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.

14.02.05 French flip for comic books at festival. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley visits an international comic book festival in the French town of Angouleme...more  Add a comment.

14.02.05 Medieval Book Goes on Show. The Macclesfield Psalter -- which academics think was created in East Anglia around 1320 -- was bought by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for £1.7 million last month after a campaign to keep it in Britain. It will go on show at the museum for two weeks before being withdrawn from public view so that it can be restored and analysed by experts...more  Add a comment.

14.02.05 Authors tell inspiring story of saving books in Iraq. In one of those odd coincidences that happen every so often in publishing, two books about the same person have appeared simultaneously, in this instance separate works that dramatize the heroic efforts of Alia Muhammad Baker, chief librarian of the Central Library in Basra, Iraq, who two years ago rescued 30,000 volumes threatened with imminent destruction while war enveloped her country...more  Add a comment.

14.02.05 Museum publishes facsimile of first furniture book. In April 2005, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will publish The 1772 Philadelphia Furniture Price Book: A Facsimile [ISBN 0-87633-188-6], a landmark publication that illuminates the inner world of Colonial Philadelphia’s furniture trade while providing a lexicon of terms used by the journeymen and master craftsmen of the time...more  Add a comment.

14.02.05 Medieval Chaworth Roll comes up for sale. A magnificently illustrated 700-year-old manuscript describing the history of the monarchy is to go on public sale for the first time since it was produced by one of the greatest artists of 15th century England...more  Add a comment.

13.02.05 Oxfam make crime pay. If you've made a purchase in an Oxfam bookshop in the last few weeks, the chances are you will have found a MAKE CRIME PAY leaflet in you bag. Inside, a competition sponsored by Art Meets Matter, offers prizes from their range of Penguin branded mugs. Another nail in the coffin of independent secondhand bookshops? Add a comment.

13.02.05 Millionaire to fund dig for lost Roman library. A philanthropist has stepped forward to fund excavations at the ancient city of Herculaneum in Italy, where scholars believe a Roman library lies buried beneath 90ft of lava from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79...more  Add a comment.

13.02.05 Why the book club is more than a fad. It is a phenomenon that has become a near ubiquitous part of bourgeois life - and it is about far more than just reading...more  Add a comment.

13.02.05 Dashiell Hammett: The man, the mystery. Hammett's ouevre is thin but lasting: five novels published in six years (Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, The Thin Man) and six dozen short stories...more  Add a comment.

12.02.05 Bill Murray gives $12,500 to Salinas libraries. Actor and celebrity golfer Bill Murray will donate $12,500 in tournament winnings to the endangered Salinas library system, thrilling library supporters and calling national attention to the system's last-ditch fund-raising drive...more  Add a comment.

12.02.05 Four charged over Transylvania book heist. Yesterday, to the shock of those who knew them, four 20-year-olds were charged with a federal crime in connection with December's theft of rare books and art worth as much as $500,000 from the Transylvania University Library...more  Add a comment.

12.02.05 "The Chocolate War" USA's most challenged book. A book called "The Chocolate War" tops the American Library Association's list of the "Ten Most Challenged Books of 2004." The Chicago-based association says the book by Robert Cormier drew complaints about its sexual content, violence, religious views and language...more  Add a comment.

12.02.05 Emblems of love and death. Veronica Horwell is wooed by Carsten-Peter Warncke's collection of 17th-century prints, Théâtre D'Amour...more  Add a comment.

12.02.05 Lewis Carroll in his Own Account. Little is known of Revd C. L. Dodgson's private life, his personal documents having been minutely vetted, censored, and in some cases deliberately mutilated or destroyed by members of the family. Jenny Woolf's new book examines a remarkable archive of Dodgson's bank account, and offers some intriguing insights...more  Add a comment.

11.02.05 Charity ‘threat’ to booksellers. The influential Highgate Society is concerned that a new Oxfam bookshop will threaten the future of independent shops in the street. Highgate has three bookshops, two of which - Ripping Yarns in Archway Road and Fisher & Sperr in Highgate High Street - sell secondhand books...more  Add a comment.

11.02.05 Children's author tops most borrowed list again. Children's author Jacqueline Wilson has retained her place as the UK's most borrowed author. The creator of Tracy Beaker clocked up more than 2.2 million loans from public libraries last year...more  Add a comment.

11.02.05 Arthur Miller, legendary American playwright dies. Playwright Arthur Miller, the creator of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, has died at the age of 89...more  Add a comment.

10.02.05 British plunder returned to Ethiopia. Two sacred paintings have been returned to Ethiopia 137 years after they were ripped out of a holy book by invading British troops. The paintings were among Ethiopian treasures looted by British troops and later locked up in British museums, royal palaces and private collections...more  Add a comment.

10.02.05 100,000 order next Harry Potter before it's published. Amazon announced yesterday it had received more than 100,000 pre-orders for the new Harry Potter book - months before it goes on sale. The next title in the hugely successful series - Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince - topped Amazon’s sales chart within 24 hours of its announcement...more  Add a comment.

10.02.05 Penguin chief quits after distribution fiasco. The chief executive of Penguin UK quit the company abruptly yesterday following last year's disastrous distribution problems at the company, which is owned by media group Pearson...more  Add a comment.

10.02.05 Latest Hemingway novel contradicts his macho image. The macho hunter image of Ernest Hemingway is replaced by a picture of the author as a confident and happy man in one of his last manuscripts, to be published this fall...more  Add a comment.

10.02.05 A bibliophile, 3,600 friends and a system. Kathie Coblentz displays the studious demeanor you would expect from someone who has been cataloging materials at the New York Public Library for 36 years. But browse her home library, which she estimates at 3,600 volumes, and you will find a lampoon of library science's organizational schemes...more  Add a comment.

09.02.05 Arrests at Cairo book fair. The Egyptian government should immediately release a member of parliament and other peaceful critics arrested in recent days on politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Hosni Mubarak...more  Add a comment.

09.02.05 Tennis Bookshop is at the top of its game. The Tennis Bookshop was established in September 1988 by Alan Chalmers, West Sussex, England, as a specialist catalogue dealer in printed matter related to lawn tennis, real/court tennis, rackets/racquets, and squash rackets...more  Add a comment.

09.02.05 Scholars urged to read Sanskrit manuscripts. Professor Irfan Habib has lamented that very few people now have the ability to read ancient Sanskrit and Persian manuscripts and called for the preservation of this valuable source of information about past and training scholars to read the...more  Add a comment.

09.02.05 Tattooed poet to teach at Eton. Shaven-headed poet Patience Agbabi is this year’s writer-in-residence at Eton College, its headmaster said today...more  Add a comment.

TheBookGuide is away for a few days but he and the news will return on 09.02.05.

05.02.05 007's first book becomes 21st film. I must be dreaming, as Commander Bond might say: Casino Royale has finally been confirmed as the 21st James Bond film, to be released in 2006...more  Add a comment.

05.02.05 Rumi Remains America's Bestselling Poet. With so many of the top selling books on Islam painting a picture of violence, hatred, and intolerance, it seems odd that the top selling poet in America, for several years now, has been a 13th century Muslim mystic who has managed to sate the spiritual hunger of millions of Americans...more  Add a comment.

05.02.05 Indian mission to preserve rare manuscripts. It is shocking yet true, about 50 per cent of ancient paper and palm leaf manuscripts have been destroyed in the country because of years of neglect. The central government is now organising free workshops across the country to teach techniques to conserve these historical treasures...more  Add a comment.

05.02.05 Manuscript leads to lost city. It was an old Malay manuscript once owned by Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, in a London library that led Raimy Che-Ross to the existence of the lost city in Johor.
    According to Raimy, the presence of a lost city in the jungles at the southern end of the Malay peninsula had been indicated in Malayan forklore for over four centuries...more  Add a comment.

04.02.05 Writer rejects plagiarism claims. Sydney writer Jessica Adams has rejected claims of plagiarism made against her and says she has never read the Agatha Christie book and any similarities are a coincidence...more  Add a comment.

04.02.05 Library acquires Eric Gill collection. A highlight of the collection is an early calligraphic alphabet written by Gill in 1906. This is an early example that shows the influence of Edward Johnston, a designer with whom Gill studied at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1901...more  Add a comment.

04.02.05 The sweet smell of excess. It's a good thing Elvis has left the building, because even he might be dumbfounded by a freakish fad: public auctions featuring weird celebrity ephemera...more  Add a comment.

04.02.05 Watergate papers go public. The Watergate notes of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein will go on public display for the first time, but they will not disclose the name of famed source "Deep Throat" - at least not yet, the two reporters have said...more  Add a comment.

03.02.05 Book warns of last orders for ornate boozers. Only 250 original Victorian pubs - complete with antique-tiled exterior, stained-glass windows and roaring log fire - have survived unscathed from a 30-year wave of redevelopment, say the authors of a new book on pub heritage...more  Add a comment.

03.02.05 Burke Library to House One of the Top Shaker Collection. The gift of approximately two thousand books and artifacts will significantly expand the library's holdings of printed works by the Shakers -- many of which are notably rare -- and more than triple the number of manuscripts in our collection."
    In addition to written works the gift contains a collection of ephemera relating to the Shakers and related groups and includes exceptionally rare 19th century seed and medicinal catalogues, product labels, broadsides, choice 20th century posters, and a selection of period photographs...more  Add a comment.

03.02.05 Carson's 'Tonight' guest books go from trash to auction. Guest books signed by Johnny Carson's famous visitors to The Tonight Show and rescued from the trash in the 1960s may turn into treasure for their owner.The three books, containing signatures of Groucho Marx, Paul Newman, William Saroyan, Arnold Palmer and other celebrities, are being auctioned online...more  Add a comment.

03.02.05 A piece of Net history on the auction block. Christie's New York is preparing to offer up a collection of rare documents and publications that trace the origins of computers and the Internet...more  Add a comment.

03.02.05 Author accused of plagiarising Agatha Christie story. A high-profile Australian author has been accused of plagiarising an Agatha Christie story for a magazine that raises funds for the homeless...more  Add a comment.

02.02.05 Signed Hitler Photo Withdrawn from Auction. A signed photograph of Adolf Hitler due to be offered at auction today has been withdrawn following a complaint about the insensitivity of selling such material less than a week after Holocaust Memorial Day...more  Add a comment.

02.02.05 For Sale: Hitler's Invasion Plans . Grim reminders of what life would have been like had Hitler successfully invaded Britain in 1940 were going under the hammer today at a sale of historical documents and autographs...more  Add a comment.

02.02.05 Tackling Kenya's 'booklifters'. A student in Kenya has turned to the BBC to help investigate the problem of continued theft of books from the country's libraries...more  Add a comment.

02.02.05 Report shows US students pay too much for books. College textbook prices have increased at nearly four times the rate of inflation for all finished goods since 1994 and textbook publishers engage in practices that artificially inflate textbook costs, according to a new study...more  Add a comment.

01.02.05 Book club archive fetches £8,000. The complete records of one of Scotland's oldest book clubs has sold at auction for £8,000. At the same auction in Edinburgh, a letter written by Lord Nelson in which he described the success of his amputation operation fetched £42,000...more  Add a comment.

01.02.05 Highbrow literary prize set for commercial makeover. Its list of past winners reads like a Who's Who of the 20th century's greatest writers, yet few have heard of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Now one man, armed with vision and a plan to increase the prize money fivefold, aims to take them out of the shadows...more  Add a comment.

01.02.05 Gay comic strip up for award. The USA's nationally-syndicated comic strip "Kyle's Bed and Breakfast," has been announced as a finalist in the "Best Humor Book" category in the Lambda Literary Award nominations...more  Add a comment.

01.02.05 Newsman, friend to 'Beats' Lucien Carr dies. Accounts of the founding of the Beat Generation often credit Carr with bringing together such celebrated figures of the movement as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac...more  Add a comment.

01.02.05 Ivan Noble's tumour diary. BBC News science and technology writer Ivan Noble has died after a long battle against cancer...more  Add a comment.