20.12.07.
Seasons Greetings
It's just too hectic in the shop during the festive
period to try and maintain a blog, and the few days I have off will be spent in
Wales. I'll be back here on January 2nd but for your delectation in the meantime
I will leave you with a few book-related gleanings from You Tube. Enjoy. Some
of you may have seen this on the telly but like most good things, it's worth repeating.
Tipping Point
is the most expensive Guinness ad in the company's 80-year marketing history,
with a domino rally that features cars, flaming hay bales, grandfather clocks
and lots of books.
Add a comment It's
been around a while but the Naked
Man Bookseller amply illustrates why secondhand bookshops are such special
places.
Add a comment Little
Britain's Mr. Mann and Roy sketch, Bookshop,
is scarily familiar - where do these customers come from?
Add a comment It's
always sad to see a bookshop close but if you have to go, go out in style! Loome
Bookseller certainly managed it with their closing
down sale video.
Add a comment There
are a number of movies about the eccentric George Whitman's famous Shakespeare
& Co bookshop on You Tube. But George's barbering
demonstration in this one is not for that fainthearted.
Add a comment I
couldn't find the Bookshop
Skit on You Tube but you can download the audio from the original At Last
the 1948 Show here.
However, whilst looking for it I came across Dave and Tom's heavily reverential
- but still amusing - Bookshop
Sketch
Add a comment And
finally an intriguing little movie, The
Drop, directed by Stephen Clarke, and shot in and around Joel Segal's shop
in Topsham, Devon.
Add a comment That's
it. All that remains is for me to wish you all a Happy Christmas a a peaceful
New Year.
18.12.07.
The internet and the traditional bookseller
I wrote the piece back
in August and since then both AbeBooks and Alibris have lost their Chief Executives.
A telling sign that things are 1) not what they used to be and 2) significant
changes are on the horizon. One of the first significant changes, and one that
has gone under the radar screen, is that AbeBooks has begun buying used books!
... more
Add a comment Egyptians
sentenced for selling book on prophet's wife
A Sudanese court has sentenced
Abdel Fattah El-Sadany (30 years old) and Mahrous Mohammed Abdel-Azim (30 years
old) to imprisonment for six months on charges of insulting the Islamic religion
on the grounds that they had distributed a book about Al-Sayeda Aisha (the Prophet
Mohammed's wife) during their participation in the Khartoum International Book
Fair ... more
Add a comment Subversive
rhymes are child's play
The new lottery scheme will be organised by Malcolm
Taylor, an expert in colloquial rhyme from the English Folkdance and Song Society,
founded in 1911 by folklore revivalist Cecil Sharp. The project aims to encourage
creativity and monitor the way in which songs have altered down the ages. Next
year Taylor plans to return some of the society's archive recordings to the areas
of Britain where they were originally made ... more
Add a comment Austria
pays 500,000 euros for Handke manuscripts
The Austrian national library
said Monday it has acquired handwritten manuscripts, notes and work papers of
the avant-garde Austrian writer Peter Handke for 500,000 euros (722,000 dollars)
... more
Add a comment Laura
Huxley
A vigorous and engaging therapist, musical prodigy and author,
Laura Huxley, who has died of cancer aged 96, will be best remembered as the second
wife, muse and champion of writer Aldous Huxley. A fiercely independent spirit,
she was enthralled by him but was never in his shadow. Huxley once told her that
he thought of writing her biography, "but the best parts would be unprintable"
... more
Add a comment
17.12.07.
Arthur C Clarke's 90th birthday wish list
Arthur C Clarke, author of
science fiction including 2001: A Space Odyssey, celebrated his 90th birthday
yesterday and continues to embrace new technology: he has marked it by releasing
a video on the website YouTube ... more
Add a comment Trick
lit
I'm sure Pierre Bayard would be quite pleased if I did not read "How
to Talk About Books You Haven't Read." After all, he's in favor of talking about
books you haven't read - even reviewing them. I, however, took a slightly different
approach. Call me square, Monsieur Bayard, but I read your provocative little
book from start to finish and I think you're really on to something ... more
Add a comment Muslim
bookshop considering legal action
A High Wycombe bookshop, which became
the centre of a controversy about extremist Muslim literature, has said it may
take legal action against the political think tank who threw it into the spotlight
following a BBC investigation ... more
Add a comment Last
chapter for a popular bookstore
They came from miles around for the mother
of all book sales Saturday. They arrived with boxes, baskets and shopping carts
to haul away used volumes by the thousands. For book lovers of all stripes, it
was a momentous occasion: After 27 years as a Southern California institution,
the Book Baron of Anaheim was calling it quits ... more
Add a comment
13.12.07.
Writer Pratchett has Alzheimer's
The best-selling fantasy author Terry
Pratchett has been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
In a brief note to fans, Pratchett, 59, said he was taking the news "fairly philosophically"
... more
Add a comment Book
of Mormon fetches $97,900 at auction
A rare first edition of the Book
of Mormon once owned by a Utah newspaper music critic fetched $97,900 at auction
Wednesday ... more
Add a comment Independents
find their niche to thrive
Even while the book market continues changing
dramatically, caught up among the Amazon.coms and national chains, used-book sellers,
such as Argos Book Shop owner James Bleeker, hope to survive largely by sticking
to their roots ... more
Add a comment Sabuda
pops up at the Wall Street Journal
Paper engineer and pop-up book king
Robert Sabuda is featured in a 4+ minute video on The Wall Street Journal's Digital
Network. Sabuda chats with Robert Hughes about his new Christmas book "Winter
in White" and his new larger work "The Chronicles of Narnia" ... more
Add a comment
12.12.07.
Iran’s first Satirical Book of the Year awards
“The event is a symbolic
act through which we can pay tribute to Iranian satirists who were active in this
field from March 1996 to March 2006,” the event’s secretary said during a press
conference at Andisheh Hall yesterday ... more
Add a comment Golden
Compass: the ‘God Wars’ as child’s play
Religious zealots and secular
crusaders are cursing Hollywood over its film version of Philip Pullman’s story.
Both sides lack a moral compass ... more
Add a comment Library
buys Harold Pinter archive for £1m
Sir Harold Pinter has sold his archive
- more than 150 boxes of manuscripts, scrapbooks and emails - to the British Library
for £1.1 million ... more
Add a comment Crowds
flock to see Magna Carta manuscripts
Large crowds have laid siege to the
Bodleian Library in Oxford for the first opportunity probably in 800 years to
see four original copies of the Magna Carta displayed together ... more
Add a comment
10.12.07.
No need to read a book to pass English exam
Teenagers could soon be
able to pass an English exam at GCSE level without having to read a single novel,
poem or play. Instead of studying the canon of English literature, they would
study practical use of the language. This could include the use of English in
travel brochures or marketing material ... more
Add a comment Police
set to quiz Paddington bear
Paddington Bear will be arrested by police
and interrogated over his immigration status in a book marking his 50th birthday,
it has emerged ... more Add
a comment Under
the hammer: the birth certificate of British liberty
The only Magna Carta
in private hands is to be auctioned this week. Our correspondent explains why
the charter still stirs the nation’s heart ... more Add
a comment Leonardo
Da Vinci may have been an Arab
Leonardo Da Vinci may have been an Arab,
according to scientists who have studied a single, complete fingerprint found
on one of his paintings ... more Add
a comment A
new chapter for old bookstore
New York's The Complete Traveller antiquarian
bookstore has survived close to 30 years unscathed, despite the shark-like presence
of big-box booksellers and giant online retailers ... more Add
a comment
06.12.07.
Magna Carta on show
Oxford’s Bodleian Library is putting on a public
display not seen for 800 years, of its four Magna Carta manuscripts. The 13th
century manuscripts will be on show in the Divinity School for one day only; Tuesday
December 11 2007, between 10am and 4pm ... more Add
a comment Secret
archive of erotic art is exposed
Tales and pictures of naughty nuns, lustful
queens and randy noblemen go on display for the first time today when the French
National Library unlocks its secret archive of erotic art ... more Add
a comment Paperspine
aims to be a Netflix for books
Online book rental service Paperspine launched
last week with 150,000 paperback titles and four subscription plans, ranging from
$9.95 to $24.95 a month. (Hardbacks are to be introduced later this month) ...
more Add
a comment Peter
Haining
The author and editor Peter Haining, who has died aged 67 of a
heart attack, worked on scores of books across four decades, and he was rooted
in, and sustained by, a childhood passion for hidden nuggets of terror, witchcraft
and crime. Deep knowledge, lightly borne, powered a pen for hire. Ever curious,
he diversified into such subjects as Channel Island holidays, man-powered flight,
scarecrows and Greta Garbo, thereby acquiring a fine, book-filled country house
- widely thought haunted ... more Add
a comment
05.12.07.
Grolier Club exhibition celebrates Ben Franklin
The exhibition, "Benjamin
Franklin, Writer and Printer," opening on December 12 at the Grolier Club, takes
a fresh, even surprising look at Franklin's dual relationship to the book as printer
and author ... more Add
a comment Between
The Covers
I once noted in this column: “What, after all, can take the
place of browsing in a bookshop, meeting knowledgeable booksellers and actually
seeing and holding a book?” To this I can now only say: the unexpected joy of
finding yourself in an online booksite such as “Between The Covers” that makes
you feel you are in the perfect bookstore ... more Add
a comment Mozart
manuscript page sets record
A leaf from Mozart's sketch for the Sinfonia
Concertante in E flat sold Tuesday for a record price of $228,484 for a single
page in the master's hand. Maggs Bros. Ltd. of London bought the manuscript for
an unidentified private client, auctioneer Sotheby's said ... more Add
a comment Autographed
`Mein Kampf' sells for $18,000
A 1925 copy of ``Mein Kampf'' signed by
Adolf Hitler sold for $18,000 at a New York auction yesterday ... more Add
a comment
04.12.07.
Hong Kong Antiquarian Book Fair
The three-day International Antiquarian
Bookfair attracted more than 60 dealers from Europe, the United States, Japan
and beyond, not only to tempt Hong Kong's book lovers, but also to edge open the
door to China ... more Add
a comment Bonhams
to Auction `Mein Kampf,' Von Braun's Papers
A 1925 copy of ``Mein Kampf''
signed by Adolf Hitler is sharing space with the 1948 Hebrew text declaring Israel's
independence in a showroom at Bonhams auction house in New York ... more Add
a comment Gunpowder
plot 'skin' book sold
A private buyer has paid £5,400 at auction for a
book alleged to be bound in the skin of a Jesuit priest executed over the 1605
Gunpowder Plot ... more Add
a comment Nazi
rocket scientist's secret papers up for sale
A once top-secret manuscript
by Wernher von Braun, the Nazi physicist turned leading figure in US space exploration,
which is widely recognised as a milestone in the development of modern rockets
is to go under the hammer in New York today ... more Add
a comment
03.12.07.
Are we there yet?
I found Michael Stillman's interview with BookFinder's
founder Anirvan
Chatterjee most interesting for his comments on the future of "traditional
booksellers". He believes that "The biggest shakeout has already happened", and
that those who have survived this long are the survivors. Add a comment Name
change for Mohammed the Mole
First there was Mohammed the Mole and Dipak
the Dalmatian . Now there is Morgan the Mole and Dipak the Dalmatian. A British
children's author who named his fictitious mole Mohammed and the dog Dipak in
an attempt to promote multi-culturalism, has backed away from the first for fear
of offending Muslims ... more Add
a comment Bizarre
break-in targeted Joyce director's files
The Joyce Centre director has
been at the centre of controversy over her sale of valuable James Joyce Finnegans
Wake manuscripts to the National Library of Ireland. The €1.17m price Ms Barnes
secured in 2005 netted her a profit of €777,000, given the €400,000 she had paid
a Paris book dealer for the manuscript less than a year earlier ... more Add
a comment Staying
alive
Even though Allen Jordan and his wife sank their hearts and life
savings into Wonderland Faire, they quickly learned that the used-book business
is an uphill battle for startup stores — no matter how passionate the proprietors
... more Add
a comment Napoleon
novel's first page sells for £17,000
A single manuscript page from a love
story written by Napoleon Bonaparte sold at auction in France yesterday for the
equivalent of £17,000. It was the first page of the final draft of Napoleon's
1795 short novel Clisson and Eugenie - the story was not published in his lifetime
... more Add
a comment Confessions
of a collector
I really collect only paper memorabilia, a rule I break
all the time, but the reasons are roughly because paper stuff is easy to carry,
store or display - and you can read it. I'd never, for example, buy a football
shirt, even a signed one, because what do you do with it? But I can never resist
an old football programme ... more Add
a comment | 
