28.02.07.
Paedophile freed for Dracula book
An American historian jailed in Romania
for paedophile offences has been released more than two years early because he
wrote a book about Dracula ... more Add
a comment Planes
bring books to remote Canadian reserves
More than 7,000 children's books
were dropped from a plane yesterday afternoon in tiny Fort Severn; novels and
picture-books donated by families around the province as part of the second book
drive for aboriginal children conducted by Ontario Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman
... more Add
a comment Gardening
Books 'Dated By Climate Change'
Gardening books have been rendered out
of date because climate change has altered growing seasons, an expert said today
... more Add
a comment
Confessions of a low-brow bibliophile
I like to think of myself as a
reasonably literate person. But then, I also like to think of myself as being
reasonably handsome, reasonably fit, and reasonably intelligent.
It
stands to reason that I’m wrong on one or more of these assumptions, but I’m pretty
sure I qualify as being at least a little bit literate ... more Add
a comment
27.02.07.
Erotic literature by women in Indonesia
Indonesia, the world’s largest
Muslim country, is ground zero for a fledgling literary movement whose topic is
sex and whose practitioners are women, says a report in the LA Times ... more Add
a comment One
year to save the Feminist Library
At an emergency meeting of the Feminist
Library management committee,volunteers and supporters, it has been decided to
give ourselves a year to try and keep the collection together ... more Add
a comment Difficult
pleasures
One of the joys of reading a poem is lying awake at night wondering
what it really means ... more Add
a comment
26.02.07.
Saddam's Lawyer Says He'll Publish Book
Saddam Hussein's former chief lawyer
said Sunday he plans to publish a book in the coming year disclosing secret information
about the executed Iraqi leader ... more Add
a comment Montreal
bookseller Reginald Russell dies
"When Reg reaches his final destination,
and St. Peter opens the book of life, Reg will take out his trusty HB pencil and
try to reprice it," said biblophile and photographer Gordon Beck, a long time
friend and customer ... more Add
a comment From
Gutenberg to Google
Google's mission is to organise the world's information,
but what effect is this having on the oldest information technology - books?
According
to Conor Kenny, who heads up landmark Galway bookstore Kennys - also probably
the oldest online bookstore in the world - vendors are looking forward to embracing
Google. "Put simply, the power of Google cannot be overlooked," he says ... more Add
a comment Potter
author sues eBay over pirate books
In fiction his enemies are evil wizards
and magical beasts, but Harry Potter’s latest adversary is a real corporation
with a turnover of more than £2 billion ... more Add
a comment
23.02.07.
Four Fictions
Timothy C. Ely's work hovers between alchemy and fine art.
His unique manuscript books, when simply viewed as objects, are visually stunning
and exquisitely crafted works of art ... more Add
a comment UK
Premier supports Gospels campaign
Tony Blair has pledged to give "any support"
he can over efforts to return the Lindisfarne Gospels to the North-East ... more Add
a comment £400k
rare book court battle
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) tax partner Martin
Paisner, the son of the firm’s founder and adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair,
is being sued for £400,000 over an alleged breach of contract. The claim, which
relates to a £2m rare book collection, has been brought by Wragge & Co on behalf
of Valentine Rare Books (VRB) ... more Add
a comment
22.02.07.
"It's not censoring; it's protecting our children from lies"
A group of
parents in Miami-Dade have come up with a unique way to get books they considered
controversial off the shelves at their children’s schools libraries. They check
them out, but never return them ... more Add
a comment Harry
Potter fans line up to meet Hebrew translator
"It's ridiculous, this is
something that never happens to translators," Bar-Hillel said after speaking at
the Jerusalem International Book Fair. "The attention I've received is because
I'm translating Harry Potter. It's Harry, not me" ... more Add
a comment Auction
of African Americana
Swann Galleries' 12th annual auction of Printed and
Manuscript African Americana will take place February 27 at the galleries on East
25th St., Manhattan. The sale will include a selection of historical documents,
autographs, manuscripts, books, photographs, historical prints, posters and other
ephemera ... more Add
a comment Enthusiasts
defend Auden's reputation on centenary
He was a coward, a bully, a lecher
and many other dreadful things, according to his critics. All of which may explain
why the centenary of the birth of Wystan Hugh Auden passed yesterday without the
fanfare that a giant of Engish literature perhaps deserves ... more Add
a comment
21.02.07.
Kashmir Archives gets award
Regarded as among the oldest manuscripts in
the world and the oldest collection surviving in India, the Government of India
has nominated the Gilgit manuscripts for inclusion in UNESCO's World Register
in 2006-07 along with the Rig Veda ... more Add
a comment Monroe
photo fetches $27,738
Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe, whose undying appeal
and singular mystique induced one collector at the R&R Enterprises auction to
pay $27,738 for an early signed photo. The 1940s image, which features a closeup
of the radiant, fresh-faced starlet, is inscribed to Sylvia [Barnhart], the hairdresser
who first styled Monroe as a blonde ... more Add
a comment Hail
Auden: York cabbies to recite poet's work
WH Auden's poems have featured
in blockbusting films, a classic GPO advert and a presidential speech. Now, in
an unlikely bid to promote the poet's city of birth, York Tourism Partnership
has come up with an entirely novel environment in which to showcase Auden's work
- the back of a cab ... more Add
a comment Drops
Of Blood May Hold Key To Positive Copernicus ID
Ancient tomes stolen from
Poland by 17th Century Swedish invaders hold the crucial DNA key to identifying
the remains of Nicolas Copernicus, the first man on earth to argue the sun lay
at the centre of what was then perceived as the universe ... more Add
a comment
20.02.07.
Steinbeck sale sets new world record
A rare edition of John Steinbeck's
1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath has sold for $47,800 (£24,380), doubling the estimated
price and setting what is believed to be a world record for a book by the Nobel
Prize-winning author ... more Add
a comment Children's
book banned for single word
An award-winning children's book has been banned
from some US schools and libraries because it contains the word "scrotum" ...
more Add
a comment Joseph
Low, illustrator of children’s books, dies
Joseph Low, an illustrator who
did absurdist covers for The New Yorker and won Caldecott honors for the children’s
book "Mice Twice," died on February 12, aged 95 ... more Add
a comment Lambeth
Palace Library to go online
The printed book collection, the historic library
and record office of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and the main repository of
the documentary history of the Church of England will be added to an online catalogue
for the benefit of the national and international research community, it has been
announced today ... more Add
a comment
19.02.07.
Bound for glory
The Guild of Book Workers bookbinding exhibition at the
Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the University of Utah campus showcases bookmakers'
original creations ... more Add
a comment Illustrious
detail
It's hard to believe now, but before Richard & Judy and Oprah, bestsellers
emerged from more mysterious, alchemical processes of which writing was just a
part.
A lavish exhibition at the Morgan Library in
New York celebrates this cultural phenomenon by explaining that, between 1837
and 1901, rapid social change, economic and technological upheaval and rising
literacy created the first mass market for the written word. On display are Victorian
"penny dreadfuls", early examples of advertising and gaudy book jackets ... more Add
a comment Next
space tourist dreams of library
The world`s next space tourist, Hungarian-born
American software developer and billionaire Charles Simonyi, has said he would
like to see a library in outer space. "Everywhere where humans are I think there
should be a library," 58-year-old Simonyi, who is scheduled to become the world`s
fifth space tourist in April, told a news agency in an interview in Moscow ...
more Add
a comment Washington's
monumental manuscript
Maryland unveils a largely forgotten speech that
scholars call a turning point in U.S. history during its Presidents Day festivities
... more Add
a comment
16.02.07.
Casino Royale book fails to sell at auction
A damaged first edition of
the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, has failed to sell at auction in London.
The copy of Ian Fleming's novel was expected to fetch £8,000 to £10,000 but bidding
did not reach its undisclosed reserve price at Bloomsbury Auctions ... more Add
a comment Who
owns the descriptions in auction catalogs?
On November 7, 2006, Heritage
Auction Galleries, Inc. of Dallas filed suit against Superior Galleries, Inc.
of California, charging copyright infringement, unfair competition, and that Superior
had flat out stolen its printed catalog descriptions relating to coins ... more Add
a comment On
revisiting old books
Separating the chaff from the grain in his personal
library, Dmetri Kakmi was left with a rich collection of venerable old friends
and enough room in his heart to let a few new ones in ... more Add
a comment
Baghdad guardian of literary treasures braves bombs
Asked to name his
biggest headaches as director of Iraq's National Library, Sa'ad Eskander's response
is not one you would expect from a typical librarian: snipers and car bombs ...
more Add
a comment
15.02.07.
Historian stops publication of book on ‘blood libels’
Professor Ariel Toaff
decides to halt distribution of his book studying Jewish blood libels in Middle
Ages after it was interpreted as justifying anti-Semitic accusations. Bar-Ilan
University slams book’s 'insensitivity and harm to Judaism' ... more Add
a comment Japan
protests over princess book
An Australian journalist has refused to apologise
over his book on Japanese Crown Princess Masako. He said the only person who deserved
an apology was Crown Princess Masako for her treatment by the royal family ...
more Add
a comment Longueuil
throws out 500,000 books
Residents and environmental groups in the Candadian
town of Longueuil are angry the city threw 500,000 used books into the garbage
instead of recycling them or donating them to school libraries ... more Add
a comment Nobel
laureate believed to be in exile in US
The Turkish author Orhan Pamuk has
reportedly left his home country to live in America amid fears for his life. The
Nobel laureate is believed to be at risk of assassination in Turkey following
the murder of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink last month. Threats appeared
to have been made against Pamuk by the man who confessed to orchestrating the
murder ... more Add
a comment
14.02.07.
Maltese Falcon missing
The most famous resident of one of San Francisco's
most famous restaurants has gone missing, and the owners are offering a $25,000
reward. The Maltese Falcon statue at John's Grill, a coveted replica of the originals
used in the making of the movie, was swiped over the weekend. Also stolen were
at least 15 vintage books, including signed copies of the Dashiell Hammett novel
on which the film is based ... more Add
a comment Cultural
property advice portal sets sale online
John Critchley, Director, Antiquarian
Booksellers Association, said, "The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association is pleased
to endorse the MLA's new Cultural Property Advice website which will be an excellent
guide for the trade, the staff of large collections and the general public alike"
... more Add
a comment 45
Indian manuscripts declared 'unique'
The government has decided to declare
forty five manuscripts of the country with "unique heritage value" as "Vijnananidhi:
Manuscript Treasures of India". Clearly not an exhaustive list from a country
which holds an estimated 5 million manuscripts, the idea is to give recognition
to pioneering manuscripts considered to be landmarks in India's intellectual and
aesthetic history ... more Add
a comment
13.02.07.
Bargain bookstore closes branches
An Edinburgh-based firm which pioneered
the sale of cut price books for 30 years has gone into administration ... more Add
a comment The
return of Bookdealer?
According to Sheppard's Newsletter, Rare Books and
Berry of Porlock, Somerset, are planning to revive Bookdealer as a monthly magazine.
Few details as yet, but it's said the it will be of similar appearance to it's
predecessor, and that Barry Shaw will be a contributor. Add a
comment Search
on for author’s attacker
Anti-Defamation League is now involved with the
investigation of the San Francisco attack on Elie Wiesel, a world-renowned author
and Holocaust survivor. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning author was dragged out of
an elevator at the Argent Hotel on Feb. 1 by an alleged Holocaust denier who had
been trailing him for weeks ... more Add
a comment New
prize rewards booksellers who write
In a development that will see bookshop
assistants vaulting the checkouts and onto the shelves, a new writing competition
exclusively for booksellers is launched today by National Book Tokens ... more Add
a comment
12.02.07.
No books at the book fair in Kolkata!
Books were still missing on the second
day of the 32nd Kolkata Book fair. Out of 580 stalls only 2-3 stalls were ready
with books. Most of the publishers are still waiting beside their stalls---waiting
for decorators to complete their work and ready the racks as quickly as possible
... more Add
a comment Flashy
libraries?
For an elderly bookworm like Germaine Greer, the Peckham library
is a bit challenging. Its top-heaviness seems to court catastrophe. "I like my
libraries stable, durable, serene. I am looking for adventure in the books, rather
than in the building" ... more Add
a comment Bookstore
has history of complaints
A woman frightened by the owner of The Antiquarian
Bookstore on Wednesday logged the latest in a history of police calls to the Lafayette
Road store. Some of the past calls involved weapons, assaults and arrests, with
store owner Walter Wakefield most often named as the aggressor ... more Add
a comment Books
for pleasure
Roy Hattersley on why the school English syllabus should above
all aim to instill a sense of the joy of reading ... more Add
a comment State's
oldest library on verge of closure
The 125-year-old Jaysinh Rao library,
oldest in Gujarat located in the knowledge city Baroda could soon become a thing
of past. The ancient library having a collection of more than 25,000 precious
books in Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Sanskrit and English literature is fighting
for its survival due to lack of funds and political commitment ... more Add
a comment
10.02.07.
Berkeley event celebrates the book as visual art
The first biennial CODEX
Book Fair and Symposium, "The Fate of the Art: The Hand-Printed Book" in the 21st
century, takes place on the UC Berkeley campus Monday through Thursday, followed
the next weekend by the separately organized 40th California International Antiquarian
Book Fair ... more Add
a comment Popular
author given enduring accolade
An eminent children's writer yesterday received
what may seem to him a bitter-sweet accolade. He is Allan Ahlberg, one of a husband
and wife team named as the only two British authors currently published who have
proved to have an enduring grip on public affection ... more Add
a comment TV's
Bremner, Bird and Fortune join the library lobby
The three political heavyweights
are the latest voices to join the campaign to save Cobbett Road Library in Southampton's
Bitterne Park, earmarked for closure in the council's draft budget report ...
more Add
a comment
08.02.07.
Court hears case of same-sex story reading
As gay rights supporters and
foes gathered outside, a U.S. federal court on Wednesday took up the question
of whether a Massachusetts town and its school district infringed on parents'
rights when a teacher read young students a book with a gay theme ... more Add
a comment 08.02.07.
School edits controversial books
A Saudi-funded Islamic school says it
is removing from text books controversial passages which allegedly brand other
faiths as "worthless" ... more Add
a comment 08.02.07.
Surprise win for Canadian epic at inaugural Costa award
Debut novelist
Stef Penney has beaten the odds to take the first-ever Costa book award with a
murder saga set in the snowy wastes of 19th-century Canada, The Tenderness of
Wolves ... more Add
a comment 08.02.07.
Exhibit shows Lincoln's personal side
It's ironic that more than 50,000
documents and artifacts valued at hundreds of millions of dollars are housed here
in remembrance of the ultimate rags-to-riches story. The Lincoln Shrine, celebrating
its 75th anniversary this month, features 3,800 square feet of space dedicated
to telling the story of the 16th president ... more Add
a comment
07.02.07.
World's most expensive book makes rare appearance
It's so fragile that
it's displayed for only six weeks per year and the rare gem -- Prince Henry the
Lion's highly ornate 12th century book of Holy Gospels -- can now be viewed by
the public until March 18 ... more Add
a comment Papermania
Plus show proves ephemera is hot
As temperatures outside the Connecticut
Civic Center spiked at a balmy 71 degrees, the two-day Papermania Plus antique
paper and ephemera show opened January 6, proving things were just as hot indoors
as outdoors ... more Add
a comment World
record pop-up book for auction
At 2 1/2-feet-by-4-feet, the World’s Largest
Pop-Up Book is 1,200 times the size of the original Aesop’s Fables miniature pop-up
book produced by Designimation, Inc. for Running Press in 1992. The one-of-a-kind
book goes on the auction block February 12 at a Delray Beach charity event. For
further details contact: linda@pop-ups.com Add a comment
06.02.07.
Images of Africa on the verge of change
The Yale collection features pictures
taken by a Polish photographer from 1920s to 1940s. During this period, photographers
flocked to Africa to capture images of its people and untrammeled lands. Few were
as prolific as Casimir Zagourski, a World War I veteran who left Poland in 1924
and moved to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) ... more Add
a comment Princeton
joins Google's book-scanning project
About 1 million books in Princeton
University's collection will be made available online through Google Inc.'s book-scanning
project, the school announced Monday ... more Add
a comment Making
Hay in the sunshine
When a British literary festival and a fabled South
American republic set out to change their image, the results are not so much bizarre
as surreal ... more Add
a comment Discord
over Bush's lavish library plans
Like many aspects of his presidency, George
W Bush's plan for his presidential library has been mired in controversy from
the start ... more Add
a comment
05.02.07.
Readex adds more historical newspapers to archive
Readex a division of
NewsBank, announced that in May 2007, it will begin adding two new series of fully
searchable newspapers to its ongoing America's Historical Newspapers archive ...
more Add
a comment Hunter
gets captured by the frame
A new exhibition shows the gonzo journalist
in a new light behind and in front of the lens ... more Add
a comment Saving
a treasured trove, ever so slowly
Ancient manuscripts from Mt. Sinai move
into the digital age with the help of a Bedouin camel driver's son ... more Add
a comment Lawyer
doubts stolen Bibles' rarity
Lawyers for a pastor and his wife, accused
of stealing a set of antique Bibles, cast doubt on claims the leather-bound books
are as rare as police say and questioned how another pastor could be certain that
a set of books bought on eBay were the same ones that went missing ... more Add
a comment
02.02.07.
Ransom Center celebrates 50 years
The center, on the University of Texas
campus, houses more than 36 million manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million
photographs and 100,000 works of art and design. While the public portions of
the library are impressive, with exhibits set up like a museum, it’s the archives
that create a historical atmosphere ... more Add
a comment Old
books to be preserved in China
China will take every possible step to preserve
its old and rare books and retrieve those scattered overseas, an official document
has said. The document asks authorities to better protect such books by conducting
a nationwide survey on their numbers and condition and improving the preservation
environment and repair technology ... more Add
a comment Penguin
plans 'wiki-novel'
Can creative writers put their egos to one side and
work successfully as a team? That's the question Penguin and De Montfort University
are exploring with a new literary experiment - a collaborative wiki-novel ...
more Add
a comment
01.02.07.
Rare books of Pembrokeshire gent
A collection of books which were once
owned by a member of the Pembrokeshire gentry is to be given to the National Library
of Wales. The 5,000-strong Henry Owen Collection will be handed over to ensure
that the books, which include rare editions, stay in public ownership ... more Add
a comment Chronicler
of New York's rare book shops dies
Roy Meador, who died January 16 in Ann
Arbor, Mich., was a writer and bibliophile who turned to his hobby for inspiration
when he wrote "Book Row," a history of the antiquarian book trade. He was 77 ...
more Add
a comment $2M
grant to digitise brittle books
Scholars and others interested in flipping
through some of the Library of Congress ‘ most fragile books will be able to tap
the knowledge without damaging the artifacts ... more Add
a comment Cuts
threaten services at British Library
According to the British Library,
government-imposed spending cuts may soon put the proud traditions of a national
institution at risk. Ahead of the Treasury's 2007 spending review, library officials
have drawn up a briefing paper outlining measures they would have to take if the
widely speculated cuts of between 5% and 7% come to fruition ... more Add
a comment
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