31.01.08.
Egypt about-turn on book fair censorship
Publishers at the 40th Cairo
International Book Fair said on Wednesday that the authorities had allowed them
to sell a number of Western and secular books that were forbidden only two days
ago ... more
Add a comment Opening
a dream bookshop
There's a great spot open all hours in my head, but two
brave souls are currently trying to get a real one going in north London ... more
Add a comment Saved:
the hidden Oxford treasures
Former curator's house held an unknown collection
of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and books worth millions ... more
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30.01.08.
Old book stalls’ numbers shrinking in city
Ahmed Saleem, a researcher
from Islamabad, said that despite fragile security situation in the city he was
coming to Rawalpindi every Sunday to visit old books stalls. He said for him the
old books stalls were of great value as he could get good books and educational
material at a nominal price. He contradicted that now only a few people were visiting
the old books stalls ... more
Add a comment
Institute of Oriental Manuscripts opens
A branch of the Institute of
Oriental Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences) opens a new academic institution
- the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Saint Petersburg ... more
Add a comment Breton's
Surrealist Manifesto arrives in London
A legendary piece of 20th-century
art and literary history, André Breton's 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, an attempt
to define "once and for all" the nature of surrealism, which instead provoked
decades of argument, is on display in London ahead of an auction in Paris ...
more
Add a comment Rowling
grieves for lost wizard
Accepting an award for outstanding achievement,
JK Rowling told an audience that leaving Harry Potter behind was 'the worst break-up
in my life' ... more
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29.01.08.
Rare books chronicle our obsession with the weather
We have always
needed to chronicle our obsession with the elements. Take 1768, when H. Serjeant,
London, published the volume breathlessly titled, "A True and Particular Account,
of the Most Surprising Preservation, and Happy Deliverance, of Three Women Who
Were Buried, Thirty-Seven Days ... By a Heavy Fall of Snow ... at the Village
of Bergemoletto, in Italy" ... more
Add a comment Where
was Noggin?
Last week, the Telegraph presented a list of 100 great children's
books - to satisfy children of every age, from encouraging the first steps in
comprehension to feeding the appetite of a young teenager. We invited readers'
comments, and there came back an extraordinary range of responses, kindling a
passionate debate ... more
Add a comment Breton's
Surrealist Manifesto arrives in London
Egypt has banned a number of Western
and secular books from the 40th Cairo International Book Fair, including works
by Czech author Milan Kundera and Morocco's Mohamed Choukri, publishers said on
Monday ... more
Add a comment 'Plot
to kill' Nobel laureate
Thirteen people have been arrested in Turkey
as part of an investigation into an ultra-nationalist gang reported to be planning
the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk ... more
Add a comment State
worker admits he stole historical artifacts
Almanacs owned by frontiersman
Davy Crockett, a timetable from Abraham Lincoln's funeral train, and Currier &
Ives lithographs of Niagara Falls and West Point were among hundreds of documents
allegedly stolen in recent years by a state worker and sold to pay household expenses
and his daughter's $10,000 credit-card bill, officials said yesterday ... more
Add a comment
28.01.08.
Who said romance was dead?
In the time it takes you to read this page,
Britons will have bought 100 novels by Mills & Boon, now in its centenary year
... more
Add a comment People
of the Book
The survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, as this fragile illuminated
volume is called, from its creation in Spain 600 years ago until today, is a tale
to stir the most irreligious, war-hardened heart. Geraldine Brooks is a savvy,
almost shrewd storyteller. As a former journalist, she knows she's onto a good
story here: an illustrated codex, created in mysterious circumstances in Spain
to be read at the table during Passover, miraculously threading its way across
southern Europe over centuries to end up safe and sound, the treasured possession
of a museum in Bosnia. And there are mysteries as well ... more
Add a comment Italian
history, on a roll
The Garibaldi Panorama tells a story of dedication
and Italian pride, of bloody battles and acts of life-threatening bravery. The
19th-century artwork, painted on a 136-foot paper canvas, is meant to be slowly
unspooled before an audience as a narrator explains the action. But it is so fragile
and large that seeing it from start to finish is a cumbersome endeavor ... more
Add a comment Online
shoppers prefer books
Booming demand in emerging markets from Vietnam
to India has made books the most popular item to buy online, according to research
out today ... more
Add a comment
24.01.08.
Record results at Smythe autograph auction
New York auction house
RM Smythe & Co, Inc held one of the most successful autograph auctions in its
125-year history on Thursday, January 17, 2008. The sale, featuring the collection
of Steven Lee Carson, saw an unprecedented 77 percent of offered lots sell. Although
the auction suffered a few delays due to technical problems with E-bay Live Auctions,
in the end bidders on the floor, on the phone, and at their computers were able
to take home a remarkable variety of historical autographs and Americana ... more
Add a comment Tim
Butcher's top 10 books about Congo
Few rivers have inspired writers more
than the Congo. Here's my pick of ten titles with Africa's mightiest river running
through them ... more
Add a comment Burmese
poet arrested for veiled protest
A Burmese author known for his love poetry
has been arrested after penning a Valentine's Day verse carrying a hidden message
about the leader of the country's military junta, Senior General Than Shwe ...
more
Add a comment Hyderabad’s
rare book seller
William Dalrymple has been here and so have been numerous
scholars, authors, librarians, and book collectors from around the world. Haziq-N-Mohi’s
clients have included the libraries of Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and McGill. For all
its international connections the rare book seller’s location belies its importance.
Tucked away in the labyrinthine lanes of Hyderabad’s old city, across the street
from the historic Chowk Masjid, the rare book seller has played an important part
in salvaging and saving books from the private libraries of Hyderabad’s erstwhile
aristocracy ... more
Add a comment
23.01.08.
No news today ...
I'm afraid there just isn't anything worth passing
on, a situation I haven't faced since I started this blog nearly four years ago.
Add a comment
18.01.08.
Publish and be damned
The literary journal Granta started as an act
of rebellion, and ended up as the Establishment. It must shake things up again
if it is to survive in the 21st century ... more
Add a comment Kiosque
illuminates world of medieval manuscripts
A new exhibition of medieval
manuscripts at the Royal Armouries in Leeds showcases a technology that lets visitors
examine digital pictures of the manuscripts in fine detail ... more
Add a comment Scavengers
redefine recycling with used books
By 9:15 most mornings, Thomas Germain,
a ruddy-faced man in a yellow slicker, is pushing his oversize black wheeled suitcase
down 12th Street in the direction of the Strand Bookstore on Broadway. Sometimes,
the suitcase is stuffed full of books; sometimes the books fill a box or two or
three that he balances carefully on top of it, a mass of swaying literature he
rolls all the way from Greenwich Village or SoHo or Stuyvesant Town ... more
Add a comment
17.01.08.
"Hell at the Library, Eros in Secret"
The lighting is bordello red,
but the librarians insist that their X-rated Paris exhibition is serious ... more
Add a comment Lindisfarne
Gospels
IThe British Library sneers at attempts to put the Lindisfarne
Gospels back into context as "regionalism gone mad" (Echo, Jan 8). These attempts
to prevent the return of the Gospels are another example of the cultural imperialism
which seems to affect so many London-based scholars ... more
Add a comment Censorship
and conflict: inside the Harold Pinter archive
Simon Basketter took a
tour round the British Library’s new exhibition devoted to Harold Pinter ... more
Add a comment Preserving
manuscripts from 14th century Mali
Delicately written, with illustrations
and drawings in gold, they risked wasting away at the Ahmed Baba Institute in
Mali but now stand a chance of being saved, as the first cultural project of the
African Union (AU) which has in South Africa been given the status of a presidential
lead project under president Thabo Mbeki ... more
Add a comment Does
the world needs book prizes?
John Sutherland suggests a way of narrowing
the gap between book prizes and readers ... more
Add a comment
16.01.08.
So You Want to Be a Book Collector
In 1909, almost 100 years ago, these
Twelve Maxims For Book Collectors appeared in Volume 1 of The Bibliophile. A Magazine
and Review for the Collector, Student and General Reader.
Even
today, one would be hard-pressed to find a better guide to the field. So if you
are just starting out or have thought about starting a book collection here is
your 12 step program. No need to spend your money on how-to books in the field
or on book collecting classes, save that money and buy a good book! ... more
Add a comment Secondhand
book websites form joint portal
German second-hand book-dealers hailed
Tuesday the creation of a joint internet portal to help book buyers dig up rare
books in five European nations. The www.marelibri.com portal, which is already
up and running, serves results from five bookseller-run web search services, including
Milan-based site Maremagnum.com. In all, the site lists 20 million books from
2,000 participating bookstores ... more
Add a comment Battle
ahead for 'cigarette pack' books
The books, released as Tales to Take
Your Breath Away at the start of the cigarette ban in pubs and restaurants last
July, were well received by the design press and have made popular Christmas presents.
But now the publishers are having to inhale deeply themselves as British American
Tobacco (BAT) claims that one of the packs, containing Hemingway's The Snows of
Kilimanjaro and The Undefeated, resembles its own Lucky Strike pack. Claiming
that such an association could seriously damage the health of the brand, BAT is
trying to have the works pulped ... more
Add a comment Spider-Man
turns back clock and winds up fans
Spider-Man fans are outraged that Marvel
Comics has turned back time and dissolved the super-hero's marriage to Mary-Jane.
While followers of the movies know the couple only as sweethearts, as far as comic
book fans are concerned, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson have been married for
the past 21 years ... more
Add a comment
15.01.08.
Muslim worker refuses to sell 'unclean' book
A Muslim store worker
at Marks & Spencer refused to serve a customer buying a children's book on Christianity
because she said it was "unclean" ... more
Add a comment Bookshop
to give away books
The Children's Bookshop in Edinburgh has launched an
exciting new scheme to supply local schools with books – completely free of charge
... more
Add a comment German
experts crack Mona Lisa smile
German academics believe they have solved
the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the "Mona Lisa" in Leonardo da
Vinci's famous portrait ... more
Add a comment The
lost archive
Missing for a half century, a cache of photos spurs sensitive
research on Islam's holy text ... more
Add a comment
14.01.08.
Buddy Holly's widow in fight to stop book
The widow of Buddy Holly,
the late American rock and roll pioneer, is trying to prevent the woman made famous
by her husband's hit song Peggy Sue from publishing a book about the music legend
... more
Add a comment Businessman
sees art, city sees graffiti
Seven weeks ago or so, rare-book dealer and
Ypsilanti property owner Hedger Breed noticed a four-square-foot, stenciled graffiti
piece spray painted on the side of his building at 117 Pearl St. It's done in
two colors, with a red heart and, painted in black, a screaming figure with a
gun pointed at his mouth. "In my opinion it's absolutely charming," Breed said,
"in a gritty, urban sort of way." So Breed decided to leave it there, because
he considers it art. The City of Ypsilanti disagrees ... more
Add a comment Peter
Pan house up for sale
The house where JM Barrie is believed to have written
the children's story Peter Pan is up for sale today for £6.75m ... more
Add a comment John
Milton: the poet who gave us 'Star Trek' and 'The Matrix'
Without him
nothing would be terrific, nobody would be sensuous, and we would never have gone
into space. Those three words are among the many still in use that were invented
by John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and second only to Shakespeare among English
poets. This week, there is an unprecedented chance to see how his mind worked,
when Cambridge University Library displays documents written by Milton rarely
or never viewed by the public before ... more
Add a comment Cartoons
and Kit-Kats: the Giles archive
The Carl Giles collection - one of the
most comprehensive compilations of any British cartoonist's work and life - has
lain in Canterbury for a couple of years. Most of it has never been seen by the
public ... more
Add a comment
11.01.08.
Top shelves
Every booklover has their favourite shop, and while it's
true that many independents have been driven out of business by online sales and
supermarket bestsellers, you still don't have to look too hard to find one that's
thriving. To prove it, Sean Dodson chooses the 10 bookshops from around the world
which he considers to be the fairest of them all ... more
Add a comment Microsoft
to provide virtual access to Library of Congress
The new technology is
designed to assist people who want to visit the library in person, said John Sampson,
director of federal government affairs at Microsoft. Visitors to the Web site
will be able to bookmark areas of interest, then use a bar code at the LOC's information
kiosks that will point them to more information in person, he said ... more
Add a comment The
history of children's books
"There have been children's stories and folk-tales
ever since man first learned to speak. Children's books, however, are a late growth
of literature" ... more
Add a comment Texas
State acquires Cormac McCarthy papers
Texas State University in San Marcos
announced Thursday it has acquired the papers of Cormac McCarthy, author of 11
violent but lyrical novels and widely considered one of the half-dozen finest
living American writers ... more
Add a comment
10.01.08.
Do you need to read books to be clever?
It's the National Year of Reading.
Just as well, as one in four adults say they haven't read a book in at least a
year. With so many other ways to get information these days, do we still need
books? ... more
Add a comment Smythe
Historic Autograph Auction
New York - On Thursday, January 17, auctioneers
RM Smythe & Co, Inc, will hold its live Winter Autograph Auction, presenting collectors
and dealers with one of the most interesting selections of historic autographs
in recent memory ... more
Add a comment A
treasure trove of books
As the row over the return of the Lindisfarne
Gospels to the North-East simmers on, the region can console itself with the fact
that it is already home to a veritable treasure trove of the written and printed
word ... more
Add a comment Ted
Hughes tops critics' league table
For those in a hurry to find last year's
"must reads", Booktrust has obligingly boiled down the reviewers' books of the
year into one handy league table. After totting up 1,600 recommendations, the
independent reading charity has found that The Letters of Ted Hughes was the title
most frequently chosen as book of the year by newspaper critics ... more
Add a comment
07.01.08.
Are the old ones the best ones?
Some of the world's oldest travel guides
have been updated for the 21st Century traveller. But how far would a 100-year-old
edition get you on today's tourist trail? ... more
Add a comment A
40-year love affair with lending literature
At the busy junction of Le
Van Huu and Thi Sach, behind a faded green wooden door lies a small antiquated
book store, a long-standing haunt of Ha Noi’s book lovers ... more
Add a comment £500,000
Grant To Restore Historic Derry & Raphoe Library
Over 5,000 volumes in
the historic Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Library are to be restored and their contents
made available to the public. The unique University of Ulster conservation and
outreach initiative - funded by a grant of £500,500 from the Heritage Lottery
Fund - will take three and a half years to complete ... more
Add a comment Books
stolen by Nazis to be returned to Polish owners
The authorities of Nuremberg
intend to return books stolen by the Nazis to their Polish owners or their heirs.
According to the information of the municipal library, its archives still contain
almost 10,000 such books ... more
Add a comment
04.01.08.
The Marriott Library goes robotic
The University of Utah's main library
has installed the largest automated book retrieval center in North America. The
new robotic book storage and retrieval system holds 2 million books and frees
up 80,000 square feet of prime library space ... more
Add a comment A
Cheltenham lady’s guide to teenage speak
An A-Z of Teen Talk, by 13-year-old
Lucy van Amerongen, has been a surprise Christmas bestseller among baffled parents
who struggle to understand their offspring ... more
Add a comment Love
that book? Then set it free
The idea behind BookCrossing.com is simple.
You drop off a book in a public place. Or pick up one someone else left behind.
Eventually the whole world becomes one big, free library. More than 600,000 people
engage in "catch and release" missions worldwide ... more
Add a comment Book
market reflects mood, scars and resilience of Baghdad
Dusty books lie
on flattened cardboard boxes on a sidewalk buried in litter and building debris.
Their vendors hunch their shoulders and sip hot black tea to fend off the cold.
What matters is that they're here. The revival of the Mutanabi Street book market
is a microcosm of today's Baghdad ... more
Add a comment Mailer
archive opens to public
The University of Texas collection includes childhood
writings, letters to other authors and unpublished short stories ... more
Add a comment Academic
tug-of-love over De Beauvoir legacy
She was the high priestess of 20th
century French thought, the mother of modern feminism and a champion of sexual
freedom who shocked Paris with her threesomes and passionate bisexual affairs.
But as France begins a glittering celebration of the
centenary of Simone de Beauvoir's birth next week, some academics have warned
against the rush of debate and publications descending into prudish attacks on
her deliberately outrageous sex life ... more
Add a comment
03.01.08.
George MacDonald Fraser: 1925 - 2008
America never really understood
George MacDonald Fraser's Victorian antihero, Harry Flashman. It's a sure sign
he was a true Brit ... more
Add a comment Comic
books in the classroom
New York - Generations of children grew up reading
comic books on the sly, hiding out from parents and teachers who saw them as a
waste of time and a hazard to young minds. Comics are now gaining a new respectability
at school. That is thanks to an increasingly popular and creative program, often
aimed at struggling readers, that encourages children to plot, write and draw
comic books, in many cases using themes from their own lives ... more
Add a comment Bookshop
owner seized for printing 'illegal' Bibles
A Christian bookshop owner
has been arrested in China for printing unauthorised copies of the Bible. Police
seized Shi Weihan, 37, the owner of Holy Spirit Trading Company, in the early
hours from his home in the Chinese capital, Beijing. He is accused of conducting
"illegal operations" and remains in custody, more than a month after his arrest
... more
Add a comment Metropolitan
Museum of Art acquires Diane Arbus archive
The Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York has acquired the complete archive of Diane Arbus (1923-1971),
the legendary American photographer known for her revelatory portraits of couples,
children, nudists, carnival performers, and eccentrics ... more
Add a comment Vendetta
suspected in death of Sardinian poet
82-year-old Peppino Marotto, shot
on Saturday, may have been victim of vendetta dating back half a century ... more
Add a comment
02.01.08.
Ken Sanders: Pimp of the Printed Word
This year marks the tenth anniversary
of the eponymous brick-and-mortar rare book store that bears Ken Sanders’ name.
In one form or another, Ken Sanders has been involved with books and the book
business his whole life but the genesis from bibliophile to book seller is as
interesting as, if not more so, any printed matter that Ken sells on his shelves
... more
Add a comment Rowling
'may pen eighth Harry book'
JK Rowling has admitted to "weak moments"
when she could agree to write another book in the Harry Potter series. But it
is unlikely that young wizard Harry would feature as the main protagonist in an
eighth novel, Rowling said, adding: "Let's give it 10 years" ... more
Add a comment Heavyweight
book becomes latest collector's item
Spare change left over from Christmas
shopping and the sales? How about treating yourself to a very special book? Weighing
in at 16kg with a price tag of more than £7,500, "New York" is the latest book
to tap into a booming collector's market ... more
Add a comment Literary
Life
Madeleine Stern was a renowned antiquarian book dealer, but her most
important discovery was not a book at all. It was a series of lurid stories, all
published in gaudy popular journals, all written under a pseudonym, all by New
England’s fresh and hearty Louisa May Alcott ... more
Add a comment Stolen
maps find their way back to library's collection
More than 30 rare, antique
maps stolen from the Boston Public Library by a Martha's Vineyard map dealer were
returned to the library in 2007, library president Bernard Margolis said this
week, part of the conclusion of an international scandal that rocked the staid
world of map collecting ... more
Add a comment The
growing value of old books
Investing in books, says Warwick Jordan, is
not unlike buying shares. "Not all books go up in value. Valuable books can go
down over time - tastes change, collecting habits change. It's very similar to
playing the stock market" ... more
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