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29.08.08.
Lucian Freud
portrait worth millions destroyed by sitter
The painting of Bernard Breslauer, a millionaire antiquarian book
dealer, was finished more than 50 years ago and Freud was anxious
for it to be included in the exhibition in London next month. But
after a long search Freud was devastated to discovered that the
painting had been destroyed by Breslauer who , apparently, objected
to the way Freud had painted his distinctive double chin
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Bookseller
blogs on artifacts retrieved from used books
“Some of these are bookmarks, but some are things they just slipped
in here so they wouldn’t lose it,” said Paul Theriault, a longtime
bookseller who picks the best found items each week and posts them
onto the Booksmith’s weekly e-newsletter
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American
literary prize blacklists Random House
An American book prize has blacklisted Random House following its
"cowardly self-censorship" of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel of
Medina. The Langum Charitable Trust, which awards two yearly $1,000
(£550) prizes, has said that until the novel is published, it "will
not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from
Random House or any of its affiliates"
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28.08.08.
Festival of
the Book
The University of California, San Diego Libraries and San Diego
Book Arts are co-sponsoring a Fall Festival of the Book: a series
of exhibitions, lectures, and a film screening to celebrate the
artistry and craftsmanship of handmade and rare books. The events,
which will be held from September through October, are all free
and open to the public
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'100 Things
To Do Before You Die' author dead at 47
Dave Freeman, the advertising executive whose travel guide 100 Things
To Do Before You Die inspired a generation of travellers to treat
each day as if it might be their last, has died in a freak accident
at the age of 47
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Trial of
strength sparked by Franz Kafka's manuscripts
The tantalising prospect of a valuable collection of the papers
and manuscripts of Franz Kafka coming up for sale has prompted a
battle between rival academics eager for a glimpse of the unique
documents
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The shame
of Salman Rushdie’s secular fatwa
In using England's archaic libel laws to have books pulped, the
former free speech martyr puts himself in the same camp as censorious
mullahs
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Canada's
second-hand book dealers learn to adapt
The World Wide Web has found a home amid the shelves and stacks
of Canada's second-hand bookstores. But sellers say that doesn't
mean the final chapter has been written for customers who like to
troll nooks and crannies in search of lexical treasures
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26.08.08.
Crime writer
taken too soon
At the Crime Writers' Association awards dinner this summer, a desperate
call went out: where was Stieg Larsson? The Swedish author had been
nominated for his astonishingly successful debut novel, The Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo, and was needed for a photocall. But Larsson
was not available. He was dead before any of his novels (there are
only three) reached these shores
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Rushdie's
former guard is being forced to apologise
Curious news from the Strand. We hear that Salman Rushdie and his
former wife Elizabeth West are to be reunited at the High Court
today. The pair will receive an official apology from a former bodyguard
over allegations he made regarding their marriage
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Famous Five
return for more jolly japes
Lashings of ginger beer and adventures are in store as some of Enid
Blyton's best-loved characters return in a new series of books.
More than 50 years after their first appearances, the Famous Five,
the Faraway Tree and Malory Towers will be revisited in 20 newly
commissioned books
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Yes to pansy
but no to bugger
For playwrights the 1950s was a decade of breaking boundaries and
chipping away at taboos, reflecting society as it was and not as
a few thought it should be. But for the censors it was a nightmare
and they could barely keep up. While the US was in the grip of its
McCarthyite obsession with communism, British censors saw greater
danger in homosexuality
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Code cracked
after 270 years
A 270-year-old diary, written in code, has been cracked for the
first time by a Liverpool professor, revealing a secret history
of the Methodist church. After nine years of painstaking work, more
than 1,000 handwritten pages from 1736 - 1756 have been deciphered
from the personal diary of Charles Wesley
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22.08.08.
Bhai Maharaj
Singh Collection at the British Library
Amongst the treasures in the collection of London’s British Library,
which include the Magna Carta and the Lindisfarne Gospels, lie a
remarkable collection of modest personal effects that tell an extraordinary
story from the dying days of Sikh sovereignty in Punjab
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Israel fears
a thief stole bits of its musical legacy
Israel's national library has determined that hundreds of items
are missing, including photographs, manuscripts and letters by Yehudi
Menuhin, Jascha Heifetz, Pablo Casals, Felix Mendelssohn and Richard
Strauss. Many items are also gone from the archive of the Israeli
Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv and a historic music library
in Haifa. The search of other music archives is just getting started
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Once upon
a time, a book for children had a very naughty word in it...
A Best-selling children's book has been taken off the shelves of
a major supermarket chain after a complaint about an offensive word
by one shocked housewife. The author Jacqueline Wilson has come
under criticism for using the insult twat in her book My Sister
Jodie, which has sold more than 150,000 copies
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Librarian
fired for book on unsavory patrons
A library employee in this Lake Michigan resort community has been
fired for writing a book that describes a range of unpleasant patrons,
from the merely unpleasant to online sex fiends, in a town she calls
"Denialville"
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Thieves destroy
rare book
Thieves tossed a rare copy of “Gone with the Wind” into a creek
following one of several burglaries this week. The signed, first
edition of the American classic is now a waterlogged mess
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21.08.08.
Fireproof
bunker for Vatican Library
As part of a three year makeover, the Vatican Library will get a
fireproof bunker for manuscripts and a climate controlled room for
papyrus fragments
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Into the
Bowels of the British Library
Isaac Newton famously said "If I have seen a little further, it
is by standing on the shoulders of giants". Next time you gaze up
at his sculpture on the British Library's forecourt, consider that
you are doing exactly the same. For most of the library's treasures
are beneath your feet in four levels (equivalent to eight storeys)
of subterranean basement. Few of the library's half a million annual
readers get to see these hidden levels
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US: Wanted:
people to sign books for lazy authors
You have to pity the authors of bestselling books. Not only do they
have to labour over the original works, sometimes aided by a mere
ghostwriter or two, but then they have to spend hours of interminable
boredom signing autographed copies for special promotions
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I think the only thing that's newsworthy
about this story is that the publisher is being so blatant about
it. In the 60s a friend of mine was employed by Apple to sign for
the Beatles, and many secretaries have been known to sign for the
authors and stars that employed them. - TBG 21.08.08.
eBay throws
in the towel
Leading online marketplace eBay is dramatically shifting its fee
structure on fixed-price listings, lowering initial listing fees
by more than 70%, extending those submissions to a month instead
of a week, and then slightly bumping up the final value fees on
successful transactions. The new rates kick in come September 16th
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Enid Blyton
the best children's writer?
Good writing always stands the test of time and trends but, in the
eyes of many critics, Blyton's continued success is an enigma because
her work is considered to be exceptionally poor. Hollow plots, repetitive
storylines, two-dimensional characters, limited vocabulary and bland,
unliterary penmanship are all evident throughout her 700-plus books.
They do, however, make a good substitute for a warm, fluffy comfort
blanket and have provided succour to children for decades
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19.08.08.
Concern over
age bands for books
In the normally sedate gardens of the Edinburgh Book Festival, it
is causing quite a furore. From this autumn, a number of publishing
houses will "age band" their children's books
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Blyton more
popular than Shakespeare, says survey
The Children's authors Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl have been named
as the nation's best-loved writers – over Shakespeare, Jane Austen
and Charles Dickens, according to a poll of 2,000 people
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Photographer
finds long-lost Dylan poems
Rock 'n' roll photographer Barry Feinstein was digging through his
archives last year when he came across dozens of dark, moody snapshots
of Hollywood in the early '60s. Tucked next to the photographs was
a set of prose poems written by an old friend: Bob Dylan
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18.08.08.
Pratchett
criticises drugs ruling
Author Terry Pratchett has criticised a decision to limit the drug
Aricept through the NHS to people in the later stages of Alzheimer's
disease. He told the BBC's Panorama programme the National Institute
for Health and Clinical Excellence's ruling "feels like an insult"
and needs a rethink
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Row over
publication of 'lost' Walter Scott works
Two “lost” works by Sir Walter Scott that were deemed unworthy of
publication by his friends and family will be brought out at last,
nearly 200 years after his death
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Bawdy Spanish
update of Tintin withdrawn
His sexuality was always a closely guarded secret that his creator
Hergé sought to preserve. But a Spanish version of one of Tintin's
most famous tales, The Blue Lotus, has dared to suggest the intrepid
Belgian reporter was a voracious lover. But its Spanish author,
Antonio Altarriba, has paid the price: the book has been withdrawn
from bookshops after pressure from Hergé's estate
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Anti-spam
tool used to translate old books
A tool designed to deter fraudsters from registering fake e-mail
accounts has been recruited to help digitise books and newspapers
dating back hundreds of years
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15.08.08.
Reprinted
Marxist book tops Japan's best seller list
A Marxist novel written in 1929 has spent the last few months on
top of the best seller list in Japan. It tells the story of a crew
on a crab boat working in harsh conditions under a sadistic captain.
The book was re-released this year with a marketing campaign linking
it to the plight of the working poor
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Comic book
art prices soar
More and more collectors are turning their attention to the hand-drawn
covers and interior pages that make up a comic book. This original
art has become the focus of auctions with sale prices in the five
and six figures. It's a surprising turn of events for work that
in the early days of the industry was considered so unimportant
that it was used to sop up ink or spilled coffee, given away to
fans or even destroyed outright
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Seaman's
diary for auction
A colourful below-decks account of life in the Royal Navy in the
era of Lord Nelson is expected to fetch £30,000 when it goes under
the hammer at an auction in the US
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Porn claims
outrage German Kafka scholars
James Hawes, a Kafka expert and novelist, claims in his book Excavating
Kafka, published in Britain yesterday, that the writer was a subscriber
to upmarket pornography. Furious German academics reacted by accusing
Hawes of prudishness, sensationalism and even antisemitism
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Casting a
literary spell
Stephen Forrester lives a Houdini-inspired life. The 47-year-old
is a locksmith by day, Merlin by night, and collects and researches
magic books in-between
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14.08.08.
Philip Pullman
joins vigil in Oxford's 'Battle of Jericho'
The author Philip Pullman and actor Kevin Whately have joined campaigners
to appeal against plans to build luxury flats on the site of an
historic Oxford boatyard in what is being dubbed the city's "battle
of Jericho"
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The old ones
are always the best
A raft of out-of-print cook books, some of which fetch hundreds
of pounds secondhand, are now being republished. Avid collector
Tim Hayward picks the best and nominates other classic titles ripe
for revival
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Nabokov's
son to publish last manuscript
Vladimir Nabokov's son says he will publish the Russian author's
last manuscript despite his dying request that it be burned
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Putting the
Walker Evans Archive in order
It took six years, from the time the Met acquired it in 1994 until
2000, for the Evans Archive database to become accessible, and it
was not until late last year that it was accessible online
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12.08.08.
Diary of Dylan's
wife up for sale
A previously unpublished document by the wife of the poet Dylan
Thomas is to go on sale. Booksellers R.A. Gekoski says it is part
of the "world's finest collection of Dylan Thomas inscribed books,
letters and manuscripts," on offer
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National
grief follows death of poet
The hugely popular Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish has died, aged
67, after complications following heart surgery in the US. As candlelit
vigils were held across Ramallah, Palestinian president Mahmoud
Abbas declared three days of national mourning and announced that
he will receive the equivalent of a state funeral on Tuesday, an
honour only previously accorded to PLO leader Yasser Arafat
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Fortsas lives!
PhiloBiblos marks the 168th anniversary of the 'Fortsas Sale', the
greatest bibliohoax ever perpetrated
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11.08.08.
Pierre Berès
I included a link to a short note about the passing of Pierre Berès
on 31.07.08, but Steve Archer has sent me this link to a more in
depth article in the New York Times. “He cut his own swath,” said
William Wyer, a partner in Ursus Books and Prints in Manhattan.
“He just bought great books, and if he liked you, he sold them to
you”
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Voting opens
in search for oddest book title
Forget the Booker of Bookers. The quest to find the oddest book
title of the past 30 years has begun today, with Proceedings of
the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice the early frontrunner
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93-year-old
debut novelist gives home to friends
A raunchy novel with a dauntless heroine has transformed the lives
of a 93-year-old author and three of her friends who were living
in nursing homes. Pushed by her daughter-in-law, who found the manuscript
and couldn't put it down, Lorna Page has become one of the oldest
debut writers on record, with equally unusual social results
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Hundreds
of ancient manuscripts disappeared in Jibla
Hundreds of manuscripts aged over 400 years have disappeared in
Jibla due to Jibla natives’ lack of awareness of the value of them.
Exploiting the poverty and poor living conditions of Jibla citizens,
a group of people who some call the ‘Old Manuscript Mafia’ nowadays
knocks the door of every house in Jibla city to purchase old manuscripts
for trivial prices, said local sources
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08.08.08.
Book review:
Posthumous Keats
When John Keats died in February 1821, just 25, his friends believed
that it was the reviews that killed him. In truth the critics could
hardly have been less kind, especially about Keats’s second book,
“Endymion.” “We venture to make our small prophecy that his bookseller
will not a second time venture 50” pounds “on anything he can write,”
a reviewer for Blackwood’s Magazine wrote. “It is a better and wiser
thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet. So back to
the shop, Mr. John.”
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Export drama
over earliest manuscript of opera in English
Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, has placed a temporary export
bar on an important musical manuscript, giving UK purchasers a last
chance to acquire it before it is sold abroad. The manuscript, which
dates from the second half of the seventeenth century, is an English
translation of the opera Erismena by the Italian composer Cavalli.
It is the earliest surviving score of an opera in the English language
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07.08.08.
NY State archivist
gets prison
Daniel D. Lorello pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing more than
$50,000 worth of historic documents and artifacts from the New York
State Library and Archives which he then sold on the Internet or
at collectors' shows, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said
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Heston's
'Commandments' sold for $63K
The tablets Charlton Heston carried in the classic Hollywood film
"The Ten Commandments" have been sold for $69,000, by auctioneers
Profiles in History
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Iran launches
world manuscripts data bank
Iran launched its first world manuscripts data bank during a ceremony
held on Monday at the venue of Iran National Library and Archives
(INLA)
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06.08.08.
Ann Muir:
‘Ebru by the sheet’
Ann Muir was a skilled craftswoman whose marbled papers gained her
an international reputation. Ann, who died last month, worked for
many years from her studio at St Algar’s Yard, in Frome, Somerset
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British electrician
"Sentenced" for map thefts
Tony Campbell reports on MapHist that Richard Delaney, 37, of Birmingham,
England has been sentenced to a term of one year in prison (which
has been suspended for 18 months) for the thefts of "about £89,000"
worth of rare books and maps from the Birmingham University Library
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Rare India
documents 'go missing'
Dick Bruna, the 80-year-old creator of miffy, the £150 million rabbit,
leads a life of almost zen-like simplicity - or at least he would
if it weren't for the Japanese groupies
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Alexander
Solzhenitsyn laid to rest
Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn
was laid to rest in a historic Moscow monastery on Wednesday after
an ornate church service attended by President Dmitry Medvedev.
The iconic writer, who spent eight years in the Gulag prison camps
before devoting his life to documenting the horrors of Soviet rule,
was buried in the shadow of a chapel in a ceremony broadcast live
on national television
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Royal books
set for first showing
Illustrated books once owned by English monarchs are to go on public
display for the first time. About 150 medieval and Renaissance books
and other literary artefacts will be put on display at the British
Library in London in 2011
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Obituary:
Pauline Baynes
Witty and inventive children's book illustrator famed for her Narnia
drawings
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Bookshop
owner in USA avoids trial with plea
Ann Arbor bookstore owner charged with buying and reselling stolen
textbooks pleaded no contest Tuesday to two felony charges just
before his trial was set to begin
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03.08.08.
PS ... Amazom purchase ABE
I don't usually post at the weekend, and was going to simply
leave Amazon's
purchase of ABE until the dust had settled. However, Abe's idea
of celebrating the event was for their website to be unavailable
for most of yesterday -- something I hope its new owners won't tolerate
-- and Michael Lieberman at Book Patrol shared his initial thoughts
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02.08.08.
No news today
...
I'm out of the office for a few days, so no news until my return
on August 6th. Add
a comment
01.08.08.
Miffy's creator
interviewed by Horatia Harrod
Dick Bruna, the 80-year-old creator of miffy, the £150 million rabbit,
leads a life of almost zen-like simplicity - or at least he would
if it weren't for the Japanese groupies
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The British
Library's online turn-up for the books
The British Library is bringing some of the world's rarest books
online, with the intent of giving as wide an audience as possible
the most accurate experience of reading the real thing
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Oh, the places
that you`ll go
At 84, Charing Cross Road, just a brass plaque commemorates the
place where Marks & Co sold secondhand books, most notably to Helene
Hanff. Devotees of the book still make the pilgrimage to see the
plaque, undeterred by the demise of literature’s best-loved bookshop
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Pop-up books
donated
Wondrous treasures are unfolding within the Bowdoin College Library's
George J. Mitchell Special Collections & Archives. Pop-up books
— 1,900 of them — have been donated by collector Harry Goralnick
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