Shelf:Life - what's new in the world of books and book collecting, links to the news stories that matter, and occassional comments by TheBookGuide.  Archived Stories.

31.01.05 Memorabilia from Jack Johnson's era packs quite a punch. Collectibles from that time are not going to be easy to find, because so many years have passed since the heyday of Johnson and the men he fought. The best bets are probably autographs, but they're not going to come cheaply...more  Add a comment.

31.01.05 Cricket books may fetch £200,000. One of the world's greatest private libraries of cricket books including some volumes from the sport's early days - so rare that even the British Library does not have copies - is to be auctioned at Christie's in London...more  Add a comment.

31.01.05 John Lennon the shoplifter 'had Catholic tastes'. Beatles legend John Lennon used to steal from a Catholic bookshop in Liverpool for thrills, a former friend has revealed in the weekend press in the UK...more  Add a comment.

29.01.05 Authors want cut of second-hand sales. Authors are blaming online and charity bookshops for depriving them of their livelihoods. Literary figures, including A. S. Byatt, have called for a change in the law to make booksellers pay royalties for second-hand copies...more  Add a comment.

29.01.05 Collectables: Not so down and out. Go to any UK book fair, especially one devoted to crime stories, and there will be dealers stocking some of the many thrillers published in distinctive yellow dustwrappers by the publisher Victor Gollancz...more  Add a comment.

29.01.05 Cooking with the Happy Bookseller. Sue Hodges loves good food, but she doesn’t like to see people fret over preparations. At her tiny cafe inside The Happy Bookseller on Forest Drive, Hodges hopes people experience comfort food that is well prepared...more  Add a comment.

29.01.05 Writing on the garden wall. Garden writer Robin Lane Fox takes a look at The Writer in the Garden exhibition at the British Library. "It has been years, possibly my entire lifetime, since I have enjoyed an indoor exhibition about gardening so much"....more  Add a comment.

29.01.05 Dear Mrs Eliot ...  She is a devoted keeper of the flame but has Valerie Eliot, widow of TS Eliot, done the poet's reputation a disservice by delaying publication of his letters? ...more  Add a comment.

28.01.05 Dead Sea Scrolls attract record crowds.  Fragments of 12 Dead Sea Scrolls, part of the historic cache found in 1947 by a goat herder and now on exhibit at the Gulf Coast Exploreum, have lured a record-breaking first-week crowd of 9,200 to the Mobile museum...more  Add a comment.

28.01.05 Book hunting in Delhi. On Sunday a stretch of the old quarter of Delhi transforms magically into a sea of books, luring hundreds of bibliophiles who hunt for cheap and rare bargains with the lust of a gold digger.
    Welcome to the Daryaganj bazaar. It is here that a serpentine 1.5 km queue of rare second-hand books and magazines overnight springs up at scores of makeshift stalls on crowded pavements...more  Add a comment.

28.01.05 Medieval Manuscripts Illuminate Violence. Illuminated manuscripts, handwritten texts aglow with pictorial and decorative embellishments of gold, silver, lapis lazuli and other precious materials, are among the most beautiful works of art created during the Middle Ages.
    The seductive, jewel-like quality of their shimmering pages stands in sharp contrast to the often gruesome subject matter being depicted, whether it be scenes of the Passion or vivid and precise images of torture, execution or war...more  Add a comment.

28.01.05 Descartes original up for auction in France. An original edition of French philosopher Rene Descartes' 1637 work "Discourse on Method" will be sold at auction next month in Evreux northwest of Paris, and could fetch EUR 50,000...more  Add a comment.

27.01.05 Bittersweet ending for neighborhood bookstore. Two hours before its 5 p.m. eviction deadline, the San Bernardino bookstore still had a fair amount of stock half of which sat in the parking lot under tarps as rain fell...more  Add a comment.

27.01.05 Lhasa's first bookshop on Tibetan culture opens. The door of the first bookshop dedicated to Tibetan culture has opened in Lhasa. Named Guchona, meaning "Please come In" in Tibetan, the shop is the brainchild of an ethnic Mongolian married to a local...more  Add a comment.

26.01.05 Beatrix Potter gets a new day in spotlight. A rare private collection of books, manuscripts, photographs and artwork by Beatrix Potter, the author of such children's-book classics as "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," "The Tale of Little Pig Robinson" and many others, has been donated to the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University...more  Add a comment.

26.01.05 £17.7 million lottery grant for John Murray Archive. One of the world’s most important literary collections is set to come to Scotland's Capital thanks to a multi-million pound lottery grant. Described by experts as literature’s "jewel in the crown", it features a horde of letters and works from figures such as William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Charles Darwin and Peter Pan creator JM Barrie...more  Add a comment.

26.01.05 Museum in custody dispute over artwork stolen by Nazis. Poland is putting new pressure on the Cleveland Museum of Art and other major museums to return a widely dispersed collection of Albrecht Durer drawings looted by the Nazis during World War II...more  Add a comment.

26.01.05 Cannabis gran's literary ambition. A grandmother on a drugs charge who cooks treats using cannabis has written a book about her activities which she aims to get published...more  Add a comment.

25.01.05 New bid for £35m footnotes to history. The Scottish Executive is poised to announce a fresh injection of taxpayers’ cash to buy a unique literary archive for Scotland. The Executive has already put £6.5 million towards the £35 million purchase price of the John Murray publishing archive...more  Add a comment.

25.01.05 Medieval book saved for UK. An irreplaceable medieval Norfolk book will be staying in East Anglia after campaigners successfully raised £1.7m to stop it leaving the country.
    The exquisite 14th century illuminated manuscript, the Macclesfield Psalter, first owned by a worshipper connected with St Andrew's Church in Gorleston, is small enough to hold in the palm of a hand and contains a series of detailed illustrations ranging from fables to vignettes...more  Add a comment.

25.01.05 Gay bookshop gives up the fight. After 30 years in and out of court and more than $1-million spent on legal fees, lost revenue and seized inventory, Toronto's Glad Day Bookshops Inc. is surrendering its role as champion of gay and lesbian rights in Canada...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 Richard Nixon's papers to finally be housed at his library. The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda has been the only presidential library without federal funding and a National Archives collection. But a rewritten federal law will change that...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 JK Rowling in £20,000 donation to book centre. Author JK Rowling has donated £20,000 to help create a centre in Edinburgh which will promote children’s literature. The writer, who is said to be passionate about encouraging youngsters to read, has given the cash to help get the Scottish Centre for the Children’s Book off the ground...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 Rabbie wis the man for a' that!  The only complete manuscript of one of Robert Burns' bawdy songs has been discovered in Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford library in the Borders...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 Napoleon manuscript rescued from skip. The first account of the battle that turned Napoleon into a national hero has been rescued from a skip during a house clearance and will be auctioned next month...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 In tiny Baghdad bookshop, some dare to be hopeful. In a country wracked by violence, a tiny bookstore in a dusty mall offers a quiet corner where customers can escape the misery and the owners can dare to sound hopeful...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 The Bookseller of Kabul awaits plot's end with unease. "Things are definitely better," says Shah Mohammed. "Construction workers are making six times as much money and people have cash to spend.
    To give you an example, I have sold 2,500 copies of the collected works of Shakespeare in Persian in the last three years, compared to only 250 in 15 years before that." But as he cradled his son Timur in his arms, the Kabuli who became famous as The Bookseller of Kabul feels uneasy about his nation's future...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 New York publisher faces fierce opposition to al-Qa'eda tome. America's biggest publisher, the New York-based Doubleday, has provoked fierce controversy among families of the victims of the September 11 terror attacks by commissioning an anthology of writing by al-Qa'eda terrorist leaders...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 Book on how to bribe leaves Finns red-faced. The Finnish government said it regretted sponsoring a book giving detailed examples of how to bribe Russian officials and businessmen published by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce...more  Add a comment.

24.01.05 Germany demands return of rare book. Any of the usual suspects in the book world could have bought the book, but only Rod Shene recognized the rare quality in the slender volume of old German drawings. He put down $3,900 for the work and hoped that one day he would be rewarded for his judgment...more  Add a comment.

23.01.05 Book of Predictions Sells for £1,200. "Golf in the Year 2000 or What We Are Coming To", originally valued at £200, was sold by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull to an American collector. "It took us a bit by surprise" said golf specialist Rachel Doerr, "the worldwide publicity encouraged interest from America, Japan and Australia"...more  Add a comment.

23.01.05 Poe's little-known science book reprinted. Edgar Allan Poe had more on his mind than ravens and creepy horror stories. He published his scientific theories in "Eureka," a book he thought would revolutionize astronomy but now is little-known compared to his poems and magazine stories...more  Add a comment.

23.01.05 Claim hounds Baskervilles author. Amateur sleuth Rodger Garrick-Steele, has accused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, of not only plagiarism but murder...more  Add a comment.

23.01.05 Bob Dylan a Book Critic Prize Finalist. New York - Bob Dylan, the unofficial poet laureate of the rock 'n' roll generation, has now been officially placed alongside such literary greats as Philip Roth and Adrienne Rich, not to mention biographies of Shakespeare and Willem de Kooning. All were among nominees announced Saturday for the National Book Critics Circle prizes...more  Add a comment.

22.01.05 Scotland's neglected poet. Around January 25th, hundreds of thousands of Scots at home and abroad will mark Burns birth anniversary, by scoffing haggis, swilling whisky and reciting poetry. Which makes it odd that the landmarks associated with Scotland's national poet are so neglected...more  Add a comment.

22.01.05 Book thief who pillaged NZ libraries sentenced. 44-year-old Lee Simpson pleaded guilty to 70 charges including burglary, receiving, forgery and money laundering, all done to support his gambling addiction...more  Add a comment.

22.01.05 Tattered' Emma expected to fetch £3000. A rare first edition of Jane Austen's novel Emma will be for sale at auction in Edinburgh next month...more  Add a comment.

22.01.05 Booktrust to expand 'Books for Babies' scheme. Since its launch in 1992, the programme - the first of its kind in the world - has aimed to provide every eight-month-old baby in the UK with a 'Bookstart Bag', containing two critically acclaimed children's books and a range of guidance material for parents...more  Add a comment.

21.01.05 Up for Auction: Jazz Great's 1933 Newspaper Tribute. Thelonious Monk's 1933 schoolboy essay on newspapers is part of a collection which includes missives sent between musicians and their business associates, including a lengthy handwritten letter from Louis Armstrong and writings by John Coltrane. Guernsey's Auction House in New York will sell the collection on February 20th...more  Add a comment.

21.01.05 Booker boss: Judges don't read all the books. The chairman of the Man Booker prize yesterday admitted that it was unlikely that judges would read all 130 books in contention for this October's £50,000 prize...more  Add a comment.

21.01.05 The novel that was Artie Shaw's life. A 1,900-page fictional memoir took up the jazz legend's last years. But will it ever see print? ...more  Add a comment.

21.01.04 Paris Review ousts editor. The Paris Review is searching again for a new editor, barely a year after appointing a replacement for George Plimpton, the only other person to fill the post in its five decades as one the USA's premier literary magazines...more  Add a comment.

20.01.05 Book provides clues to $1 million treasure. "A Treasure's Trove: A Fairy Tale About Real Treasure for Parents and Children of All Ages" is the realization of the author's 25-year-old dream to create a puzzle sandwiched between the pages of a classic, timeless fairy tale.
    He was inspired by 1979's "Masquerade," for which author Kit Williams hid a necklace made of rare gems and gold that was found in the English countryside three years later...more  Add a comment.

20.01.05 Book will aid tsunami relief. Raincoast Books and Bloomsbury Publishing have announced a "unique publishing venture" to aid tsunami relief efforts. New Beginnings, will include material from forthcoming works by authors including Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Ian McEwan, Maeve Binchy, J.M. Coetzee, Mark Haddon, Nick Hornby, Scott Turow. All proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross...more  Add a comment.

20.01.05 Scottish golfer predicted the future. He was a Scottish professional golfer in the 19th century but he predicted bullet trains, driverless golf carts, televisions and digital watches. Now the little-known book, "Golf in the Year 2000 or What Are We Coming To" by McCullogh under the pseudonym J.A.C.K is up for auction...more  Add a comment.

20.01.05 Bannatyne Club ephemera to be auctioned. With Sir Walter Scott as its president, the Edinburgh Bannatyne Club was the most exclusive book group in Scotland, with a membership, which included four dukes, a marquess, three earls and a peer. 140 years after it folded, documents giving a glimpse into the organisation are to be auctioned next month...more  Add a comment.

20.01.05 Calling all bookworms. In a bid to slow the domination of the big chains and put the independents in touch with potential customers, The Guardian website has launched Shoptalk. The idea is simple: they want you to email them the names and details of your favourite bookshop, along with a 100-word explanation of why you love it...more  Add a comment.

20.01.05 Independents' day. They may not offer glitzy three-for-two deals or in-store coffee bars, but, says Andrew Stilwell, manager of the London Review Bookshop, while intelligence and passion still matter to book buyers, the little shops have their place in the market...more  Add a comment.

19.01.05 Hungarian-born writer wins prize that poets most desire. A poet who was born in Budapest and spent his early childhood in Hungary has won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, Britain’s most august poetry award, won in his time by the late Ted Hughes...more  Add a comment.

19.01.05  The writing on the wall. Open Books is one of only two stores in the United States that sells strictly poetry. Here, you can find rare works by poets long since dead alongside popular books by contemporary poets. Also featured are the little-known poems of local and self-published authors...more  Add a comment.

19.01.05 Clash erupts at Salinas library vigil. A candlelight vigil Monday night to mourn the approaching closure of the Salinas public library system turned into a confrontation between participants and Mayor Anna Caballero...more  Add a comment.

18.01.05  Medieval codices could revel age of Atlantis. A Spanish Scriptologist has discovered in medieval codices and manuscripts, an un-noticed fragment where the date of the beginning of the war between Atlanteans and Egyptian-Greeks is spoken of as 9000 years before Solón.
    The discovery, throws new light on the mystery of the true chronology of Atlantis and gives a Bronze Age date to it's destruction...more  Add a comment.

18.01.05 US Librarians pick best 2005 children's books. A book about a Japanese-American girl growing up in the South and another about a kitten who mistakes the moon for her bowl of milk garnered top honors on Monday from the American Library Association...more  Add a comment.

18.01.05  Bosnia war heavies become literary lions. Belgrade - Milorad Ulemek, a first-time novelist, has been a great success, according to his publisher. In just two weeks, his novel about the war in Bosnia, "Iron Trench," has sold close to 70,000 copies, a record in Serbia.
    Milorad Ulemek is perhaps better known as Serbia's most infamous paramilitary soldier, a man human rights groups say was responsible for some the worst atrocities in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s...more  Add a comment.

18.01.05  Judiciary will need to know bloggers' rights. I wonder whether our judges are aware of the word "blogging". I ask this because it may not be too long before they need to consider "bloggers’ rights". A glance in the dictionary for assistance won’t get them far, since the term hasn’t yet made it into the UK dictionary. I just hope it is part of judicial knowledge...more  Add a comment.

18.01.05  Chatterley book sells for £3,290. A rare first edition copy of one of the 20th Century's most controversial novels has been sold for £3,290...more  Add a comment.

17.01.05  Ancient books threatened by Vesuvius. Scientists have discovered new ways to read the 1,800 charred manuscript scrolls already found in the ruins of the so-called Villa of Papyri at Herculaneum. However, unless urgent action is taken an earthquake or volcanic eruption is likely to destroy the rest, which could include lost books by great authors such as Aristotle and Livy...more  Add a comment.

17.01.05  First Edition of 'Lady Chatterley' for Auction. A first edition of DH Lawrence’s controversial novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover is to be sold at Bonhams in Bath today. It was published in Florence and is one of only a thousand copies of the 1928 edition signed by the author. The book is expected to fetch up to £2,500...more  Add a comment.

17.01.05  Vatican lets Israel borrow ancient papers. The Vatican will loan the work of Moses Maimonides, one of Judaism's most celebrated rabbis and sages, to Israel this year in a gesture meant to improve relations between Catholics and Jews...more  Add a comment.

16.01.05  Burns event brings film preview. Two US films on the life of Robert Burns have been screened in Scotland for the first time as part of an event to celebrate the national bard...more  Add a comment.

16.01.05  Medieval manuscripts to get new gallery. The Cleveland Museum of Art is justly famous for its collection of medieval manuscripts and leaves. However, they have been displayed somewhat randomly throughout the museum's medieval galleries, sandwiched in between tapestries and paintings, sculptures and shrines...more  Add a comment.

16.01.05  Lonely south Sudan bookshop awaits peace dividend. Nobody cares much for 19th century English literature in Rumbek, judging by a copy of "David Copperfield" gathering dust in south Sudan's only bookshop for hundreds of miles...more  Add a comment.

15.01.05  Shropshire Lad on sale for £750 on ebay. A scarce copy of AE Housman's A Shropshire Lad is being sold by a New York book dealer for around £750 on the internet auction site ebay. But today a Shropshire-based Housman expert said the 1898 publication was massively overpriced and was probably worth less than £200...more  Add a comment.

15.01.05  Evolution disclaimer ordered removed from Atlanta books.  A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact," saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion...more  Add a comment.

15.01.05  Children's book award named for Dr. Seuss. A division of the American Library Association has created a new award for children's books, to be named after the late Dr. Seuss. The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for outstanding children's literature will begin next year, the Association for Library Service to Children announced Friday...more  Add a comment.

15.01.05  Poet marshals his moral passion against the war. The poetry of C. K. Williams is the antidote to patriotic jingoism, moral smugness and the imbecility of the easily amused. His fierce, unrelenting moral spotlight, turned unflinchingly on himself and the world around him, however, has intensified with war and terrorism.
    "It is hard to write about something else, although I do" he says of the war in Iraq and what he sees as an assault on American democracy. "I feel sometimes I should be writing about other things, but I keep coming back to what is happening to us"...more  Add a comment.