|
27.10.09.
The
Berlin Wall: where are the remains?
It's 20 years
since the Berlin Wall was breached and few people then thought of
saving any of it for posterity. Jon Henley goes in search of the
last remnants ... more
Add
a comment
Doctor's
mistakes to blame for Keats's agonising end
The agonies of
John Keats's final months in Rome were partly the result of his
doctor's misdiagnoses, according to a new biography ... more
Add
a comment
Artist's
work a look into the soul of book
When Leo Morrissey
delves into a book, he does it literally. Using a razor-edged blade,
he cuts into it layer by layer. When he is finished, the book looks
as if it has been excavated in tiers, like a miniature open-pit
mine ... more
Add
a comment
26.10.09.
E-books
helping surge in library members
After years of
library membership declining and fears that the public no longer
wanted to borrow books, some institutions are reporting a spike
in interest since they started to offer e-books ... more
Add
a comment
Twitter's
take on great works of literature
Two US students
have condensed the plot lines of some of the world's greatest books
in to 140-character Twitter messages ... more
Add
a comment
Religion
reloaded
More than 4,000
Jain manuscripts, some dating back to the ninth century BC, are
being immortalised in a digitised encyclopaedia that will be thrown
open to the public early next year ... more
Add
a comment
American
travel posters take flight
When you've traveled
much of the world, you can lose sight of the beauty in your own
backyard. America's travel-poster artists wouldn't let that happen.
Long overshadowed by their European brethren, such as the Ukrainian-French
painter A.M. Cassandre, who in the 1930s created the now iconic
images of the liner Normandie, those American artists are just coming
into their own. According to the experts we consulted, posters touting
destinations in the United States are the growth stock within the
genre ... more
Add
a comment
23.10.09.
Darwin
artefacts to go on display
A manuscript
for Charles Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species, written in
the author's own hand, is to go on display in Edinburgh ... more
Add
a comment
German museum
refuses to return Kafka manuscript
The German Museum
of Modern Literature Thursday rejected a demand from Israel's National
Library that it return the manuscript of Franz Kafka's novel "The
Trial," saying it acquired the manuscript legally ... more
Add
a comment
King Billy's
army brought to book
A historic manuscript
containing details of every soldier who fought with King William
of Orange in the Battle of the Boyne has been discovered during
renovation work at Belfast City Hall ... more
Add
a comment
22.10.09.
Should
Asterix hang up his sword?
A little-reported
ceremony took place a few days ago outside a nondescript apartment
block in the Paris suburb of Bobigny. An old man unveiled a plaque
to mark the birthplace of one of France's greatest cultural heroes:
Asterix ... more
Add
a comment
Coming soon:
the novel Nabokov wanted destroyed
Next month Nabokov's
last novel will be published - despite the fact that he never wanted
it to see the light of day ... more
Add
a comment
Washington
to exhibit Iranian Falnamas
The Smithsonians
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is to exhibit illustrated manuscripts
from in 16th- and 17th-centuries Iran and Turkey ... more
Add
a comment
20.10.09.
Remembering
forgotten classics
Open Book has
been getting famous authors to remind us of neglected literary treasures.
Who did they forget? ... more
Add
a comment
Captain's
log, star date 1791
For some 200
years, a Royal Navy captain's unpublished log -- filled with records
of his 1791 voyage to Canada and more than a dozen painted images
of the coasts of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec --
has gathered dust on the shelves of various British book collectors
... more
Add
a comment
Depiction
of Cook's death goes for $12K
Hawaii sports
legend Duke Kahanamoku's ink handprint failed to sell at an auction
of surf memorabilia in Los Angeles yesterday, but an engraving of
Capt. James Cook depicting the explorer's final, fatal encounter
with Sandwich Island natives fetched $12,000 ... more
Add
a comment
Children's
books 'ousted by DVDs'
Half of children
spend more time in front of a TV or computer screen than they do
reading, a survey suggests ... more
Add
a comment
Roald Dahl
characters still dominate children's favourites
Booktrust poll
of 5 to 12-year-olds, topped by Harry Potter, finds four Dahl inventions
among the top 20 best loved ... more
Add
a comment
World of
Books
Book business
wants to double its charitable giving. First it has to make a profit,
as Philip Smith reports ... more
Add
a comment
16.10.09.
Shakespeare
theft trial date
A book dealer
who denies stealing a Shakespeare first folio worth £3m is due to
stand trial next summer ... more
Add
a comment
Encyclopaedia
Britannica launches hunt
The 241-year-old
reference authority is looking for the oldest complete set in private
hands ... more
Add
a comment
Israel demands
Germany give back manuscript
Israel is demanding
that Germany return the original manuscript of Franz Kafka's novel
"The Trial." It is currently kept in the German Museum of Modern
Literature in Marbach ... more
Add
a comment
Canada Post
loses rare book
Ottawa man offered
stamps after 18th-century poetry volume disappears in mail ... more
Add
a comment
15.10.09.
Roald
Dahl would love fantastic film
Stars turned
out in force last night for the world premiere of Fantastic Mr Fox
– the latest film to be adapted from a classic Roald Dahl adventure
... more
Add
a comment
What price
cheap books?
A price war like
never before appears to be raging among book retailers. The book
sector is always competitive, but the level of discounting at the
moment seems extraordinary ... more
Add
a comment
14.10.09.
"Wild
Things" movie gets author Sendak's blessing
Turning a classic
children's book into a Hollywood movie takes courage. When that
book is Maurice Sendak's dark but beloved "Where the Wild Things
Are" and the illustrated original consists of just nine simple sentences,
it also helps to have the author's blessing ... more
Add
a comment
The miracle
of the two-week rare book
We rare book
collectors and dealers have, apparently, been asleep. While we've
been aslumber, the meaning of "rare" has undergone a radical transformation
guaranteed to startle us to wide-eyed wakefulness ... more
Add
a comment
13.10.09.
Second
send-off for US writer Poe
US writer Edgar
Allan Poe has been honoured with a second funeral service, 160 years
after his death ... more
Add
a comment
Rare siege
book on sale
A three hundred-year-old
book chronicling the Siege of Derry penned by the then governor
of the city will be a major attraction at this year's Belfast Book
Fair ... more
Add
a comment
Mark Twain's
handwritten 'Last Manuscript' at auction
Mark Twain's
"Last Manuscript," by turns humorous, and personal, anchors Heritage
Auctions' Historical Manuscripts Auction, Oct. 16-17. The two single
page manuscripts on adjoining sheets were written by Twain for the
daughter of his host family in Bermuda, where he spent the last
months of his life. It is estimated at $12,000 - $15,000 ... more
Add
a comment
12.10.09.
New
light shed on Little Grey Rabbit author
A suffragette
poem, penned by a world-famous children’s author and kept privately
at a University of Manchester Hall of Residence for over a century,
has been made available online ... more
Add
a comment
Merkel rips
into Google Books
The German chancellor
Angela Merkel has voiced concerns over Google's book-scanning effort,
adding political weight to the complaints of rights holders ...
more
Add
a comment
Shakespeare
didn't work alone
The 400-year-old
mystery of whether William Shakespeare was the author of an unattributed
play about Edward III may have been solved by a computer program
designed to detect plagiarism ... more
Add
a comment
Shakespeare
collection donated
UCLA's Clark
Library is to receive a collection of 72 books related to Shakespeare
that includes a 1685 fourth folio of his works, two histories that
formed the basis of his plays and a 1603 book by Montaigne that
introduced the playwright to the words "adulterous," "miraculous,"
"depraved" and "scandalous." The collection is worth just under
$2 million ... more
Add
a comment
09.10.09.
Google
hits back at book critics
Google co-founder
Sergey Brin has hit out at critics of the company's plans to create
what could be the world's largest virtual library. Writing in the
New York Times, Mr Brin said he wanted to "dispel some myths" surrounding
the project ... more
Add
a comment
Elvis Presley
wedding photos up for auction
More than three
decades after his untimely passing, the king of rock 'n' roll still
holds court in the hearts of his fans, many of whom will gather
at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago on October 18th as an auction
of Elvis Presley memorabilia gets underway ... more
Add
a comment
Booksellers
hit back at plans for libraries to sell books
The culture minister
Margaret Hodge's suggestion that libraries should start selling
books as well as lending them has been greeted with outrage by embattled
booksellers ... more
Add
a comment
08.10.09.
November
9th deadline for Google Books deal
A US judge has
told Google and publishers that they must submit revised terms for
an agreement over Google's book digitisation project next month
... more
Add
a comment
First showing
for Jung's Red Book
Psychologist
Carl Jung's Red Book, regarded as the science's most important unpublished
work, has gone on public display for the first time ... more
Add
a comment
"Always lead
with bestiality"
If every book
tells a story, every book has a story, bibliography tells the story
of the book, and to catalogue a rare book tells the story of that
particular copy. But there is a fundamental difference between cataloging
for the trade and cataloging for an institution: rare book dealers
have to sell the books they catalogue. How you tell the story of
your copy can be the difference between a sale and a shelf-puppy
... more
Add
a comment
Amazon cuts
cost of e-book reader
Amazon is cutting
the price of its electronic book reader the Kindle as it prepares
to launch the device in Britain, the company has announced ... more
Add
a comment
A friend
of Kafka
What secrets
are contained in the papers of author Max Brod, Franz Kafka's friend
and literary executor? For 40 years, Brod's estate was jealously
guarded by his close friend Esther Hoffe, who sold parts of it,
including works by Kafka, to the highest bidder. Now, the Israel
National Library has gone to court to retrieve this literary treasure
... more
Add
a comment
US soldier
returns looted books
A former US soldier
has returned two historic books he took as "souvenirs" during World
War II ... more
Add
a comment
04.10.09.
Almost no news today ...
Rehousing aged mother in Stroud and hope things will be back to
normal by midweek. Add a comment
The Man Who
Loved Books Too Much
Allison Bartlett
talks about John Charles Gilkey, a rare book thief who stole hundreds
of thousands of dollars worth of books, and the rare book dealer
who tracked him down and brought him to justice. She spoke at The
Booksmith in San Francisco ... more
Via
Philobiblos.
Add a comment
|
