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30.01.09.
Readers can get Lost in free Conan Doyle books
Free copies of
Arthur Conan Doyle's classic adventure story The Lost World were
being handed out to schools and libraries across Edinburgh today,
as part of a massive reading campaign ... more
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Amazon posts
profit amid slump
Profits at online
retailer Amazon rose nine per cent in the final three months of
2008 as the company enjoyed strong sales before Christmas ... more
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Reading Bridget
Jones could improve your love life
It's the news
we've all been waiting for: reading a good book prepares you for
real life. Scientists have found that, far from being a way to avoid
reality, burying yourself in the disastrous romantic adventures
of Bridget Jones or following Oliver Twist in his journey from rags
to riches could make you better able to cope with similar situations
in the real world ... more
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29.01.09.
It's Bling Lear
A book dealer
accused of stealing a Shakespeare first edition performs a comedy
of errors as he arrives at a police station yesterday in fur coat,
floral shirt and crocodile skin shoes ... more
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Spanish download
novels for just £5
Novels by the
most celebrated authors in the Spanish-speaking world are to be
be available as digital downloads for less than £5 ... more
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28.01.09.
£3m Shakespeare theft - man charged
Book dealer Raymond
Scott has been charged with stealing a priceless first edition of
Shakespeare's works ... more
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Amazon prepares
to launch new Kindle reader
Amazon could
be preparing to launch a new version of its Kindle ebook reader,
according to reports. The Kindle – which allows users to store up
to 200 books and read them on a digital screen - originally launched
in November 2007, in what was seen as a surprise move from a company
better known for being an online retailer of books, music and DVDs
... more
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Peruvian
National Library treasures sold on black market
Months back a
collector received a visit from an antiques salesman. “What I saw
I wish I had not seen”, the witness told El Comercio. The items
up for sale were none other than a cargo of artifacts of unmistakable
origin: the National Library. The man even had photocopies of other
issues he had already managed to sell; those also came from the
National Library. The collector turned down his offer and threatened
with calling the police. When the salesman left the man’s irritation
did not subside: a fresh scar had appeared on the back of Peruvian
bibliographic history ... more
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27.01.09.
World of print grows shaky as change accelerates
If you love books,
magazines and newspapers, 2008 was the worst year yet. Fueled by
the bad economy and the digital revolution, worrisome trends accelerated
and predictions about the death of print began to seem less debatable.
The question now appears to be not if, but when. And a growing consensus
is forming that it will be much sooner than anybody could have guessed
... more
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In praise
of the humble comic book shop
Comic book shops,
or stores if you’re American, are the one place in the universe
where a geek can truly be a geek. The normal rules of day-to-day
life do not apply. You are among friends, all of whom understand
that joy is all about discovering that lost issue (the one you thought
you might never find), or owning a complete run of a series ...
more
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Asterix creator
denies accusation of selling out
That indomitable
Gaul Albert Uderzo, creator of Asterix, has rounded on his daughter
over her accusations that he sold out by ceding control of the comic
book series to a major French publisher ... more
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Few free
books in the Google Library
Amid the recent
coverage of the Google Books Library Project and the company’s settlement
agreement with authors and publishers up in arms about copyright
issues, not much attention has been paid to the fact that under
the agreement, libraries and their visitors may start having to
pay for access to some books ... more
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23.01.09.
A desperate dandy's final death riddle
One hundred years
since Quentin Crisp's birth, John Hurt will reprise his award-winning
role as the flamboyant writer and actor, in ITV1's film, An Englishman
In New York, based on the late Crisp's outrageous diaries. A play
about Crisp, Resident Alien, opens in London next week. Here, its
author, Tim Fountain, explores the contradictions that surrounded
Crisp ... more
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David Attenborough
on Charles Darwin
On the 200th
anniversary of the great scientist's birth, Sir David Attenborough
muses on how he changed the world ... more
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Burns night
For the 250th
Burns celebrations, poet Stuart McGill has written an ode to the
famous Tunnock's teacake to complement the Scottish Bard's take
on haggis ... more
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Poet's life
projected on building
The city chambers
in Glasgow is to be used as a giant screen for a projection that
will depict the life and times of Robert Burns. The 15-minute work,
accompanied by music and a narrative soundtrack, will be run on
a loop on the George Square landmark for three nights ... more
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Man scammed
hundreds by forging famous signatures
Forrest R. Smith
III has been indicted on federal charges that he made more than
$300,000 over six years by forging the signatures of famous authors
on books before selling them to unsuspecting buyers on the auction
Web site eBay ... more
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22.01.09.
Protect struggling independent booksellers
An MP has called
on the government to provide more support to small businesses after
learning that an award-winning and much-loved local bookshop has
been forced to close ... more
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Cambridge
spies controversy set to be re-opened
The controversy
surrounding one of the most notorious spying scandals in British
history is set to be re-opened with the publication of the memoirs
of Anthony Blunt ... more
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New home
for ancient texts in Timbuktu
South African
President Kgalema Motlanthe will visit Mali this weekend to witness
the official opening of a new state-of-the-art facility built with
South African help to house and preserve the Timbuktu Manuscripts
- priceless ancient documents which are thought to hold the key
to some of the secrets of Africa's history and cultural heritage
... more
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19.01.09.
Writer jailed for defaming royalty
An Australian
writer whose novel sold just seven copies has been jailed for three
years for defaming the King of Thailand. Harry Nicolaides, who appeared
in court in leg irons and brown prison overalls, broke down and
wept after the court delivered its sentence. He would have faced
double the time in jail had be not pleaded guilty ... more
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Nude Madonna
photo likely to fetch $10,000
A nude photo
of Madonna, taken before erotic songs and risque costumes catapulted
her to superstardom, is expected to sell for at least $10,000, Christie's
auction house says. Madonna, then known as Madonna Louise Ciccone,
may have earned as little as $25 for the 1979 modeling session ...
more
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Torah scrolls
may have been smuggled to Israel
The Iraqi Interior
Ministry is accusing security companies working with the American
military of smuggling Babylonian-era Torah manuscripts to Israel,
according to the London-based Al-Hayyat newspaper ... more
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Edgar Allan
Poe at 200
Edgar Allan Poe
reaches his second century mark today. The young United States was
a strange place for literary genius to develop, and Poe’s career
was relatively short (he died at 40, on Oct. 7, 1849), but through
his works he inspired generations of writers throughout the world,
and there has been no letup in the 21st century ... more
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16.01.09.
Man jailed over book page thefts
A wealthy businessman
who stole and defaced pages from priceless books in the British
and Bodleian libraries has been jailed for two years ... more
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William Burroughs,
by Royal Appointment
A series of photographs
of Burroughs in Paris and London (is he a suburban bank-manager?
An undertaker?), and photographs taken by him, will be on show from
next week in an intriguing exhibition at the Maggs Gallery in Hays
Mews, London ... more
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Man to be
sentenced for stealing pages from rare books
A wealthy businessman
from Knightsbridge who cut pages from publicly-owned rare and priceless
books at a London library to improve his own copies is to be sentenced.
Farhad Hakimzadeh, 60, meticulously removed leaves from works at
the British Library and Bodleian Library in Oxford ... more
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Lincoln’s
words, in his own hand
“Now that the
election is over, may not all, having a common interest, reunite
in a common effort, to save our common country?” That line comes
from a speech given by Lincoln at the White House on Nov. 10, 1864,
just after his re-election. Christie’s is selling the original handwritten
copy of that speech on Feb. 12, the bicentenary of Lincoln’s birth
... more
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15.01.09.
Daughter accuses Asterix author of betraying his hero
The Romans may
not have defeated Asterix, but his creator, Albert Uderzo, stands
accused of surrendering to the indomitable Gaul's worst enemies:
businessmen and financiers. Writing in Le Monde yesterday, his daughter
Sylvie suggests the 81-year-old illustrator has been pushed into
denying "all the values" she was brought up with: "independence,
fraternity, conviviality and resistance" ... more
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Court hears
Declaration arguments
The Supreme Court
of Virginia yesterday heard arguments in Maine's last chance to
obtain a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence it says belongs
to the town of Wiscasset. The print was copied by hand into the
town book on Nov. 10, 1776, found in the attic of a daughter of
a former clerk in 1994, and purchased for $475,000 from a dealer
in London in 2001 by Richard L. Adams Jr., a private collector in
Fairfax County ... more
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Three-day
Burns festival begins
Dozens of academics
are gathering at Glasgow University to celebrate the life of Scotland's
national poet ... more
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13.01.09.
Bard news ... we have the English to thank for Burns
For a Scot like
Robert Burns, who raged against his nation being "bought and sold
for English gold", it is quite a galling claim. But, according to
a leading academic, not only did the English play a vital role in
the Bard's political poetry, but his international image is largely
down to his southern neighbours ... more
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Winnie the
Pooh to appear in a new book
We haven’t heard
from Pooh Bear in 80 years but, in a move that Eeyore would doubtless
expect to end in disappointment, the guardians of A. A. Milne’s
estate have sanctioned a third book of ursine adventures ... more
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Collapsing
art sales spur Christie's to 'significant' cuts
Christie's said:
"Effective January 12 2009, we have begun to implement a company-wide
reorganisation, which includes significant staff reductions, not
renewing many consultants' contracts and the continuation of other
cost reduction initiatives, that will ensure we remain competitive
and profitable in 2009 ... more
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Long out-of-print
farming manual is hot seller
A 19th-century
farming manual that has been out of print for 100 years is proving
hot property among readers keen to emulate the people living as
Victorian farmers on the BBC's new reality television show, Victorian
Farm ... more
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Judging a
book by its genomes
A study to be
presented at the meeting of the Bibliographical Society of America
shows that some medieval manuscripts can be tested to establish
place and time of origin--because the pages are made from animal
skins that offer up DNA evidence ... more
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Second-hand
book sales up
Second-hand booksellers
have recorded a bumper year as cost-conscious readers try to save
their pounds as the recession bites, say booksellers ... more
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12.01.09.
Monday is ... Raymond Scott Day
Antiques
dealer loses civil claim for Shakespeare book
Antiques dealer
Raymond Scott has lost his civil claim to obtain a priceless book
at the centre of a police probe. Scott, 51, is at the centre of
a transatlantic investigation into the theft of a £15m edition of
a Shakespeare first folio from Durham University Library ... more
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Shakespeare
book accused admits shoplifting
Suspected Shakespeare
villain Raymond Scott today admitted shoplifting. The man at the
centre of the international probe into the alleged theft of the
£15m copy of Shakespeare’s first folio admitted stealing two books
from Waterstones at the MetroCentre, Gateshead ... more
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Book thief
compares himself to Gandhi
A man fined £255
for stealing a book from a shop in Gateshead has vowed not to pay
it and compared his plight to that of Gandhi ... more
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09.01.09.
The tallest book in the world
What do you buy
the oligarch/sheikh with everything? How about the tallest book
in the world? At 14ft, The Burj Dubai Opus is a record-breaking
page-turner – though it's not clear how many competitors there might
be, or, indeed, if it's even possible to turn its hefty pages ...
more
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Father wins
libel damages over abuse memoirs
A former footballer
has accepted a public apology and a donation to charity after his
daughter accused him in her memoirs of abusing her as a child ...
more
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Woody Guthrie
sale
Shortly after
the end of World War II, a young Philadelphia woman named Charlotte
Straus was so taken with Woody Guthrie's book Bound for Glory that
she wrote the folk singer, then a private in the armed forces serving
at various U.S. installations.
His reply, a letter dated Oct. 29, 1945,
grew into a yearlong correspondence that was surprisingly intimate
and came to include autograph material and ephemera Guthrie sent
her, notably a typewritten short story and eight pages of song lyrics
and drawings ... more
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Of course
Tintin's gay. Ask Snowy
His adventures
have sold more than 200 million copies and been translated into
50 languages, and this weekend he celebrates his 80th birthday.
But how well do we really know Tintin? One thing's for certain ...
more
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Da Vinci
artworks stored in a cave during WW II
Drawings by Leonardo
da Vinci on show at a Welsh coastal town were previously stored
there in a wartime “secret cave of masterpieces”, researchers have
discovered. A travelling exhibition of 10 of the Italian genius’s
works is currently on display at the National Library of Wales,
Aberystwyth ... more
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08.01.09.
Once upon a time, PC parents killed off fairytales
Parents are rejecting
traditional bedtime stories because they believe they are too scary
or politically incorrect. Children's fairytales are being phased
out in favour of modern alternatives, as research published on a
parenting website reveals one in four parents or carers has ditched
old classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Rapunzel
... more
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07.01.09.
Computer-esque books to lure boys
Books illustrated
with computer- generated images are the latest attempt to get boys
to enjoy reading ... more
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December
rally for indie bookshops
Despite a slow
start to the festive period independent bookshops experienced a
last-minute Christmas shopping rush helping grow December sales.
But there was criticism for the "savage" and "ridiculous" discounting
used by their larger rivals ... more
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Glut of comic
retailers created false market in the 1990s
A few years back
Chuck Rozanski, the owner of Mile High Comics, put together a theory
that few paid attention to at the time. He gave another factor in
the 90s crash — the proliferation of comic book specialty shops.
Rozanski believes the reason comic book companies sold so many books
during that period of time had little to do with individuals buying
up comics, but rather the rapid growth of inexperienced retailers
buying large quantities of books, many of which never sold ... more
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06.01.09.
Stop press - old news is good news
As a rare collection
of antique newspapers goes on sale, Sophie Morris spies an investment
with historic interest ... more
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Reasons to
look at secondhand books again
The consensus
of the economic pundits seems to be that 2009 is going to be awful
- every bit as bad as 2008. And the chances are that 2010 won't
be much better. In the search for silver linings, I conclude that
this can only be good news for secondhand book dealers. So my prediction
for 2009 is that the devoted book reader will beat a path ever more
urgently to those forgotten, out-of-the-way corners of musty tranquility
of which the shopping class knows nothing ... more
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Cuba opens
Hemingway archive to scholars
Cuba's has begun
allowing electronic access to more than 3,000 documents from Ernest
Hemingway's Cuban hideaway Finca Vigía, most of which have never
been published. They include the beginning of a rejected epilogue
to For Whom the Bell Tolls, and letters from a host of literary
luminaries ... more
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05.01.09.
Michael Palin replaces Alexander Pope in English lessons
Dead poets and
authors who are central figures in the canon of English literature
are no longer being featured in GCSE papers, according to new research
by Cambridge Assessment, the school examinations arm of Cambridge
University. And as they lose their place in exam syllabuses to more
contemporary text, their study is dying out in schools ... more
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Super 70th
for comic-book icon
Superman, the
brainchild of two teens from Cleveland, was launched in "Action
Comics" No. 1, cover dated June 1938. There had been comic books
before, and "mystery men" before, and even costumed heroes before.
But it was this character, who combined all that with superpowers,
that transformed the comic book from a fad into an industry ...
more
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What on earth
did Hitler see in her?
A compendium
of Diana Mosley's writing achieves the near-impossible, discovers
Rachel Cooke: making the Mitfords seem dull ... more
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Glenn Goldman,
owner of Book Soup, dies at 58
Glenn Goldman,
whose independent bookstore, Book Soup, became a Sunset Boulevard
landmark known for its tall, teetering stacks and mazes of shelves
crammed with titles that attracted entertainment and tourist industry
clientele, died Saturday ... more
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03.01.09.
Forgotten hoard lays bare vanished Jewish lives
One of the least
known, and most precious treasures in Cambridge is a hoard of ancient
religious documents which scholars regard as equal in importance
to the Dead Sea Scrolls ... more
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Stealing
beauty
For more than
20 years, John Nevin was the picture of a dutiful custodian of the
nation's artistic treasures, trawling the vast storerooms of the
Victoria & Albert Museum cataloguing and organising thousands of
priceless objets d'art, from ancient Chinese jade figures to Catherine
the Great's diamonds. The only problem was that Nevin also liked
to take his work home with him ... more
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Nostalgic
book covers judged a hit
Penguin's retro
marketing ploy has been a big coup for the Australian arm of the
publisher. Penguin hoped the diverse mix of 25 fiction and 25 non-fiction
titles released with covers in the original orange-and-cream design
would sell 250,000 copies in six months. That target was reached
in almost half that time and the books are still selling strongly,
with nearly all titles being reprinted ... more
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The rest
is history
With his reputation
for romanticism and rambling and his love of gossip, Herodotus was
dismissed by the serious thinkers of his day. Yet his work is both
entertaining and deeply moral, argues Charlotte Higgins ... more
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01.01.09.
Burns was a republican fan of French revolution
In the late 18th
century, it was a dangerous idea, a political view that could entail
deportation to the penal colonies. But the revered Scots poet Robert
Burns was openly discussing republican sentiments in the last months
of his life, risking punitive action for challenging the authority
of the king, an expert in Scottish literature has found ... more
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Ancient recipes:
Repast historic
Ivan Day once
milked a cow into a glass of wine while researching the syllabub.
Hattie Ellis meets a man who stops at nothing to recreate ancient
recipes ... more
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Literary
recluse Salinger turns 90
New material
from Catcher in the Rye author may appear posthumously ... more
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Goodnight,
sweet prince
Harold Pinter
was buried yesterday afternoon before a small gathering of family
and friends at Kensal Green cemetery in London. And, if the half-hour
ceremony conducted around the graveside had a deeply moving, faintly
Shakespearean and entirely secular quality to it, it was because
Pinter himself had wished it that way ... more
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100 Classic
Book Collection - Nintendo DS
31 December 2008
- according to Nintendo and HarperCollins, the gateway to a more
educated society. So can a bookshelf of digital books rammed into
the Nintendo DS really be the answer? We get reading to find out
... more
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Rare reads
of the green
For obsessive
American collectors, nothing beats a classic golf book; new buyers,
beware of falling prices ... more
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The art in
the newspaper
Alison Keogh
restores a sense of landscape to the print version of the news product,
commonly known as the dead tree edition. This series concerns the
discovery of nature within the newspaper. It transcends the ordinary
daily purpose as a conveyor of "news"… and now expresses itself
through an altered state of being ... more
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