.06.
Many
suspects seen in the death of a mystery bookstore
Murder Ink, the mystery
bookstore on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is going out of business after
34 years, along with its younger sister store, Ivy’s Books and Curiosities ...
more Add
a comment Schools
chief bans book on penguins
A US schools superintendent and his top lieutenants
have ordered a picture book about two male penguins raising an egg removed from
school libraries ... more Add
a comment Turkish
author acquitted of insulting Ataturk
An Istanbul court on Tuesday (December
19th) acquitted author Ipek Calislar, who was accused of insulting the founder
of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ... more Add
a comment Writer
demands to be unlisted from Amazon
A children's author has drawn attention
to the plight of independent bookshops by demanding that his book be removed from
sale on Amazon's UK website ... more Add
a comment Court
frees British author from Austrian jail
Thirteen months after being jailed
in Austria for statements denying the Holocaust, the British historian David Irving
was freed Wednesday by a court in Vienna, which ruled that he could serve the
remainder of his prison sentence at home on probation ... more Add
a comment Backing
the winners
Nigel Burwood of Any
Amount of Books has a new blog entitled Bookride,
which he says is "a kind of guide and celebration of rare and hard to find
books."
He's only been blogging for a week, so
it's early days. But if he can keep up the pace - I think it's a winner. Add
a comment
19.12.06.
Shedloads
of hoodies
John Simpson is taking the Oxford English Dictionary on to the
web and, after rigorous testing, 40 volumes of new words and revisions are going
with him ...
more Add
a comment Saving
the Irish peat bog manuscript
Restorers are hoping to separate the pages
of the ninth-century psalter and recover some of the ancient text
... more Add
a comment French
collection
Assailed on a daily basis by on-screen sexual imagery, it is
hard for us to remember that for centuries erotic literature was produced as secret,
often hand-written, drafts, its authors subject to harassment and persecution
...
more Add
a comment
18.12.06.
Author's
mindset mayhem
Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have had
schizophrenia. The Scots author behind the classic detective novels had psychiatric
problems, according to new research
... more Add
a comment Parson’s
20-feet of Bible is bought for its illustrations
A 19th-century cleric's
63-volume Bible, thought to be one of the largest in the world, has been sold
at auction for £47,000. A Macklin Bible, produced in 1800 and bound in six or
seven volumes, normally sells for £500-800. What made last week’s Bible unique
was that the Revd Franke Parker, Rector of Luffincott, in Devon, had collected
more than 9000 Old Master prints and engravings to illustrate the text
... more Add
a comment Young
book collectors prize finds
Not many university students can claim to be
among the best young antiquarian book collectors in the country. True, not many
have ever aspired to. But in an Internet age where computers and video games clamor
for the attention of young people, four young collectors prove that the love of
books lives on. They showcased their prize finds last month at an event sponsored
by the Ticknor Society, a Boston book-lovers group. Each displayed the intellect,
intensity, and endearing obsessiveness that the hobby seems to inspire
... more Add
a comment Probe
into sale of Joyce work
Fine Gael TD for Westmeath, Paul McGrath, said
he was concerned about the value to the taxpayer of the acquisition of the manuscript
through a tax credit. McGrath asked about media reports that the National Library
had paid 1.17 million Euros to buy Finnegan’s Wake when it had been made available
for purchase by the state in 2004 for 400,000 Euros
... more Add
a comment
15.12.06.
Black
history trove, a life’s work, seeks museum
Behind the dusty stools and
the old towels, under the broken telephones and the picture frames, amid the spider
webs, sits one of the country’s most important collections of artifacts devoted
to the history of African-Americans
... more Add
a comment Sydney
to get gay library
From Kings Cross to Mardi Gras and Priscilla, the gay
and lesbian community has long been at the heart of Sydney’s culture. Now the
City of Sydney is hoping to preserve that history and take it to the wider community
with plans for the City’s first gay public library collection
... more Add
a comment Police
clueless about stolen manuscript
Police in Bihar's Gaya district are yet
to make any headway, even as four days have passed since a rare manuscript written
by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was stolen
... more Add
a comment
14.12.06.
Rare
Kierkegaard book sold at Copenhagen auction
A rare copy of Danish philosopher
Soeren Kierkegaard's famed book ``Either/Or'' was auctioned off Tuesday for 170,000
kroner (euro22,800; US$30,200) to a European book collector, an auction house
said. The book, a second edition from 1849 with a handwritten dedication to Danish
fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen, was sold by the Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers
of Fine Art on behalf of an unidentified Danish family
... more Add
a comment Playing
by the book
The inner vault of the Sibley Library at the EastmanSchool
is a cool, arid room housing rare books and manuscripts. When visitors walk in,
they often ask to see the oldest thing in the collection. Archivist David Peter
Coppen is happy to oblige. He pulls down the Rochester Codex, a book written between
1070 and 1103 in southern Germany
... more Add
a comment Bill
Bryson made an honorary OBE
American author Bill Bryson has been made
an honorary OBE for his contribution to literature. Bryson, who is best known
for his witty travel writings, received the honour from Culture Secretary Tessa
Jowell ...
more Add
a comment Creator
of Green Lantern comic book superhero dies
Martin Nodell, the man who
came up with the idea for the Green Lantern comic book superhero after seeing
a New York subway train operator waving a lantern with a green light has died
at 91 ...
more Add
a comment
13.12.06.
Rare
Persian manuscript stolen
A rare manuscript written by Mughal emperor
Aurangzeb was stolen by unidentified miscreants from a Bihar school library in
the Gaya district of India. Police suspect it is an organised racket by international
smugglers dealing in antiques
... more Add
a comment French
honnor Beat Poet Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the San Francisco
poet, publisher, painter and founder of City Lights bookstore, is now a commander.
A commandeur, actually
... more Add
a comment The
rise of pop culture in Daniel Defoe's England
A new exhibit of rare books
at the Boston Public Library highlights one of the earliest rises in pop culture
in London with pamphlets, broadsides, and rare books telling stories of criminals,
ghost, shipwrecks, and pirates
... more Add
a comment
12.12.06.
Rare
writings lost, then found
As reports of the missing manuscripts played
on the radio, John Wronoski sorted through his store, half delirious from a lack
of sleep. He grabbed a Robert Mapplethorpe photo he had also taken to Germany
and noticed a bulge behind the photo in the protective plastic sleeve. Wronoski
reached in and pulled out the two Borges manuscripts. They had been misplaced
in the packing in Hamburg. "Good," Wronoski recalled saying. "Now I don't have
to kill myself" ...
more Add
a comment Chippewa
delight in return of scrolls
For those who believe in spiritual forces,
the story of the sacred scrolls of the Bois Forte Chippewa offers a wonderful
affirmation. For those who believe we walk alone, the story offers an amazing
coincidence ...
more Add
a comment Father
of Tintin: Hip Hip Hergé!
Nearly 100 years after he was born, Hergé - the
Belgian-born father of Tintin - remains a figure who inspires devotion, controversy
and, most of all, mystery. Paul Gravett reveals the inside story behind his great
creation, and delves into the troubled background and tortured life of a man who
changed comics forever
... more Add
a comment John
Clare's cottage to be restored
Work on a £1.3 million project to transform
the historic home of poet John Clare into one of the region's premier tourist
attractions is expected to begin in two months. The 18th-century cottage, in Helpston,
near Peterborough, will be turned into a "time capsule" which will tell the story
of the area's greatest poet
... more Add
a comment
11.12.06.
Pages
from history
It has been described as astounding, priceless and "the most
important literary archive to be made public in over a century". But for almost
200 years, the records of the John Murray publishing house were crammed into any
available space at its London home - even on a shelf labelled "underpants"
... more Add
a comment Manuscripts
worth nearly $1 million lost
Two handwritten manuscripts by Argentinian
writer Jorge Luis Borges owned by a Harvard Square bookstore are lost and presumed
stolen, according to a published report
... more Add
a comment Book
theft caught on tape
Days after outfitting her Westport art store with
security cameras, a sharply dressed woman was caught on tape sneaking rare books
into her lizard-skin purse. During their investigation, Westport police contacted
investigators in Toronto, and now the woman, Nora Thomson, 47, and her partner,
Peter Mason King, 48, are facing criminal charges in two countries in what authorities
say was a cross-border larceny scheme involving at least $65,000
... more Add
a comment O.J.
book burns up the resale market
O.J. Simpson's book, If I Did It, may
have been scrapped by its chagrined publisher, but purported copies have been
offered for sale online — briefly
... more Add
a comment
09.12.06.
Penn
library acquiring chef's culinary books
The Philadelphia mainstay that
offers some of the city's finest dining also houses an impressive culinary collection
that includes thousands of cookbooks, periodicals, menus and memorabilia. As Fritz
Blank winds down his involvement with Deux Cheminees ("Two Chimneys," in French),
the University of Pennsylvania is preparing to acquire a good portion of his library
...
more Add
a comment What
a job
Don Bernstine travels the world visiting rock stars in their homes
and backstage and spends tens of thousands of dollars of his employer's money
buying guitars, concert costumes and other music memorabilia. So, it's no surprise
that the Hard Rock Cafe's memorabilia hunter says he'll give up his job when someone
pries it from his "cold, dead fingers"
... more Add
a comment Obituary:
Paul Ableman
Avant-garde novelist of the 1960s, inspired by Kafka and Beckett
...
more Add
a comment Workshop
on preservation of metal manuscripts held
Among the valuable ancient metal
manuscripts on display was one of seven copper plates strung together on a ring
with two `Nandi' bulls on it, recording the grant of lands to a Siva temple by
Tappunatta Mumma Nayanar during the reign of Kulothunga Chola in 1078 A.D. in
Grantha and Tamil script
... more Add
a comment
08.12.06.
Collecting
Indians
Edward Curtis was probably slightly mad when he began photographing
the "vanishing Indians" of North America in 1906. With a $75,000 grant from financier
J. P. Morgan, Curtis planned to spend five years on the enterprise; by the time
he finished his project 30 years later, he was a broken man
... more Add
a comment Books
donated to Bodleian
A collection of rare books owned by "the best read
man in England" has been given by his family to Oxford's Bodleian Library. The
outstanding collection built up over a lifetime by the late Sir Basil Blackwell
was presented to the Bodleian by Julian Blackwell
... more Add
a comment The
book is dead; long live the book
The Sony Reader, a new e-book device released
just in time for the holiday shopping season, doesn' t look too different from
all the other gadgets that clutter our briefcases and backpacks. But the reader
has gotten more attention from journalists than the usual new gadget, and for
good reason: It is the canary in the mine shaft of the post-Gutenberg age
... more Add
a comment
07.12.06.
The
Great Siege in 16th and 17th century Cartography
The island of Malta, a
honey-coloured speck in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, holds pride of place
in the history of 16th century cartography.
It can
safely be said that the record number of maps that appeared on the European market
on the occasion of the Great Siege of 1565 was not equalled by any other historical
event of the 16th century
... more Add
a comment Chancellor
gives books to pupils
Children starting primary and secondary schools in
England are to receive free books to help raise reading levels
... more Add
a comment Second-oldest
Abe photo bought
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has
purchased the second-oldest known photograph of the 16th president for $150,000.
The 1858 ambrotype of Lincoln measures 2-by-2.5 inches and was acquired from the
Abraham Lincoln Book Shop Inc. in Chicago. It will go on display in the museum
sometime next year
... more Add
a comment 1835
hymnal sold at auction for $273,600
A rare 1835 collection of hymns by
Emma Smith for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fetched $273,600
at auction Tuesday — possibly the third-highest price ever for an LDS book. The
small hymnal, in mint condition, is a previously unrecorded copy and had been
estimated to be worth $200,000 to $300,000
... more Add
a comment
06.12.06.
Original
‘Spiderman’ Cover Art Tops $100,000
The original artwork from the cover
of Spiderman #43, drawn by John Romita for the December 1966 issue and depicting
Spidey locked in mortal combat with his arch enemy "The Rhino," sold for $101,700
...
more Add
a comment Jewish
group may sue for seized writings
Members of a Hasidic Jewish movement
may sue the Russian government in an effort to recover 18th century religious
writings and prayers seized by the Nazi and Soviet armies, a U.S. judge said Monday.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the case involves
violations of international law that can be argued in a Washington courtroom.
He dismissed a part of the lawsuit, however, involving a dispute over a library
of religious books abandoned when the group's leader fled Russia before the Bolshevik
Revolution ...
more Add
a comment Mining
the charity shop shelves
Sarah Burnett in her Guardian Book Blog extols
the virtues of buying fiction in charity bookshops...
more Add
a comment Microsoft
debuts book search tool
Anyone wanting to view an obscure tome from the
vaults of the British Library will be able to look for it online from Thursday
... more Add
a comment
05.12.06.
HP
chosen by Amazon.com to print books on demand
Hewlett-Packard Co said it
has been selected by Amazon.com Inc to provide digital colour printing for Amazon's
expanding books-on-demand business. This market is expected to grow from approximately
20 bln book pages in 2006 to around 38 bln book pages by 2009 spurred by increasing
demand for small-volume, rare and self-published books, the company said
... more Add
a comment The
Miss Potter effect
It may be 2007 for most us in four weeks' time, but
between Nannycatch Gate and Kidsty Pike Bottoms, it is set to be the year of the
rabbit - and of the duck, the hedgehog and the three little kittens.
One
of the biggest tourism booms for years is expected in the Lake District after
last night's world premiere in London of the film Miss Potter, starring not only
Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor but Derwentwater, Catbells fell and a beautiful
little bed and breakfast called Yew Tree Farm
... more Add
a comment Diaries
reveal passions at the court of King George
Mary Hamilton is being called
'the female Pepys' for her illuminating record of royal life at the end of the
18th century. Now a battle is being fought to save it for the nation, writes Vanessa
Thorpe ...
more Add
a comment McCartney
lyrics auctioned for $192,000
A Texas bookstore owner bought a rare page
of working lyrics for Beatle Paul McCartney's song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" for
$192,000 at an auction of rock and pop memorabilia at Christie's on Monday
... more Add
a comment
02.12.06.
Village
of killer fairies
They’ve long been regarded as a myth but now it’s official...
four people were scared to death by fairies in west Cumbria between 1656 and 1663.
Details of the mysterious deaths have emerged after an old manuscript painting
a picture of murder, mayhem and misadventure was found by Cumbria Archives
... more Add
a comment Secrets
of Swedish witch hunt revealed
A manuscript containing previously unpublished
information about witch trials in northern Sweden has been discovered in a museum
archive in northern Sweden
... more Add
a comment 'whole
universe' of jazz history destroyed in Katrina
As New Orleans struggles
to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, one of the great casualties of the storm is
starting to emerge: the loss of the documents and ephemera that chronicled New
Orleans' distinctive musical life
... more Add
a comment Do
judge a book by its cover
Patrick Ness laments the trend for drab covers,
poor paper and bad design
... more Add
a comment Iain
Hollingshead wins Bad Sex prize
First-time author Iain Hollingshead scooped
a dubious literary honour last night, winning the Literary Review's Bad Sex in
Fiction award for his novel Twenty Something
... more Add
a comment
01.12.06.
Yahoo
rebuffs Google on digital books
Yahoo has rebuffed Google’s attempt to
learn more about its efforts to create digital copies of books, dealing Google
another setback as it prepares to fight a copyright infringement suit. In rejecting
Google’s request, Yahoo adopted the same stance taken last month by the Internet
retailer Amazon.com, and called Google’s request a brazen attempt to pry into
its trade secrets ...
more Add
a comment Internet
replaces TV shows & books
Americans have begun to use the Internet as a
primary form of entertainment, according to a study at the University of Southern
California. The USC study, which has been conducted most years since 2000, found
that since households got Internet access, the amount of time spent watching TV
and reading has decreased
... more Add
a comment Blind
pensioner sentenced to library course
A blind Turkish pensioner has been
sentenced to a 26-day reading and writing course at his local public library after
he failed to vote on time in an election for his village cooperative, his son
said on Friday ...
more Add
a comment Elgar
manuscript heads for auction
A rare manuscript of an Elgar masterpiece,
written while he lived in Malvern, will be auctioned later this month. The proof
score of the choral work, The Apostles, shows he only just finished it in time.
The oratorio was premiered on October 14, 1903, but this proof shows it was ready
for printing just six weeks before
... more Add
a comment | 
