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28.01.10.
Authors
threaten to boycott Google Books
J K Rowling,
Philip Pullman and other British authors are threatening to boycott
Google’s new digital library. The financial deal offered to authors
by Google only applies to certain titles and has become a flashpoint
between the online giant and those who say it is violating copyright
in its quest to create the world’s biggest online library ... more
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Catcher in
the Rye author J.D. Salinger dies
J.D. Salinger,
the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose The
Catcher in the Rye shocked and inspired a world he increasingly
shunned, has died. He was 91 ... more
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UK publishers
hail the iBook moment
Publishers have
welcomed the launch of Apple's iPad as an "important step" in the
transition towards digital books, with one branding it "the most
significant development yet". Dan Franklin, digital editor at Canongate,
said: "I sat there and thought 'this is what we've been waiting
for'." John Makinson, chief executive at Penguin, said the announcement
represented "an important step in the development of a digital audience
for books" ... more
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Experts identify
scraps of lost Roman law text
Scraps of a lost
Roman law code, which survived because they were chopped up and
used as packing in the cover of a medieval book, have been identified
for the first time and translated by academics in London ... more
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Haworth Bronte
Parsonage welcomes new additions
Two of the most
expensive items acquired by Bronte guardians have arrived at the
Parsonage Museum in Haworth ... more
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BL launches
new Virtual History Timeline
Comparing the
Peasants' Revolt with the Punk Revolution or medieval astrology
with the Apollo moon landings might appear unconnected at first,
but the British Library's new interactive timeline will allow students
to get a sense of change, continuity and chronology when studying
historical events. Bringing together material from the Library's
vast collections and using cutting-edge technology, users will now
be able to discover historical connections and create links in an
exciting multimedia experience ... more
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27.01.10.
Early
copy of the Gospel of Mark is a forgery
A clever bit
of detective work by US scholars and scientists has proven that
one of the jewels of the University of Chicago’s manuscript collection
is, in fact, a skilled late 19th- or early 20th-century forgery
... more
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26.01.10.
Largest
book in the world goes on show for the first time
It takes six
people to lift it and has been recorded as the largest book in the
world, yet the splendid Klencke Atlas, presented to Charles II on
his restoration and now 350 years old, has never been publicly displayed
with its pages open. That glaring omission is to be rectified, it
was announced by the British Library today, when it will be displayed
as one of the stars of its big summer exhibition about maps ...
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Huntington
Library makes a Dickens of an acquisition
Highlights, the
San Marino museum says, include missives to Dickens’ best-known
illustrator, Hablot Knight Browne (a.k.a. “Phiz”), and to poet Robert
Lytton. Among the letters are Dickens' instructions to Browne about
how a scene in a women’s hat shop in “Nicholas Nickleby” should
look: “there may be a cap on a block and a dress on a stand if it
would improve the sketch,” the author suggests, adding, “Please
to take care that Miss Knag is not like Miss La Creevy ... more
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25.01.10.
Booksellers
to shed clothes to save jobs
Fewer Germans
are landing training jobs at bookstores, says the German Federal
Institute for Vocational Education and Training. In an attempt partly
to reverse this trend and also to spice up the profession in general,
the students of Mediacampus Frankfurt — a specialized school for
the German book trade founded by the Börsenverein — are teaming
up with publisher Bramann Verlag to publish the first ever (are
you ready for this?) erotic bookseller calendar! ... more
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'Oral sex'
definition prompts dictionary ban
A parent's complaint
over a 'sexually graphic' definition has seen dictionaries removed
from southern Californian schools ... more
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Leading poets
stage Haiti benefit reading
Leading poets
including the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, her predecessor Andrew
Motion and the award-winning Roger McGough are taking part in a
performance next Saturday to help raise money for Haiti ... more
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Bookoff -
Japan's largest secondhand book store chain
Bookoff now has
more than 1,000 shops nationwide and some overseas — 14 stores in
France, South Korea, Canada and the U.S. The entire workforce is
more than 9,000. The company's consolidated net profit rose from
¥517 million in fiscal 2002 to more than ¥1 billion in fiscal 2008
... more
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Eminent Victorians
at knockdown prices
No one could
be less fashionable than high Victorians like Matthew Arnold - which
is good news when you stumble on that indispensable first edition,
says Simon Heffer ... more
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22.01.10.
Bloomsbury
USA to change race row book cover
Publisher plans
new design for Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass, after original
cover depicted brown-skinned heroine as white ... more
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Student faces
trial over £50,000 book theft
Cambridge University
graduate William Jacques is set to stand trial after being accused
of plundering antique books worth £50,000, from the Royal Horticultural
Society's London library ... more
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Rare medical
books move to University of Chicago
More than 3,700
rare medical books from the Rush University Medical Center will
join the library collection of the University of Chicago as part
of the school's dedication to "the history of medicine" ... more
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20.01.10.
Anthony
Rota obituary
One fellow antiquarian
bookseller described Anthony Rota, who has died aged 77, as the
doyen of the trade and another remarked that "if booksellers were
priests once, Anthony Rota was pope". With the appearance of a watchfully
benevolent eagle, Anthony and his father, Bertram, helped establish
first editions of books by British writers as an international,
especially British and American, cultural commodity ... more
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'Bedlam'
exhibition
The meanderings
of the world's oldest mental health institution, and its search
for secluded asylum, are documented in an exhibition of rare, antique
prints that opens today ... more
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A bibliomaniac
amok
He owes $14,000
in back rent, has $14 to his name, he's been out of work for two
years, his landlord is evicting him, he agrees he should be tossed.
He's got a rare book collection of 3,000 books worth, by his estimate,
$1,000,000 ... more
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Enigmatic
'Poe toaster' fails to show
Edgar Allan Poe
would have turned 201 yesterday, but the mysterious stranger who
has marked the birth of the author for the last 60 years failed
to show up at his grave ... more
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19.01.10.
Bids
soar for rare Spider-Man comic
AuctionOddball.com,
a website which tracks rare auction items on eBay, is reporting
bidding has passed $15,000 on day two of a seven day auction, for
a rare Spider-Man Comic Book listed to sell on eBay ... more
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Charity cartoon
rejected over terror fears
Cartoonist Kurt
Westergaard – forever to be associated with the Mohammed cartoons
and terror threats – was asked to submit a new drawing for the auction,
the auctioneers refused to accept it ... more
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Kindle users
revolt against delays to ebook editions
Angry Kindle
fans have sabotaged the Amazon rating of a bestselling new book,
Game Change, an exposé of the 2008 US presidential elections, to
punish its publisher for delaying the digital edition of the book
until February ... more
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Disputed
Kafka estate may belong to Israel National Library
Documents indicating
that Franz Kafka's literary estate was left to the Israel National
Library have recently surfaced, raising suspicion that the two sisters
who inherited the estates of Franz Kafka and Max Brod are not, in
fact, the legal executors ... more
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18.01.10.
The
core of truth behind Sir Isaac Newton's apple
It is one of
the most famous anecdotes in the history of science. The young Isaac
Newton is sitting in his garden when an apple falls on his head
and, in a stroke of brilliant insight, he suddenly comes up with
his theory of gravity. The story is almost certainly embellished,
both by Newton and the generations of storytellers who came after
him. But from today anyone with access to the internet can see for
themselves the first-hand account of how a falling apple inspired
the understanding of gravitational force ... more
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Crisis for
Irish National Archives?
Paul Gorry (Letters,
January 11th) is correct to advertise the sorry history of our documentary
heritage and the irony of the current proposal to merge the National
Archives of Ireland into the National Library. The loss of one national
archive in 1922 was a misfortune. To lose a second looks, to coin
a phrase, like carelessness ... more
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Streatham
suburbanite who specialised in sin and Satan
Would any adolescent
instantly recognise his name today? I doubt it. But in my boyhood,
the author whose dog-eared paperback thrillers were passed from
hand-to-hand in class and excitedly discussed in the changing room
like rather dirty secrets was Dennis Wheatley ... more
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14.01.10.
Mary
Webb: Neglected Genius
The exhibition
"Mary Webb: Neglected Genius" illuminates the dramatic and tragic
life of this early twentieth-century British novelist, who was able
to present the subtlest truths in poetic yet precise language. Her
writing fuses close observation, strong emotions, and lyrical expression.
The exhibit is at the Grolier Club of New York from January 28 through
March 13, 2010, and will then move to Stanford University’s Cecil
H. Green Library from May 17 through August 29. This is the first
exhibition of the life and literary output of this best-selling
Depression-era author ... more
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Waterstone's
returns to its roots
Well, well, well.
Book chain Waterstone’s this morning fired its boss following dire
Christmas sales figures and announced that it is going back to its
roots as a “local” bookshop ... more
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Jamestown
Tablet an American Rosetta Stone?
With the help
of enhanced imagery and an expert in Elizabethan script, archaeologists
are beginning to unravel the meaning of mysterious text and images
etched into a rare 400-year-old slate tablet discovered this past
summer at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement
in America ... more
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13.01.10.
Displaying
books: more than just a good read
Books add warmth,
comfort and personality to a room. Indeed, leading interiors writer
Leslie Geddes-Brown thinks “there should be books in every room
of the house, with the possible exception of the larder”. Not only
would this provide handy reading material, but books themselves
can become a striking decorative feature. “To me, a room without
books is missing an essential feature, as important as lights, chairs
or carpets,” she says ... more
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letterheady
Letterheady is
an online homage to offline correspondence; specifically letters.
However, here at Letterheady we don't care about the letter's content.
Just its design ... more
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1602 Chinese
map goes on show in the US
An extremely
rare 400-year-old Chinese map, which put the emerging superpower
at the centre of the world, went on display yesterday at the Library
of Congress in Washington ... more
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12.01.10.
49th
Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair
From January
29 to 31, exhibitors from Germany, Australia, France, Italy, Great
Britain, USA, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands offer masterpieces
of book art and milestones in the history of ideas ... more
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Have a glass
of wine at the bookstore
A nearly 200-year-old
bookstore in Sydney is uniting bibliophiles and oenophiles with
a simple, yet brilliant idea: serving wine in their reading room
... more
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Charity donations
fall amid crunch
Oxfam has warned
the recession is far from over after seeing a 15% fall in the level
of goods donated to its shops ... more
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11.01.10.
William
Blake etchings secured for the nation
Eight etchings
by William Blake have been acquired for the nation after the Tate
gallery raised £441,000 ... more
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Fans can
feast at Dylan’s five-star dining room table
Dylan Thomas
fans now have the chance to feast on more than just his poetry after
the reopening of one of the author’s seaside homes as a five-star
restaurant with rooms ... more
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08.01.10.
I-Spy
children's books make a comeback
The 'I-Spy' books
are set to return to shop shelves more than half a century after
they first became a family hit ... more
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07.01.10.
Public
hangings and gossip - the diary of a Victorian
He feared rising
crime, liked to gossip and got up to "wicked tricks" with his girlfriend.
All very modern preoccupations, you may think. But Nathaniel Bryceson
was a Victorian, and his diary has just been published online, explains
Ed Argar of Westminster Council ... more
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London Rare
Books School
The University
of London will run the London Rare Books School (LRBS), a series
of five-day, intensive courses on a variety of book-related subjects
to be taught in and around Senate House ... more
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06.01.10.
Will
the book survive?
Jeff Bezos envisions
a Kindle-only world, but ink-on-paper books still have a place,
including helping to build better cities ... more
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Rare Flinders
maps up for auction
A rare copy of
Matthew Flinders' maps of the Australian coast published as the
great explorer lay dying are being sold at auction ... more
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Who owns
your e-book?
You've bought
a book for your e-reader and it's yours to own, right? That's what
George Orwell fans thought, until their purchases disappeared. The
implications are sinister, discovers Simon Usborne ... more
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Lessons in
anatomy by Leonardo
Important anatomical
drawings by Leonardo da Vinci are being loaned by the Queen to the
Vancouver Art Gallery for display during the Olympic and Paralympic
Winter Games. It is the first time all the drawings of Leonardo's
Anatomical Manuscript A, part of the Royal Collection, have been
on public view, the gallery says ... more
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05.01.10.
Pensioners
burn books for warmth
Workers at one
charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most
vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias
for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal ... more
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'Kama Sutra'
most pirated e-book of 2009
Here’s an overview
of the 10 most downloaded books on BitTorrent this year. The list
shows us that illicit book downloads are not yet threatening the
best selling authors you’ll find in the New York Times list ...
more
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Tesco gives
a little help to independent bookshop
Supermarket points
shoppers to Linghams in Wirral after manager complains about discounting
to supermarket's chief executive ... more
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Interest
in ancient books could restore Timbuktu
From a dented
metal trunk, Abdoul Wahim Abdarahim Tahar pulled out something sure
to make a preservationist's heart race -- or break: a leather-bound
book written by hand in the 14th century, containing key verses
of the prophet Muhammad, and crumbling at the edge of each yellowed
page ... more
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Conservators
win fight to save manuscripts
When the biggest
municipal archives north of the Alps collapsed down a pothole last
year, some historians said the memory of the city of Cologne had
been erased forever. Excavators scooped soggy parchments and files
spanning 1,000 years from the hole and sent 20 tons of them to a
conservation clinic in the German city of Muenster to restore. Ten
months later, the conservators say they have managed to safely dry
the lot ... more
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04.01.10.
High
street book sales fall 7%
High street sales,
as indicated by Nielsen BookScan's General Retail Market (GRM) survey,
have been dropping year-on-year as more and more people buy books
online. However, the latest drop was particularly acute ... more
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Charity shop
donations hit by the recession
The British Heart
Foundation suffered a 20 per cent drop in donated stock in the past
12 months across its Manchester shops. and Lisa Smith, manager at
the Oxfam bookshop in George Street, Altrincham, said: “There has
been a noticeable decline in the number of donations ... more
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Inscribed
in Hollywood history
I receive a lot
of auction catalogs; in fact, the amount of movie memorabilia being
sold at auction these days is positively overwhelming. But I always
look forward to the Autograph Catalog from Profiles in History,
because the handsomely printed booklet is a collectible in its own
right. You learn which pictures famous stars and filmmakers chose
to represent themselves to fans and admirers ... more
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01.01.10.
AbeBooks’
most expensive sales of 2009
Many of the titles
that fetch top dollar are antiquarian books, with titles in Latin
or Italian, biblical or other religious texts, or objects of great
beauty as much as literature. Others are classics whose timelessness
sees their value rise year after year ... more
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Taking an
auction apart, putting a market back together
The recent sale
of early printed material relating to the new world at Bloomsbury
on December 3rd presented intriguing evidence about the current
state of the rare book business. The material offered was the de
Orbe Novo Collection, 81 early items with a new world perspective.
Condition, rarity and subject divided the material into categories
and subcategories attracting bids from around the world. The sale
brought in $3.489 million, $43,000 a lot, doubled the low estimate,
was robust, if not incandescent, and met or exceeded expectations
... more
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Book bound
with tattooed skin of would-be assassin
A Victorian pocket
book bound with the skin of a would-be assassin has been found in
a car boot sale. The grisly find in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, came
with a letter stating: 'I have only this morning discovered the
long lost pocket book made out of the skin of the man who shot your
father!' ... more
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Free books
to get pupils 'hooked on reading'
More than 53,000
free books, by authors from Charlotte Brontë to England goalkeeper
David James, are to be sent to secondary schools to try to get more
pupils interested in reading as a hobby ... more
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Man in court
accused of stealing antique books
A man accused
of stealing valuable antique horticultural books from a world-famous
library in London has been remanded in custody when he appeared
in court ... more
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Book sales
suffer marginal decline in 2009
A grand total
of £1.752 billion was spent on 235.7 million books in 2009, down
1.2% year on year in value terms and down just 0.5% by volume. Average
selling prices were down 0.7% year on year to £7.43, according to
Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market (TCM) data ... more
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New words
of 2009
A year of snollygosters,
jeggings and tweetups marked the end of the 21st century's first
decade, according to word enthusiasts who have spent Christmas burrowing
into Britain's biggest linguistic database ... more
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Poster Child:
Ira Resnick's Passion
Ira Resnick’s
girlfriends used to complain that he was in love with dead actresses.
And it wasn’t just any Hollywood beauties who were their rivals.
Instead, it was the screen goddesses transformed by the work of
the top poster designers of the Golden Age, when movie posters and
one-sheets could be works of art ... more
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