30.11.06.
Libraries
increase security
Two months after an antique map dealer was sentenced
to three-and-a-half years in federal prison for stealing millions of dollars worth
of rare maps, including 20 from Yale, the University is preparing a series of
new library security measures
... more Add
a comment Blaze
damage an old Mount Athos monastery
Authorities said that the fire damaged
some furniture but was contained before it could threaten ancient manuscripts
or other valuable items
... more Add
a comment Rare
book hits high note with charity
A rare book handed in to a Wilmslow charity
shop has been snapped up for a whopping £500. The limited edition of an opera
by Richard Wagner and illustrated by Arthur Rackham, was on the shelves at Oxfam,
in Ware Lane ...
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a comment
28.11.06.
A
layered look reveals ancient Greek texts
An ambitious international project
to decipher 1,000-year-old moldy pages is yielding new clues about ancient Greece
as seen through the eyes of Hyperides, an important Athenian orator and politician
from the fourth century B.C. What is slowly coming to light, scholars say, represents
the most significant discovery of Hyperides text since 1891, illuminating some
fascinating, time-shrouded insights into Athenian law and social history
... more Add
a comment Bush
library may cost $500M
He may be a certified lame duck now, but President
Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign - an eye-popping,
half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library
... more Add
a comment Kids’
book swap in Rome
A bookshop near Stazione Termini has launched Italy’s
first official book swapping zone for children. The Esquilibri e Caffè bookshop
in Via Giolitti, run by eight Italian mothers, is holding the swapping event every
Sunday from 11.00-16.00, when children can take old books to the shop and exchange
them with those of other children
... more Add
a comment Iran
bans woman writer`s bestseller
Iran's conservative cultural body has banned
a female writer's award-winning bestseller, which deals with a married woman's
secret and unrequited love for another man, a press report said on Monday
... more Add
a comment
27.11.06.
Yale's
Lewis Carroll letter ends up on eBay
A letter Lewis Carroll wrote to a
friend in 1890 has taken police down a rabbit hole into the world of eBay, a marketplace
overflowing with treasures, from Mad Hatter pins to Cheshire Cat mugs. But let
the buyer beware: On eBay, as in Wonderland, things are often not as they seem
... more Add
a comment Copy
of Simpson book gets $222,000 bid
The current maximum bid on eBay for a
limited edition copy of O.J. Simpson's book, "If I Did It," has reached $222,000,
The Daily Mail reported. Two copies of the book -- which was dropped by the HarperCollins
publishing house amid a flurry of controversy -- were placed on the Internet auction
site and have been drawing numerous bids ever since, the newspaper said
... more Add
a comment An
inspiration, yes. Did I copy from another author? No
Ian McEwan has a reputation
for the thorough research he undertakes before writing his novels. But yesterday,
a Sunday newspaper claimed he had "copied" the work of another author for his
Booker-nominated novel, Atonement. Here, McEwan refutes the claim, and explains
how he drew on research and reminiscences for one of his most celebrated books
... more Add
a comment Gruffalo,
the monster we all love
The Gruffalo, a fictional beast that features in
a series of children's picture books, lurched its way to the centre stage last
week. The hairy monster's illustrator was called on to design Gordon Brown's annual
Christmas card, confirming the character's ascendancy to a level of frenzied popularity
not seen in children's literature since Harry Potter
... more Add
a comment
25.11.06.
Thieving
library staff take a love of rare books too far
A mysterious gap in a dusty
bookshelf gave the game away for a corrupt library worker who stole more than
£541,000 of antique tomes from one of Germany’s most respected universities. Now
the trial of Reinhold K (he cannot be named before the hearing) , who slipped
16th-century botanical works under his long black coat, is set to expose the increasingly
lucrative world of library theft
... more Add
a comment Uncovered
Marvin Gaye manuscripts up for sale
The original manuscripts to some of
legendary soul crooner Marvin Gaye's biggest hits are among the items that will
be on the auction block in London next week
... more Add
a comment Angelou
book attacked in Wisconsin
Some parents want Wisconsin's Fond du Lac High
School to remove Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," from an advanced
English reading curriculum
... more Add
a comment If
the O.J. book were selling... what would it be worth?
One dealer in 20th-century
literature, Kevin Johnson, who owns Royal Books Inc. in Baltimore, said that if
he owned a copy he would price it to sell quickly -- and would ask $750. He noted
that a specialist in more contemporary fiction might ask $2,000
... more Add
a comment Coffee's
on, dusty books are out at library
The University of Texas at Austin has
probably gone the farthest, removing all 90,000 books from its undergraduate library
in favor of more computers and group study areas
... more Add
a comment
23.11.06.
Arrest
warrants issued after Canadian book theft
After an investigation into the
theft of several antique books from The Avenue LTD, 117 Post Road E., last month,
Westport Police detectives have obtained arrest warrants for Ontario, Canada residents
Peter Mason King, 48, and Nora Thomson, 47
... more Add
a comment Russia
inaugurates book prize. It’s big
A new Russian national book prize that
claims to offer the second largest cash award, after the Nobel, was presented
for the first time on Wednesday night to Dmitry Bykov, a prolific journalist,
novelist and essayist, for his biography, "Boris Pasternak"
... more Add
a comment OJ
book found on eBAY
A single copy of OJ Simpson's scrapped book If I Did
It appeared briefly on internet auction site eBay yesterday, before being removed.
The item attracted more than 50 bids of up to $1,600 (£890) before publisher HarperCollins
alerted the site and the sale was stopped
... more Add
a comment Honoured
for promoting children's literature
Wendy Cooling has been awarded the
Eleanor Farjeon award for a life spent promoting children's literature. She ran
the Children's Book Foundation and National Chidren's Book Week, and founded Bookstart,
a national programme which gives free books to every child in the UK
... more Add
a comment
22.11.06.
Old
maps are still missing
Thirty-six rare antique maps with an estimated value
of nearly $1 million are missing from the collection of the Boston Public Library,
in addition to 34 stolen maps that were recovered during an investigation of a
confessed map thief, E. Forbes Smiley III. In an announcement aimed at dealers
who may see the missing maps turn up for sale, library officials released a detailed
list of the lost documents, which include a 1613 map of New France, drawn by the
explorer Samuel de Champlain, and a 1787 Virginia map, from a book by Thomas Jefferson
... more Add
a comment Rare
books up for auction in Dorset
Rare works by Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens
and Anthony Trollope are to be sold at auction. The first edition books by 19th
and 20th century authors are part of a sale of about 3,000 books in Dorset
... more Add
a comment Book
lovers seek lovers, buttered or plain
Perhaps only someone from Britain
could genuinely believe that a personal ad beginning, "Baste me in butter and
call me Slappy," might lead to romance with an actual, nonincarcerated person.
But in the strange alternate universe that is the personals column in the London
Review of Books, a fetish for even the naughtiest dairy product is considered
a perfectly reasonable basis for a relationship. Rejecting the earnest self-promotion
of most personal ads, the correspondents in the London Review column tend instead
to present themselves as idiosyncratic, even actively repellent
... more Add
a comment 1657:
The rough guide to Europe
His was an epic traveller's tale, 1,000 handwritten
pages recounting a journey that took him from Scotland to England and onwards
across Europe. Now, almost 350 years since the Rev Fraser first put quill to paper,
his diaries have been rediscovered and are set to be published for the first time
... more Add
a comment
21.11.06.
OJ
Simpson book plan scrapped
Facing a firestorm of criticism, media tycoon
Rupert Murdoch has scrapped a new book and TV interview in which OJ Simpson offered
a hypothetical account of how he would have killed his ex-wife and her friend.
In
a dramatic reversal days after his News Corp. announced plans for the book and
a Fox television special, Mr Murdoch said in a statement he decided "this was
an ill-considered project" and apologized for any harm caused ...
more Add
a comment "What's
Eating Gilbert Grape?" yanked from school library
A critically acclaimed
book has been yanked from a high school literature class in Carroll, West Des
Moines, after the school district's superintendent expressed concerns the book
has inappropriate sexual content.
Carroll Schools'
Superintendent Rob Cordes hasn't read all of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" but
says a scene in which the books protagonist, Gilbert Grape, receives oral sex
from an older, married woman is out of bounds for high school students ...
more Add
a comment Theatrical
ephemera preserved
" 'Treasures' is a very subjective word," the curator
of the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library, Robert Taylor,
said. But even the harshest of critics would be hard-pressed not to find a treasure
within the trove of the "Stars and Treasures" exhibit, which opens today at the
NYPL, where over 300 items and clips from 30 different theater productions are
available for viewing ...
more Add
a comment Judge
denies bail to suspect in library bombing
A federal judge refused to set
bail Monday for an Illinois man accused of setting off a pipe bomb in the main
downtown library ...
more Add
a comment From
parties to poetry
He's a multi-millionaire, a lads mag publisher, who was
prosecuted for obscenity before anyone had ever heard of Loaded; a former crack-cocaine
addict and friend of John Lennon. Felix Dennis has never wanted for excitement,
so why has he turned to writing poetry? ...
more Add
a comment
18.11.06.
A
Wellcome acquisition
Europe's leading resource for the study of the History
of Medicine, The Wellcome Library, has been successful in its bid at Sotheby's
to purchase a rare book from the personal collection of the late John Dee, the
eminent Elizabethan mathematician and astrologer ...
more Add
a comment Bestsellers
banned in new Iranian censorship purge
Dozens of literary masterpieces
and international bestsellers have been banned in Iran in a dramatic rise in censorship
that has plunged the country's publishing industry into crisis ...
more Add
a comment Wales
war poet Hedd Wyn remembered
Six weeks after his death in the Passchendaele
offensive of 1917, the poet Hedd Wyn was awarded the chair at the National Eisteddfod
at Birkenhead. This December a specially arranged weekend of activities has been
arranged to celebrate the life and works of Hedd Wyn ...
more Add
a comment Doing
it by the book
Ingrid Kent spends a few hours among the second-hand tomes
at The Old Pier Bookshop in Morecambe, and hears a tale or two from proud owner,
Tony Vettese ... more Add
a comment
17.11.06.
Where
printed words matter
Now that Manhattan’s become one giant shopping mall,
it’s worth pausing for a moment to smell the daisies and see what real live artists
are creating to express themselves and subvert the new world order. Printed Matter,
the non-profit bookstore founded by artist Sol Lewitt and located in Chelsea’s
gallery district, is celebrating its 30th anniversary by sponsoring the New York
Art Book Fair ... more Add
a comment Valuable
volumes
Jeffrey D. Mancevice, an internationally known US based dealer
in early European books, talks about his chosen specialism. ...
more Add
a comment First
'Wiki' book to be published
In a move that could shake up the book industry,
publishing giant Pearson PLC is joining with two top business schools to create
a business book authored and edited by a "wiki" -- an online community dedicated
to writing ... more Add
a comment Albanian
offers heirloom mini-Koran for sale
Skender Prushi always keeps the tiny
Koran in his trouser pocket for safekeeping. Before opening it, he washes his
hands and puts the book on his forehead and on his heart. The book, which is 2.68
cm long, 2.16 cm wide and 1.09 cm thick, has been in his family for generations
... more Add
a comment Parents
want gay penguin book blocked
A picture book about two male penguins raising
a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents in a Shiloh village
who worry about the book's availability to elementary students -- and the reluctance
of administrators to restrict access to it ...
more Add
a comment
Amazing
to me that parents can get so worked up about a library book about "gay" penguins.
I wonder if they are monitoring their kids' television viewing just as closely.
And what's so terrible abut a tale of male penguins (or humans) nurturing an egg
that nobody else wants? I find it uplifting. - Tom at King Champ Books.
15.11.06.
Toilet
tied to tale of Dead Sea Scrolls
One of the less sanitary aspects of life
in Jesus' day has come into play in the debate over who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls,
how they lived and how they died.
The latest evidence
comes from a site that two researchers have identified as the communal latrine
for Qumran, the ancient settlement near the caves where the 2,000-year-old scrolls
were found ... more Add
a comment Razed
with textbook precision!
We follow up on the aftermath of the biggest secondhand
book market of South India being taken apart ...
more Add
a comment Author
Eric Carle's collage art at the Tacoma Art Museum
The show, on loan from
the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, displays some of the original artwork
that millions of preschoolers and their parents know only from the printed page.
"It all looks different on the wall," Carle mused. "Especially
when you first finish a book, you think, 'Is it any good?' Then you see it on
the wall a few years later and it's not yours anymore. And you think, 'Hmm, it's
pretty good!' ... more Add
a comment
14.11.06.
Get
some writing on your wall
Ornate Urdu calligraphy is becoming increasingly
collectable as an art form, writes John Windsor ...
more Add
a comment
Chris de Burgh buys rare WW1 letter for £14,400
A rare letter home by
an unnamed British soldier describing the Christmas Day truce with German forces
in 1914 sold for around 40 times its estimate, and was bought by Irish singer
Chris de Burgh ... more Add
a comment The
word of God
Smithsonian exhibit of ancient Bibles reveals fascinating works
of astounding beauty. "We're trying to give people an idea of what survived from
this period of the early development of the book, from tiny scraps to astonishingly
well-preserved volumes," said Sackler Gallery curator Ann Gunter ...
more Add
a comment
13.11.06.
Scraps
in past, treasures today
Historical ephemera filled the booths Sunday at
Washington Avenue Armory, where the Albany Institute of History & Art presented
the 33rd annual Antiquarian Book and Ephemera Fair ...
more Add
a comment Book
town on Timbuktu shortlist
A second hand book town with its own self-proclaimed
"king" is in the final of a competition to find a British twin for the African
city of Timbuktu ...
more Add
a comment Court
won't hear 'Da Vinci Code' case
The Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory
to the author of the "The Da Vinci Code," refusing to consider a case alleging
copyright infringement ...
more Add
a comment 'Malcolm
X' pages damaged
The owner of Alex Haley's original manuscript for "The
Autobiography of Malcolm X" has sued a Detroit museum over damage to 15 unpublished
pages that occurred while they were on display ...
more Add
a comment
11.11.06.
Vandals
desecrate Russian poet Pasternak's grave
Unknown vandals have desecrated
the grave of dissident Russian poet Boris Pasternak whose novel "Doctor Zhivago"
won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, Russian television channels said on Friday.
The
modest tombstone, at a cemetery in the famed writers' retreat of Peredelkino outside
Moscow, was covered with soot after vandals put wreathes around it and set them
on fire last night, said TV reports, featuring the monument ... more Add
a comment
Executed
Nigerian writer remembered
Cities around the world are commemorating the
11th anniversary of the execution of Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other
activists ... more Add
a comment
10.11.06.
Missing
works by cloak and dagger composer for sale
A long lost manuscript of works
by German 17th century keyboard maestro Johann Jacob Froberger, also believed
to have been a part-time spy, goes on sale later this month with a price tag of
500,000 pounds ($953,500) ... more Add
a comment Resistance
literature revisited
Last year, the American University in Cairo inaugurated
an annual lecture dedicated to the memory of Edward W Said (1935-2003) to coincide
with his birthday. This year's Edward Said Memorial Lecture, entitled "Resistance
literature revisited: From Basra to Guantànamo", was given by Barbara Harlow ...
more Add
a comment Libraries
in the sand reveal Africa's academic past
Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting
to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had
a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. Private and public
libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle
manuscripts, some of them from the 13th century, and local historians believe
many more lie buried under the sand ... more Add
a comment Treasures
abound in rare book trove
Richard Virr loves his work. And why shouldn't
he? As the Chief Curator of the Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Virr
spends most of his days exploring the climate-controlled enclave of antiquity,
a potential journey of discovery to look forward to every time he walks through
its doors. "Hardly a week goes by without me stumbling upon something in the collection
and saying 'I didn't know we had that,'" he smiles ... more Add
a comment
09.11.06.
A
trio of early American publishing rarities
On the morning of July 10th,
1776, the Pennsylvania Journal and Daily Advertiser was distributed to the people
of Philadelphia with one dominant feature under the headline "A Declaration."
A copy of this newspaper printing of the Declaration of Independence is among
the rarest early examples of Thomas Jefferson's elegant severing of ties to Great
Britain, and will be presented at auction in Freeman's second annual Pennsylvania
Sale on November 19th ... more Add
a comment Taking
the bloom out of Bloomsday
Exploring the implications of copyright law
for the families of deceased authors, readers and performers alike ... more Add
a comment Rare
book stolen from Oxfam shop
A rare book worth about £400 has been stolen
from a charity shop in Dorset. The Britannia's Bulwarks was stolen from an unlocked
cabinet in the Oxfam bookshop in South Street, Dorchester, according to staff
... more Add
a comment
07.11.06.
library
finds famed 1636 book
A rare book containing descriptions and engraving
of plants published in England in 1636 has been found in the basement of a New
Jersey library ... more Add
a comment Book
stalls Demolished!
Hyderabad: Tension prevailed in the busy Koti area for
about three hours when the officials of the Town Planning wing of Municipal Cororation
of Hyderabad (MCH) removed more than 100 books stalls on the pavements. Police
resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the resisting book-stall owners and many
of them were taken into custody ... more Add
a comment Mystery
toddler stars in auction
One of the most valuable photographs ever taken
in Sheffield is expected to fetch up to £2,000 when it is auctioned next week.
The 10x8ins black and white photograph, simply titled 'Sheffield', was taken in
1937 and is valuable because it is by one of Britain's greatest photographers,
Bill Brandt. It shows a toddler in a Sheffield back yard, with clothes on a washing
line in the background ... more Add
a comment Critics
pan play by 'worst poet'
A newly-published play by a man acknowledged to
be one of the world's worst poets has been savaged by literary historians. Dr
Gerard Carruthers from Glasgow University described it as a "real bludgeoning
of literature" ... more Add
a comment
06.11.06.
£1m
wanted for Tolkien's bungalow
A three-bedroom bungalow where JRR Tolkien
used to live has gone on sale with an asking price of £1 million ... more Add
a comment Bizarre
Books
It often happens like this. When going to value a collection of books
in Norfolk, I’m early, so there is time to kill in a bookshop. The layout is chaotic;
customers for the teashop that shares the space fight for chairs and tables with
steepling piles of books and racks of pictures ... more Add
a comment New
slang enough to make celebs Wallace and Gromit
Of all the trappings that
go with fame, this must rank as one of the least welcome. Rhyming slang is increasingly
peppered with references to famous folk, and has become enough of a social phenomena
to warrant a new book ... more Add
a comment
04.11.06.
Fragile
treasures of the Sinai
An ancient monastery unlocks its trove, and the
Getty gives L.A. a rare glimpse of history. Five illuminated manuscripts will
represent the 3,300-piece collection of early, handwritten texts at St. Catherine's
library, second in number and importance only to the Vatican's trove ... more Add
a comment Emily
Dickinson grave mystery
While making improvements to the grounds of the
Emily Dickinson Museum on Halloween, workers unearthed the gravestone of one of
the poet's relatives. But exactly what Gen. Thomas Gilbert's headstone was doing
under 18 inches of dirt in Dickinson's front yard has some experts stumped --
especially knowing that his remains are buried in a nearby cemetery with a more
ornate grave marker ... more Add
a comment Custom
outlets - US publishing's new holy grail
Once upon a time, not all that
many years ago, it was all quite straightforward. A writer would write a draft,
an editor would edit it, the publisher would publish it and a bookshop would sell
it. It is not so easy any more. Today, a speciality sales manager may well be
involved at an early stage working out with the editor and the publisher how the
concept of a book and its cover may appear side by side with a chunk of meat,
or coffee bags, or an electric chain saw. Colour coding has become a buzzword,
where content used to reign supreme ... more Add
a comment Dust
Devils
New and Used goes beyond simply lusting after solid-form
recordings and books to a fetishization of the scene of consumption itself. Marc
Joseph's lush-toned photographs of record and bookshop interiors are exquisite
but curiously lifeless. Literally: With just one exception, these stores are completely
deserted ... more Add
a comment
03.11.06.
Author's
private papers go public
Unpublished manuscripts by the late Australian
author Patrick White have gone on public display, despite the writer saying he
wanted them burnt ... more Add
a comment Anarchist
Bookfair trial ends in acquittals
The 2005 Anarchist Bookfair in Holloway
Road, London, ended in confrontations with the police outside the Coronet Pub.
Five people were arrested on serious public order charges including affray, and
their two and a half week trial has just taken place in front of a jury at Snaresbrook
Crown Court. despite dozens of police prosecution witnesses, the jury did not
believe the stories and all five have finally been acquitted ... more Add
a comment Ancient
scrolls returned
Scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, celebrated
the return of rare Egyptian scrolls that had been missing for decades ... more Add
a comment Rediscovery
Books polishes up forgotten literary gems
Sussex-based Rediscovery Books
is publishing high quality reproductions of rare books from the library of the
Royal Geographical Society. The joint project will breathe new life into spectacular
accounts of the expeditions and campaigns that forged the British Empire ... more Add
a comment
02.11.06.
"Sophie's
Choice" author William Styron dies at 81
William Styron, whose 1979 novel
"Sophie's Choice" was made into an acclaimed film and who won a Pulitzer Prize
for "The Confessions of Nat Turner" died on Wednesday in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts,
The New York Times reported ... more Add
a comment Author,
92, acquitted of insulting Muslims
A Turkish court acquitted a 92-year-old
archaeologist Wednesday for claiming in a book that Islamic-style head scarves
were first worn more than 5,000 years ago by priestesses initiating young men
into sex.
The case is one of dozens brought against
writers and academics — and raises questions about whether Turkey will embrace
European values on freedom of expression as it seeks to join the European Union
... more Add
a comment Book-burning
threat over town's portrayal
When she became the youngest ever winner of
the Booker prize Kiran Desai inadvertently lifted the town of Kalimpong out of
the shadows of the Himalayas and into the glare of the media spotlight.
But
few in the town are now thanking her for setting her novel, The Inheritance of
Loss, in this landscape. Instead internet forums hum with indignation about the
book's "condescending statements" while others threaten public book-burnings ...
more Add
a comment Reaching
the peak
Bryan and Alwyn Kernaghan set up Kernaghan Books, a renowned antiquarian
book shop, in the Wayfarers Arcade upon arriving in Southport from India-Tibet
border in 1985 ... more Add
a comment Capote
artifacts to be auctioned in NYC
A handwritten manuscript by Truman Capote,
written for a dear friend a day before he died, is among more than 300 of his
personal effects to be auctioned next week ... more Add
a comment | 
