| 31.03.08.
Internet book piracy will stop authors writing
Book piracy on the internet
will ultimately drive authors to stop writing unless radical methods are devised
to compensate them for lost sales ... more
Add a comment Tintin
artwork fetches record price
Captain Haddock would have choked on his
whisky: original artwork for a Tintin comic book fetched a record 764,200 euros
(1.2 million dollars) at a Paris auction Saturday, organiser Artcurial said ...
more
Add a comment Literature
collectors gather for £1m Dickens auction
The biggest auction of Charles
Dickens' works for more than 35 years is to be held in New York this week. The
lots include a rare manuscript page from The Pickwick Papers, written in the author's
own hand with his corrections, and a special edition book inscribed by Dickens
to fellow novelist George Eliot ... more
Add a comment US
presidential manuscripts on sale
Presidential manuscripts are set to be
auctioned at Sotheby's in New York on Thursday, the centrepiece of the sale being
the letter from Lincoln ... more
Add a comment
28.03.08.
Mohammed cartoon author to sue Dutch MP
The Danish cartoonist whose caricature
of the Prophet Mohammed outraged Muslims said he would press copyright charges
against a far-right Dutch MP for reproducing it in his controversial anti-Islam
video ... more
Add a comment Judges
dismiss Japan WWII libel
Japanese judges have thrown out a libel case
against Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe, who was accused of lying about
the country's war time past ... more
Add a comment Landslide
victory for 'oddest title'
In the fast-moving world of literary awards,
few prize short lists are worth lingering over with as much care as the Diagram
Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. The winner of this year's prize, a self-help
manual by an American writer called Big Boom, wears its prize proudly: If You
Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs ... more
Add a comment End
of Foyles dynasty
When the brothers William and Gilbert Foyle failed their
civil service exams in 1903, they decided to start selling their old textbooks
from their parents' kitchen table. What began as a humble book sale soon grew
into a successful, family-run shop and, over the years, Foyles established itself
as a literary institution ... more
Add a comment
27.03.08.
Miniature book collection opens at Olin Library
Throughout history, people
have been fascinated by extremes, whether it's the tallest mountain, the longest
river or the deepest sea. Julian I. Edison is no exception — only instead of things
large, it's small books that fascinate him.
Edison,
a member of the University Libraries' National Council and a noted miniature book
collector, is displaying approximately 200 of his volumes in the exhibition "Miniature
Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures," which opened at Olin Library's Department
of Special Collections March 17 ... more
Add a comment Book
thief's trail leads to Electric City
A thief stole valuable historic books
and documents from libraries across the USA and Canada and then allegedly peddled
the spoils on the popular eBay auction Web site from Great Falls, according to
a librarian in Washington state ... more
Add a comment Scholars
find Greek New Testament manuscripts
According to a news release obtained
by ANS, last summer the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM)
found a treasure trove of them during a trip to Albania ... more
Add a comment Founder
of Kennys Bookshop dies
The founder and driving force for so long behind
one of Ireland’s best known family run bookshops - a woman who was best known
for her love and knowledge of books - has passed away ... more
Add a comment
26.03.08.
First edition of Dickens' A Christmas Carol at auction
In their upcoming
Rare Book auction, Heritage Auction Galleries will offer a scarce first edition,
first issue copy of Charles Dickens' immortal novel, A Christmas Carol, in exceptional
condition, estimated to bring $40,000 to $50,000 ... more
Add a comment French
first lady's nude auction
A nude portrait of French President Nicolas
Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni is to go under the hammer in New York next month, according
to auctioneers Christie's ... more
Add a comment London
gets reading
The London based charity Booktrust has been getting the 2008
instalment of their Get London Reading campaign underway this week. The campaign,
designed - as its name suggests - to promote reading in the capital, is a biannual
cluster of workshops, readings, debates and general bookish celebrations in the
weeks leading up to the London Book Fair ... more
Add a comment
25.03.08.
Family of Confederate soldier gives grim letter to USC
A letter detailing
a grisly account of one of the Civil War’s first major battles has been donated
to the University of South Carolina ... more
Add a comment 'Freaks'
odd but well-written
Hubert's Freaks: the rare-book dealer, the times
square talker, and the lost photos of Diane Arbus, by Gregory Gibson ... more
Add a comment Paris
is booked
Being in the bookshop Shakespeare & Company is a little like
viewing life through a convex mirror. Shelves climb to the ceiling, cling to walls
and stoop with the weight of sagacious volumes. The light from a dusty chandelier
softly illuminates an iron-rimmed wishing well sunken into the floor. Frosted
glass mounted on a wall reveals a crowd shuffling through the premises, browsing
and marvelling ... more
Add a comment Books
and Bicycles
The Indianapolis 500 isn't the only prominent wheeled event
in Indiana. The Lily Library at the University of Indiana is home to a stunning
collection "of books, trade catalogs, periodical literature, photographs, sheet
music, manuscripts and ephemera related to the early history of cycling" ... more
Add a comment Scouting
manuscript go on display
The original manuscript which started the Scouting
movement 100 years ago is to go on display for the first time ... more
Add a comment
21.03.08.
Comic legend keeps true to roots
Comic book writer Alan Moore is revered
across the world as being one of the most creative forces in the industry ...
more
Add a comment Unknown
manuscript discovered in Berlin
Researchers of the History Faculty of
Saint Petersburg State University have found an unknown copy of Novgorod First
Chronicle in the Manuscript Department of the State Library of Berlin ... more
Add a comment British
writer denied entry to US
British writer and self-styled dandy Sebastian
Horsley was denied entry to the United States after arriving to promote his memoir
of sex, drugs and flamboyant fashion. Horsley said he was questioned for eight
hours Tuesday by border officials at Newark Liberty International Airport in New
Jersey before being denied entry on grounds of "moral turpitude" ... more
Add a comment
20.03.08.
Former PM's Napoleon archive a hit at Paris auction
Rare-book lovers,
museum buyers and fans of Napoleon flocked Wednesday for a chance to bid on a
rich archive on the emperor, put up for sale by former French prime minister Dominique
de Villepin ... more
Add a comment How
to open a book
Found this little gem in a book recently. The text originally
appeared in Modern Bookbinding Practically Considered : A Lecture Read Before
the Grolier Club of New York, March 25, 1885 with Additions and New Illustrations
by William Matthews and was published by the Grolier Club in a limited edition
of 300 copies in 1889. There is no printing or publishing history present on the
Notice ... more
Add a comment US
books chain faces funding crisis
The American high-street chain Borders
is facing a cash crunch which may force it to put itself up for sale as music
sales migrate onto the internet and discount retailers muscle in on the books
market ... more
Add a comment Five
go Disney
Hurrah for updated Blyton! Lashings of organic, cane-sugared
ginger beer is clearly the way to protect our children from reading anything new
... more
Add a comment
19.03.08.
Scientists and writers pay tribute to Arthur C Clarke
Arthur C Clarke,
the pioneering science fiction author and technological visionary best known for
the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died at his home in Sri Lanka, aged
90 ... more
Add a comment Auld
Lang Syne Original Manuscript To Go On Show
An original manuscript of
the New Year anthem Auld Lang Syne is to go on show in New York as part of a Scottish
festival, it was announced today. The paper is written in songwriter Robert Burns'
own hand and dates from around 1788 ... more
Add a comment
18.03.08.
Dolly's working Wigtown from five to nine-year-olds
America's undisputed
queen of country music has revealed that the Galloway community will be the Scottish
focus of her international crusade to improve literacy among youngsters ... more
Add a comment Fight
to keep author's home
The building where author and philosopher Adam Smith
spent his last years is the subject of a new campaign. Academics at Edinburgh
University are fighting to stop the historic house, off the Royal Mile, from being
sold to a private buyer. The city council is keen to cash in on Panmure House,
which could fetch the authority as much as £1m ... more
Add a comment 31st
Auction of Hollywood Memorabilia
Amongst the items at the two-day auction
on March 27/28 is a Greta Garbo portrait by Edward Steichen from A Woman of Affairs,
expected to sell for at least $40,000-$60,000, and a King Kong Six-Sheet movie
poster, one of only three known to exist ($200,000-$250,000) ... more
Add a comment Turkish
bookshop bombing trial "not fair"
Joint attorneys in the case against
the suspected bombers of the Semdinli bookshop have withdrawn from the case in
protest. They argue that the military court is not independent and there will
not be a fair trial ... more
Add a comment
17.03.08.
Paris book fair evacuated after bomb threat
A bomb threat on Sunday targeted
the Paris book fair, forcing organisers to evacuate visitors to the literary event,
which this year is honouring Israeli writers despite a Muslim boycott, police
said ... more
Add a comment Growing
craze for book crossing
A new phenomenon for swapping books with strangers
has arrived in Wales, and it is turning the unlikeliest of public places into
lending libraries ... more
Add a comment German
pilot shot down Little Prince author
A former German World War II fighter
pilot has claimed he shot down French literary hero Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
author of The Little Prince, 63 years after the event. However, Horst Rippert,
88, said he would have held his fire on July 31, 1944, had he known his victim
was one of his favourite authors ... more
Add a comment Cookbooks
old and new
Special dishes served at family gatherings often create a
memory of taste that last a lifetime. That memory can make one nostalgic enough
to hunt for the recipe and before long a cookbook collection evolves ... more
Add a comment
15.03.08.
Amazing Rare Things
David Attenborough retired from our screens (for the
second time) when Life in Cold Blood ended last week, but he remains true to his
mission of bringing us the wild and the downright freaky as curator of Amazing
Rare Things, which opens today at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace ... more
Add a comment £5m
gift for Bodleian Library
Julian (Toby) Blackwell (of the bookshops),
whose Oxford branch has long been intimately entwined with university life, has
made a gift of £5 million towards a display centre for the treasures of the Bodleian.
And what treasures they are, from a Gutenberg Bible, one of only eight surviving,
to Tolkien drawings, to a first edition of Over the Rainbow ... more
Add a comment France
makes bookshop pledge
France's culture minister Christine Albanel has
inked a deal aimed at saving France's independent bookshops. The deal was signed
on the eve of the Paris Book Fair, Salon du Livre, which opend tonight13th March
amid controversy over Israel's presence as the guest of honour ... more
Add a comment
13.03.08.
Pratchett funds Alzheimer's study
Best-selling fantasy author Terry Pratchett
is to donate $1m for research into Alzheimer's disease. The creator of the Discworld
series was diagnosed with a rare early-onset form of the disease in December ...
more Add
a comment Photo
collection 'will fetch £1.5m'
Photographs of the world's most beautiful
women are to be auctioned at Christie's with an estimated price tag of 3 million
dollars (£1.5m). The collection includes nude portraits of supermodels Kate Moss
and Gisele Bundchen, and an image of Brigitte Bardot ... more
Add a comment Copernicus
1st edition for $1.5mn
Author J.K. Rowling has revived her bid to ban
the further publication of a long-lens photograph of her young son after the initial
privacy claim was thrown out by a London court last year ... more
Add a comment
Magna Carta what?
Nearly half of the UK population does not know what
the Magna Carta is, according to a YouGov poll. The survey commissioned by the
British Library found 45 per cent of the 2,000 people questioned had no knowledge
of the English charter ... more
Add a comment
11.03.08.
Rowling revives privacy case over photo of son
Author J.K. Rowling has
revived her bid to ban the further publication of a long-lens photograph of her
young son after the initial privacy claim was thrown out by a London court last
year ... more
Add a comment A
lecture on the demon drink
Sir Walter Raleigh, whose introduction of tobacco
to England has killed millions in the intervening four centuries, keenly promoted
the habit of drinking smoke, or quaffing the fume, as Georgian dandies called
it. But old Walt – pirate, explorer, potato pioneer and poet – was a bit of a
temperance bore on the subject of alcohol.
In a rare
first edition found in a private library and to be auctioned at Bonhams next month,
Sir Walter counselled his readers that excessive drinking was a bewitching and
infectious vice which destroyed health, promoted premature ageing and “transformeth
a man into a beast” ... more
Add a comment Da
Vinci's works on exhibit in Saxony
A Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition focusing
on his fascination with machines opens in the Museum of Industry in the German
city of Saxony ... more
Add a comment
10.03.08.
'POSSESSED'
'Possessed' enters the complicated worlds of four hoarders;
people whose lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions. The film
questions whether hoarding is a symptom of mental illness or a revolt against
the material recklessness of consumerism. When does collecting become hoarding
and why do possessions exert such an influence on our lives? ... more
(Many thanks to Gian Raviolo for the link) Add a comment
Giuseppe Garibaldi’s
letters take the biscuit
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy’s national hero, enjoyed
an intense “romantic correspondence” with the wife of a British MP whom he met
during his visit to England in 1864, according to unpublished letters which go
on show at an antiquarian book fair in Milan this week ... more
Add a comment Pulp
Fact: book publishing gets greener
"Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts"
is an 86-page summary, printed on 50 percent post-consumer recycled paper and
full of charts about fiber, endangered forests and carbon footprints. The news:
The book world, which uses up more than 1.5 million metric tons of paper each
year, is steadily, if not entirely, finding ways to make production greener ...
more
Add a comment The
beat goes on
OSU Press resurrects obscure works by William S. Burroughs
... more
Add a comment Baby
boomers collect books they loved as kids
Baby boomers, as a whole, have
been fighting aging since they started turning the dreaded 30. Now, they're returning
to their childhoods in droves by buying the books they loved when they were young.
Old children's books are very collectible now, says Mike Slicker, owner of Lighthouse
Books in St. Petersburg and an organizer of the 27th annual Florida Antiquarian
Book Fair, which runs from Friday to March 16 at The Coliseum in St. Petersburg
... more
Add a comment
07.03.08.
Why poetry still matters
From Beowulf to Philip Larkin, poetry's past
haunts its present. Andrew Motion, Bonnie Greer, the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Culture Secretary on the poems that changed their lives ... more
Add a comment An
Ansel Adams trove is scheduled for auction
On April 11 Christie’s New
York is scheduled to sell about 200 silver-gelatin Ansel Adams prints from a corporate
collection in California. It is among the largest Adams collections in private
hands ... more
Add a comment Lincoln
`slavery' letter priced at $5
Abraham Lincoln's letter in answer to a
petition asking him to free slave children may set a record for a manuscript by
the former U.S. president when it's offered for sale in New York on April 3 ...
more
Add a comment Cash
opens up literary treasures
British literary treasures, including the
earliest complete book written in English, are to go on display thanks to a £5m
donation. The artefacts at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library are currently
accessible only to a few scholars ... more
Add a comment Bauman
Rare Books opens new rare book gallery
The 2300-square-foot gallery will
carry many highly valued volumes, including a 1687 edition of Chaucer's Works,
a first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses (considered by many to be the most important
novel of the 20th-century), a first edition of A Farewell to Arms signed by Hemingway,
an exceptional first edition of Twain's classic Huck Finn, and a scarce first
edition of Beethoven's magical Fifth Symphony. In addition to books, the Las Vegas
rare book gallery will also offer unique documents, such as a lengthy autograph
letter signed by President Lincoln and a military document signed by Napoleon
as emperor ... more
Add a comment
06.03.08.
Was childhood ever innocent?
Children are growing up too fast, says a
leading author. But hasn't society always worried that young people are experiencing
adulthood too soon? ... more
Add a comment How
to write a misery memoir
Yet another tragic autobiography has been exposed
as a fraud following rave reviews. John Crace offers tips to writers who want
to wring a bestseller out of their dull life story ... more
Add a comment World
Book Day: Just leave it to Captain Underpants
Too many parents worry about
the age at which their children learn to read. But it's all down to the individual,
argues one mother ... more
Add a comment The
world's biggest book, Bhutan, is put on display
Hundreds of events are
expected to take place across Scotland to mark the annual World Book Day. The
world's biggest book, a photographic record of the Himalayas measuring 5ft 7in,
will be on display at the National Library of Scotland ... more
Add a comment
05.03.08.
Cromer bids to save Blogg treasures
Two gold watches and a hand-crafted
book are the heartfelt “thank yous” to a legendary lifeboatman. They mark the
lifesaving prowess of Cromer coxswain Henry Blogg who saved 873 lives during 387
launches in his 53 years of service. But the treasured items, along with papers
and albums which give a unique insight into the family man behind the seafaring
hero, are soon to go under the auctioneer's hammer ... more
Add a comment Unearthing
a bookworm's work
Information is a tool, but love of reading is a way
of life. And like any love, it has a physical dimension. There is more to it than
simply ingesting print. It begins with pleasure in the look, feel, and weight
of a book. Some would argue that in our digital age, book arts matter more than
ever before. Nowhere do they matter more than at the Grolier Club, founded in
1884 to promote the art of book production ... more
Add a comment Memorable
literary hoaxes
Margaret Seltzer joins a list of authors and writers whose
memoirs were more fiction than fact ... more
Add a comment
04.03.08.
Author admits gang-life 'memoir' was all fiction
The gripping memoir of
"Margaret B. Jones" received critical raves. It turns out it should have been
reviewed as fiction. The author of "Love and Consequences," a critically acclaimed
autobiography about growing up among gangbangers in South Los Angeles, acknowledged
Monday that she made up everything in her just-published book ... more
Add a comment Arab
countries boycott Paris book fair
A high public profile is one of the
aims of the Salon du Livre international book fair in Paris. But the widespread
attention the Salon is currently receiving is far from welcome, following a vociferous
campaign to boycott the fair over a decision this year to dedicate the event's
prestigious "Pavilion of Honour' to Israeli writers ... more
Add a comment Cleaning
400 years of dust from books
The Long Room in the Old Library at Dublin's
Trinity College houses one of the most extensive collections of antique books
in the world: it contains about 300,000 volumes as well as a trove of historical
documents ... more
Add a comment Penguin
audiobooks to be copyright-free
Penguin is planning to offer audiobooks
that are free of digital copyright protection technology, which will allow buyers
to play them on any digital device, dismissing fears that they could become the
latest target for online pirates ... more
Add a comment The
great Bronte mystery
Justine Picardie investigates whether Emily's poems
were really written by her reprobate brother Branwell ... more
Add a comment
01.03.08.
Charles Dickens collection to be sold
Rare works by Charles Dickens, including
a page from the original manuscript of "Pickwick Papers" and an illustration of
the "Oliver Twist" character Bill Sikes, are going on the auction block ... more
Add a comment Bestselling
memoir was a pack of lies
At just six years old, Misha Defonseca trudged
across three countries to try to find her Jewish parents who had been carted off
to Auschwitz by the Nazis. She collapsed in a forest but was rescued by pack of
wolves who adopted her as their cub. Her story became the best-selling Holocaust
autobiography, Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years. The only problem? It was
not fact, but fiction ... more
Add a comment Author
plans posthumous comeback
Author Jan Morris has come out of retirement
to write one more book - but it will only see the light of day after her death
... more
Add a comment Manuscript
"The Housebook" reported sold in Germany
It is unclear whether the purchase
is in fact legally valid because the manuscript was sold without the permission
of the government of Tübingen required by the law of fideikommiss dissolution
(similar to the common law institution Fee tail). German law forbids the export
of such a precious manuscript, which is registered in the list of national cultural
property ... more
Add a comment Back
to the Futura: preserving printing’s past
The granddaddy of all printing
museums is off a large square in the small Town of Mainz, Germany, in the shadow
of the great Cathedral. The Gutenberg Museum has several Gutenberg Bibles, machinery,
artifacts, and other attractions. It is, for printing afficionados, our own Mecca,
if you will. The Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp is a shrine to the printing
arts. It was both the home and the workplace of Christopher Plantin and generations
of his family. There is no single American printing museum like Mainz or Antwerp,
although, a few come close ... more
Add a comment | 
