Book Patrol

Bookchase: A board game for the book set

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Remember your Trivial Pursuit days? Waiting patiently for your chance to answer a question from the Arts & Literature category. Or those times when you made up your own rules and just read the questions from that category.

Enter Bookchase. It's billed as the world's first board game about books.

Here's how it works:

The first one to collect six books, one from each category, and get home wins! Of course there are hazards along the way like dropping your books in the bath.

You can collect books by answering questions, visiting the library or landing on various other lucky spots on the board.

The six categories are: Children & Fun, Crime & Thrillers, Plays & Poetry, Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Travel Adventure, Classics & Modern.

Bookchase also includes a set of tiny book jacket labels so you can personalize your books and 6 bookshelves.

There are also plans for users to submit questions for future editions where one can then print out and add to the game.

And for those who are wondering if they have enough literary savvy to compete, no worries. "Who's qualified to play? Anyone! Never read a book - you could still win. Read all the best books in the world - you could still lose."

The game retails for £29.95.

Hard to believe this one has been around for a couple of years and this is the first I've heard.

Thanks to Lux Mentis for the lead

Old School Daze Book Jackets Updated, Now Hip n' Cool

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:31:00 +0000

Book City Jackets' Artist Series 2, group

Remember those plain Kraft brown paper dust jackets from grammar and junior high school? (Your memory may have to stretch back to the 1950s-1960s).

Book City Jackets' Standards grouping: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Favorite

We used to have fun doodling on them, drawing, writing notes, declarations of everlasting love, paeans to rotten teachers, doggerel, and all manner of personal expression.

Book City Jackets "Fiction"

They, alas, fell by the wayside, along with the mimeograph machine, replaced by DJs with school logo and branded characters. Glossy-coated, they were impossible to write on or customize.

Customize to protect and serve!

Book City Jackets, founded in 2008 by Emma Gaines-Ross and Jeremy Schwartz and based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has stepped into Mr. Peabody’s Way-Back Machine and returned with updated versions of the classic paper bag book cover. The covers are off-set printed on recycled kraft paper and “fold-to-fit” almost any book.

By Nishat Akhtar. Artists Series 2

Book City Jackets’ goal is to turn books into a new kind of affordable art that can be displayed on bookshelves and coffee tables, in cafes and classrooms, on planes and trains. In short, any place where people bring their books.

By Cheeming Boey. Artist Series 2

Book City Jackets began with simple designs but this year introduced Artist Series 1 &2.

By Michael C. Hsiung. Artists Series 2

"Whale Whisperer" by Eveline Tarunadjaja. Artist Series 1

"Tiger" by Morgan Blair. Artist Series 1

"King Birds" by Matt Caputo. Artist Series 1

Book City Jackets has limited distribution through boutique retail shops (list here) but can also be ordered through Amazon.

The Food Librarian's Got A Bundt (Or 30) In The Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy Mattoon) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:01:00 +0000

As much as we here at Book Patrol love the written word, let's face it: man does not live by books alone. So thank goodness for The Food Librarian and her bountiful, beautiful baking blog. Mary (No last name. This woman has a unique talent to rival Voltaire, Homer, or Saki. She don't need no stinkin' last name.) is a librarian somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area. Like her literary namesake, Mary Poppins, our Mary knows that just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. The medicine in this case being a lot of nice plugs for libraries.

Mary began her blog, The Food Librarian, in May 2007. Her first step? Checking out Baking Illustrated by the Editors of Cooks Illustrated Magazine from the library where she works. Her blog details the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a beginning baker. Here are just a few reasons to check out this blog:

Mary's a beginner, so sometimes she fails. But she always 'fesses up to it. Like the time she used baking soda instead of baking powder and her blueberry muffins tasted like "pieces of salty metal." And all of the blueberries in those less-than-sweet treats sank to the bottom, resulting in "smurf-butt muffins." So Mary's "baked bads" fed her friend "Mr. Trashcan." Fiascoes like this reassure a reader that even the best baker brings out the occasional bad batch. But baking bibliophiles forge on, determined to create comestibles as memorable as Proust's madeleines.

Mary thoughtfully includes links to Worldcat in her blog, so you can easily find out if the cookbooks that inspire her are available at your local library. Naturally, she always credits the original source of her recipes, making this blog a great source for tried and tested baking books.

Mary understands the value of her library's decades-deep collection of periodicals and newspapers. Sunset Magazine serves up such sweet souvenirs of the swinging 60's as Fuyu Persimmon Bundt Cake and Broiled Nectarine Halves. And when Mary wanted to bake a chronologically correct creation for the season premiere of Mad Men, she turned to the September 5, 1963 edition of The New York Times. A batch of Dutch Cinnamon Apple Cakes to do Betty Draper proud was the rich result of her research. Though as Mary sagely remarks: "I doubt Don Draper would eat these...because there is no alcohol or cigarettes in them."

To make the more tedious aspects of baking palatable, Mary suggests that her readers find out if their libraries provide "downloadable audio books." She confesses she "wouldn't have made it this far in [her] bundt making without Michael Connelly." And generously adds that: "If he were real, I'd give Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch a bundt."

Mary shares her baked goods to her library co-workers, so she doesn't wind up with type 2 diabetes. She knows that librarians and baked goods go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Haven't you ever noticed those ubiquitous "Book And Bake Sales?"

Mary understands the importance of holidays. Now you might be thinking: "Most people bake for the holidays, why does Mary stand out?" Well, how are you planning to celebrate National Bundt Day? Mary's marking that red letter day in style. She's baking "30 Bundts in 30 Days." With a little help from Sir Mix-A-Lot, Mary's telling the world: "I Like Big Bundts." The Food Librarian will be cooking up a luscious cake in a teflon-coated, donut-shaped pan every single day from October 15, 2009 until the actual big bundt day, November 15. Mary's whipping up so many sweets that she's sharing the wealth with "neighboring libraries" to avoid sending her colleagues into sugar shock.

Mary's blog includes mouth-watering photos of each of her consummate confections. And like every good librarian, Mary is nothing if not thorough. She always posts a cross section shot of a single serving of her latest creation, along with a wide shot of the whole megillah. Warning: Don't start reading The Food Librarian blog if you're on one of those "I might as well be dead" low fat/low sugar diets. Or even if you're just a wee bit hungry. You might just find yourself unable to resist the temptation to tie on an apron.

Mary's bundt-a-thon has been featured in American Libraries, and her blog has been served up to readers of Information Outlook, the journal of the Special Libraries Association. (Do you think there's any chance Mary might send a bundt to a fellow librarian/blogger who writes a post about her Big Bundt Bake-Off? Just wondering...)

Late (coffee) breaking development: The big bundts on The Food Librarian blog inspired two terrific bakers at MY library, Irma and Sybil, to make the Fuyu Persimmon Bundt Cake. (And muchas gracias for bringing in those fresh persimmons from your Dad's tree, Dennis.) Yummy! Thanks a bundt for the great recipe, Mary. No need to send that cake my way after all.

Photos by Mary, The Food Librarian.

When Did Walt Disney Write A Christmas Carol?

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:30:00 +0000

Disney's A Christmas Carol

Walt Disney has gotten a bad rap.

We now know that “The Great Homogenizer,” who, as master of The House that Mouse Built, rose to fame by smoothing out the difficult and potentially offensive edges to any story he came into contact with lest anyone's sensibilities be injured, led a double life.

Recent advances in forensic bibliography, as reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Dubious Literary Scholarship, have definitively proven that Walt Disney was an honest-to-gosh litterateur.

Walt Disney's Mary Poppins

Long thought to be a mere animator (though he, in reality, didn’t do much, if any, of the animation in his films) and mouse wrangler, it turns out that Disney was, in fact, the author of many classic works of fiction.

The beloved novelist combats writer's block

When not riding his home choo-choo train, he wrote, under the pseudonyms “Charles Dickens,” “P.L. Travers,” "Jules Verne,” “Carlo Collodi,” and "Hans Christian Andersen," the cherished literary standards, A Christmas Carol, Mary Poppins, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Pinocchio, and The Little Mermaid.

Walt Disney's Pinocchio

Who knew?

As the author of the JODLS article, John Beresford Tiptin-Leaf, explains, many copies of each of these books in their first editions have been found (through spectrograpic analysis and candling) to possess very faint line-drawings of mouse ears in the margins. It is thought that Disney frantically doodled his identity in these copies in a desperate effort to confess his secret scribblings to future scholars without tipping-off the contemporary general public.

Walt Disney, real name of the author of The Little Mermaid

Tiptin-Leaf, after completing his internal examination of the books, asserts, based upon his close examination of their fore-edges, that Disney had a peculiar habit, born, evidently, of his interest in animation, to thumb-flip the leaves of his books in an effort to make the words on the page come alive. Surely, if all novelists performed this simple trick to infuse life into their prose the incidence of literary narcolepsy would dramatically decline.

Walt Disney's classic adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

It is only now, long after his death, that he is finally being given credit under his own name for his novels.

_______

It takes a lot of nerve and huge ego to appropriate another writer's work as one's own. It is fitting, then, that the next potential project from the studio should be based upon one of the man's as yet unadapted-to-animation novels, Walt Disney's Moby Dick.

Now in development: Walt Disney's On the Origin of Species.

For 2012: Walt Disney's Finnegan's Wake.

Upcoming: Walt Disney's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

Coming soon to a theater near you: Walt Disney's The Bible.

Michael Suarez, New Director of UV’s Rare Book School, Wows With Lecture on Plate-Subscription Books

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:30:00 +0000

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles

Michael Suarez, S.J., new Director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, presented the Fifth Annual Kenneth Karmiole Lecture on the History of the Book Trade at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 7th to an enraptured audience.

One of the Reading Rooms at the Clark Library

His subject, Learned Book Illustrations, their Patrons, and the Vagaries of the Trade in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England, might, in the wrong hands, have held the potential to desiccate cortexes. But Michael Suarez, a Jesuit priest who received his doctorate in English Literature from Oxford University, has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, is no ordinary lecturer.

No ordinary lecture room: The lavishly decorated salon at the Clark
Library where the Kenneth Karmiole Lectures occur. It is a testament
to the superlative lecture performance of Michael Suarez
that all eyes were upon him and not upon the ceiling.

The most passionate and enthusiastic speaker I have ever had the pleasure to listen to, Professor Suarez (or Father Suarez, or Michael - he’s very casual about the titles he possesses) demonstrated complete mastery of his subject during his talk, which, miraculously (as a Jesuit priest he gets an extra helping hand unavailable to most), was delivered without text or notes of any kind.

It was a breathtaking performance.

“From the mid-seventeenth century, English antiquaries, cartographers, classicists, and scientists increasingly sought to produce large folios with elaborate illustrations. But how to pay for the enormous production costs of such works?

“Engravings by the leading practitioners of the day—whether depicting the beauties of the great cathedrals, the epic glories of classical antiquity, or the finer points of natural history—required significant investments in both men and materials.

This lecture...considers the commercial and cultural expedients that self-publishing authors, learned societies, and projecting booksellers developed to finance their books, many of exceeding beauty and genuine importance. Examining these ‘books for looking’ produced for cultural elites and chiefly underwritten by their intended readerships, we encounter narratives of fiscal irresponsibility, signal innovation, shameless advertising, remarkable networking, outright deception, outstanding loyalty, and brazen vanity” (Hannah P. Clark, from her lecture summary).

Oh, brother, do we ever.

Modern direct-marketers have nothing over these author-publisher-booksellers, who, armed with a list of likely prospects amongst the peerage and the rich, shamelessly appealed to the vanity and ego of their marks, er, patrons, to con them into sponsoring, through subscription, the production of each plate within these massive folio showpiece volumes. In exchange, the sponsor-subscriber would have their coat of arms engraved into the plate with a florid dedication extolling the virtues of the sponsor. The cost for this personal ad, as it were, was £5, a sum worth $1,176 today. Each plate-subscriber received a "free" copy of the book.

The publisher-authors were subscription-sales sharks who really knew how to put the bite on prospects.

If the book was reprinted, the publisher hit the original plate sponsors up for a £3 “renewal” fee. If the original subscriber objected, he would be informed that another sponsor for the particular plate that the original subscriber thought he “owned” would be solicited. If the original patron still refused, the plate would be re-sponsored, and the original patron’s armorial device and dedication to the original plate would be replaced with that the new sponsor's.

Or, another publisher would issue a different edition of the same book, use the same engraved plates from the earlier volume, and re-sell sponsorship-subscriptions.

Plate from The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro. Translated, adorn'd
with Sculpture, and illustrated with Annotations, by John Ogilby.
London: Thomas Warren for the Author, 1654. The armorial device and
dedication have been cropped from this image. Plate re-printed for
Tonson's edition of 1697, with a new subscriber.

The most famous example of this practice is John Ogilby’s 1654 translation of Virgil. For this edition, Ogilby commissioned 101 engraved plates (!), found 101 subscribers to pay for them, and did very well.

An engraving from The Works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals,
Georgics, and Aeneis. Translated into English Verse by Mr. Dryden ….
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1697. Reprint of the engraving
found in Ogilby's 1654 edition. Note the sponsor's armorial device
and the dedication to the sponsor at lower edge
of plate, replaceable, if necessary.

In 1697, printer Jacob Tonson issued his own edition of Virgil. Translated by John Dryden, Tonson used the exact same, sumptuous plates that had been executed by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) for Ogilby but found new subscribers for them. In some cases, he arranged for the new patron’s face to replace a character’s in the plate, thereby dramatically increasing added-value to vanity already over-valued by these members of the Restoration glitteratti seeking to advertise their wonderfulness to one and all, particularly their friends.

No family armorial coat of arms? No problem. Through royal contacts, arrangements would be made for a coat of arms to be officially issued. The publishing slick didn't miss a trick in the quest for great whales, their skills with a harpoon rivaling Queequeg's.

As there were many author-publishers with plate-book subscriptions to hawk but only a limited number of people in England with the wherewithal to afford such extravagance on vanity, the same people would invariably be called upon to cough-up cash. And, as with today's incessant telephone marketing calls, complaints were common.

Michael Suarez’s resume is deep and rich. One thing you will not find in his official bio is the fact that he was formerly a prison chaplain who played a major role in quelling a prison riot. According to Stephen Tabor (Michael does not advertise this incident), Curator of Early Printed Books at the Huntington Library, during the melee Suarez very gently, almost imperceptibly, hugged the ringleader from behind and with soft voice and delicate physical prompting led him away.

His lecture blew me away.

A gentle and charming intellectual giant, Michael Suarez, S.J. won the 2008 Foley Poetry Contest with his poem, Going. He thinks religious poetry should embrace humor.

I think we should embrace Michael Suarez.

Ohio Library Uncovers "The Secret At Shadow Ranch"

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy Mattoon) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:01:00 +0000

KEENE, Carolyn [Mildred Wirt Benson]. The Secret At Shadow Ranch.
NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1931.

The staff of the Toledo Lucas County Library is shedding some light on the shadowy side of super sleuth Nancy Drew. The library has purchased the painting created as cover art for the first edition of Carolyn Keene's The Secret At Shadow Ranch. Paintings used for the early Nancy Drew Mystery Stories book covers, by Russell H. Tandy, are exceedingly scarce. The vast majority of Tandy's original artwork was destroyed in a 1962 fire at his home.

Tandy's painting will be added to the library's Robert L. and Posy Huebner Collection. The gallery houses 130 "significant works of original art by illustrators of children’s literature," with a special emphasis on works with a historic connection to Ohio. The trustees of the collection had long sought to add work created for the Nancy Drew mysteries to the collection, as the first writer behind series's pseudonymous author "Carolyn Keene" was a native of the Buckeye State, Millie Benson.

Nancy Eames, the library's youth services coordinator said the staff had given up on ever obtaining a Tandy portrait of the famed girl detective, when a local history manager for the library stumbled across a listing for the Shadow Ranch painting in an online auction. Donor funds covered the $9,500 sale price, according to the Toledo Blade.

KEENE, Carolyn [Mildred Wirt Benson]. The Secret of the Old Clock.
NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1930

The illustrations for the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories reflect the evolution of the titian-haired sleuth over her nearly 80 year career. Tandy's conception of Nancy Drew reveals his background as a fashion illustrator. In addition to designing book covers, Tandy's art was featured in advertising campaigns for Jantzen bathing suits, and on the covers of Butterick Patterns. Not surprisingly, the 1930's Nancy is a soigne sophisticate sporting smart suits, silk scarves, and stylish chapeaux. (She bears an uncanny resemblance to screen goddess Carole Lombard.) The Shadow Ranch cover is first to depict a hatless Nancy engaging in outdoorsy activities. But note that her riding togs are classic Chanel chic.

Carole Lombard finds a murder victim in Virtue (1932)

The Toledo Lucas County Library will exhibit their prize painting until the end of 2009, at which time it will be sent to Oberlin College for minor restoration. (Some of the paint is flaking off the letters in the title, and there is a small hole in the canvas.) After eight stress-filled decades as a shamus, even the unflappable Miss Drew can do with a touch-up.

__________

Collage Of Russell H. Tandy's Art From Jennifer Fisher At: Nancy Drew Sleuth Unofficial Website

ABC's of Book Collecting: Auctions

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:45:00 +0000

AUCTIONS

Sales of books by auction go back to the middle ages, although their enhancement by printed catalogues dates from the second half of the 17th century. Traditionally, auctioneers undertake to conduct the sale, charging consigners a percentage of the prices realised for their pains.
In the 1980s British and American houses began to follow European practice by levying a premium (a percentage of the prices realised) from the purchaser, as well as the consigner. Auctions conducted on the internet, notably on eBay, have their own conventions and risks.

The subject may conveniently be divided into four sections; (1) Catalogues, (2) Bidding, (3) Prices, (4) Terminology.

(1) The description of books, MSS., fine bindings, etc., in sale catalogues varies widely in fullness, precision and authority. It was once the case that the dressiest catalogues, unquestionably, were those of the Continental houses, with Paris perhaps the most lavish. But in recent times Sotheby’s and Christie ’s have vied with each other in elaborating, especially for sales of importance or specialised interest, their conscientiously precise, but previously rather tight-lipped, descriptive formula; this is happily preserved in the elegant but nononsense catalogues of Bonham’s and Bloomsbury Book Auctions in London, or Swann’s in New York. By contrast, the catalogues of most (but not now all) provincial auctioneers, who are normally selling books as part of a mixed property, are often notably uninformative, especially as to the contents of lots in bundles; and although legal warranty for the accuracy of descriptions of the lots offered is carefully restricted throughout the auction business as a whole, it is naturally a livelier issue in sales for which the catalogue makes no pretence to expertness. Yet the collector who contemplates bidding at an auction without professional advice would do well first to ponder, not only the estimate of its likely cost, now a regular feature of the catalogue description, but also the conditions of sale printed in every auction catalogue, which vary from firm to firm, and sometimes from sale to sale by the same firm; and then to remember that the return of any lot not actually incomplete or seriously misdescribed will be a matter of grace, not of right.

The better auction houses, course, take care to describe their offerings accurately, since ‘returns’ are just as much of a nuisance to them as to the buyer (but see below, not subject to return). Despite occasional lapses, their cataloguers do their best to keep abreast of bibliographical research. And the annotation of important lots is often of a thorough and scholarly character. In the description of fine early bindings, for example, Sotheby’s catalogues, thanks to the experienced connoisseurship of the Hobsons, père et fils, have achieved an authority shared by very few booksellers; and the same might be said of the firm’s cataloguing of manuscript material over the last forty years. Indeed, catalogues of famous libraries sold at auction have taken their place as indispensable reference books on the shelves, not only of booksellers and collectors, but also of scholars and librarians.

(2) Yet bidding at auction – any auction – is subject to many hazards besides the one well known in old wives’ tales: that of innocent bystanders who nod without thinking and have a white elephant knocked down to them. This risk, if no other, can be avoided by entrusting one’s bid to the auctioneer, who will execute it in confidence, but also, of course, without assuming any additional warranty or exercising any such special discretion as is implicit in the employment of an agent. There is the psychological risk: that one may be carried away by competitive fever. There is the economic fallacy: that any book bought at auction must be a bargain – a fallacy based on the supposition that all prices at auction sales are as it were wholesale, and that by buying in the rooms one cuts out the middleman (i.e. the bookseller).

There is the risk of failure to realise that, while a bookseller guarantees his offerings, the rule in the auction room is caveat emptor. For once the hammer has fallen, the lot is yours; and if you find, when you get your books home, that one has been re-cased, another is not the first issue, while a third is not as fine a copy as you had imagined from a too brief examination before the sale, you will remember too late that the onus of satisfying yourself on these points has throughout been understood to be yours and not the auctioneer’s. Veteran collectors can, and sometimes do, bid for themselves without burning their fingers. They have examined their lots with care, they know what each book is worth (and also what they may have to pay, which is often not at all the same thing), and they are ready to pit their knowledge and sale-room tactics against those of the booksellers. Perhaps they simply enjoy an exhilarating session in the rooms. But they are still in a small minority; for most experienced collectors have concluded that they are more likely to get the lots they want, and get them at reasonable prices, if they entrust their bids to a chosen bookseller. Many collectors and institutional librarians employ a regular agent for their auction business in each city. If not, in selecting their agent for a particular sale or a particular lot they will probably have regard not only to their agent’s knowledge and judgment, but also (especially in the more specialised fields) to the advantage of eliminating a likely competitor thereby.

The normal commission charged by booksellers for executing bids at auction is ten per cent, which may seem expensive for a well-known and bibliographically uncomplicated book of high but stable market value – one, that is, which does not involve much expert examination or much expert estimation of price. But over a series of transactions ‘on commission’ the bookseller will probably engage a great deal more professional skill and spend a great deal more time in his customer’s interest than is adequately repaid by his ten per cent. This of course is payable only on successful bids; yet for the lots on which he is outbid he will have provided equally full service – in advice as to the probable price, in collation and appraisal of the material, in attendance (often with wearisome waiting between lots) at the sale and in the highly skilled business of the actual bidding. The novice collector does well to recognise that in a bookshop there is a strong bond of common interest across the counter, but that in the sale-room everyone’s hand (except the auctioneer’s) is against him. If he is a man of spirit, he may relish the encounter, hoping to beat the professionals at their own game and prepared to take a few knocks in the process. Yet if he is also a man of sense, he will only do so after careful reconnaissance, and then with his eyes wide open.

(3) Prices in the auction room, as listed in the annual records, can be misleading unless they are carefully interpreted. For a reasonably common book – one, that is, of which a copy or two turns up at auction every year – the records provide a general idea of the level or trend of prices; and when, as often, these seem to fluctuate wildly, it must be remembered that one copy may have been in brilliant condition and the next one a cripple – a crucial difference which the abbreviated
style of these records cannot be expected to make clear. For rarer books the occasional entries will, of course, provide some idea of the ruling price; but the more infrequent they are, the greater the need to consider the usually invisible factors – condition (as always), but also, was this an important sale, when prices tend to be high? Or did the copy come up at the fag end of a miscellaneous one, when even booksellers tend to he weary and uninterested? Were there perhaps two keen collectors after the same lot, and therefore two exceptionally high commissions given? Or was this, by contrast, the purchase of a prudent bookseller buying for stock? Was there some point about the book, unmentioned in the sale catalogue (the source of the entry), which would account by its presence for a high price or by its absence for a low one?

It is also, of course, necessary to take into account the economic climate at the date when the price was reached. Many a book which brought a booming price in the Roxburghe sale in 1812, during the inflation of the Napoleonic wars, fell off in the twenties, and heber’s sale in the mid-thirties reflected an even severer depression. To take some more recent examples, prices were very high in certain categories (e.g. 18th century literature, the Romantics, modern first editions) during the 1920s. Prices across the board were low during the early and middle 1930s. Prices in many departments have risen steadily (e.g. science and medicine, colour-plate bird and flower books, modern literary manuscripts and correspondence) during the past fifty years, although they have stabilised somewhat recently. Moreover, an American considering a price record in sterling does well to remember that the sterling-dollar rate has fluctuated, often abruptly.

In short, the auction records have to be used with caution even for their main purpose, which is to give prices. As for the bibliographical information provided, at least by the English annual, it should be treated with even greater caution; for it is abbreviated (not always intelligibly) from notes in the auctioneers’ catalogues, which are themselves drawn from all sorts of sources – and have occasionally been known to include the happy excursions into bibliographical theory and the optimistic estimates of rarity which some collectors pencil on the flyleaves of their favourite books. Even the most responsible auctioneers, it will be recalled, are very careful to limit their assumption of warranty; and their cataloguers, however expert, are almost always working against time. For a further qualification applicable to English saleroom prices before 1927 (and even since) see rings. For details of the annual records see american book-prices current, book auction records and book prices current.

(4) In conclusion, a few miscellaneous notes on the terminology of the saleroom, which has its own jargon. The ownership of substantial or important properties sold at auction is usually advertised. But the majority of sales in the principal London and New York rooms are made up of various properties, and a good many of these are apt to be anonymous. This cloaking of ownership, which conceals a book’s immediate provenance, is sometimes due to the modesty of the consigner (e.g. ‘The Property of a Nobleman Resident Abroad’, ‘The Property of a Lady’ or – the last word in this direction – ‘The Property of a Deceased Estate’), or the disinclination of a well known collector to be identified with the books he is discarding. More often it is simply that the property is neither large enough nor important enough (or the consigner newsworthy enough) to rate a separate heading.

A proportion of these anonymous properties, however, may come from booksellers’ stocks, generally identified as other properties: one may have bought a library containing a mass of books outside his field; another has had certain books in stock for a long time and is tired of offering them unsuccessfully; or another judges that some particular book will fetch a better price at auction than he could get for it in his shop. This may wish to reach a wider public than his own catalogue list; that may have his eye on a collector who prefers buying at auction to buying from a bookseller. Then it must be realised that with few exceptions there will be a reserve on a lot, below which it may not be sold. The reserve figure has to be agreed between vendor and auctioneer, as has its relation to the estimate. In both, the auctioneer requires a degree of flexibility, exercised on the rostrum if he judges that a promising bidder is at or beyond his mark. (It is illegal in England to put a reserve on a lot and then bid it up oneself or employ an agent to do so.) Lots which fail to reach the reserve are knocked down as such, and are said to be bought in; and the owner will pay the auctioneer’s commission, usually on a reduced scale. The last unsuccessful bidder on a lot at auction is known as the under-bidder or the runner-up.

Previous ABC's of Book Collecting posts

Carter, John & Nicolas Barker
ABC's of Book Collecting. 8th Edition
New Castle, Delaware : Oak Knoll Press, 2004

Buy a copy

Thanks to Oak Knoll Press for permission to reprint

Seattle Hotel Adds Books to Room Service

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:17:00 +0000

Photo: John Lok/Seattle Times

The Sorrento Hotel is celebrating it's 100th birthday. This Seattle landmark opened its doors in 1909, just in time for the 4 million or so visitors who descended on Seattle for the storied Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Their first registered guest was President William Taft. In the early years the hotel also hosted numerous readings and literary events.

As part of the anniversary festivities the hotel has created a series of events called "Night School at the Sorrento." One of the events is '12 Books.'

Here's the deal:

In partnership with Elliot Bay Book Company and University Book Store, the Sorrento Hotel is establishing a small bookstore in the Sorrento lobby. Hotel guests will be able to order books as a room service option. Selections reflect a sampling of books that are being published or written in or about the Northwest. Content of the selections will touch on hotels, public/private space, and authors that collaborate with the Sorrento to host readings, symposiums, and various literary happenings.

It's a great concept. An independent boutique hotel teaming up with their local independent bookstore/s to offer guests choice regional literary fare.

For those of you in and around Seattle, the launch party for '12 Books' is set for Thursday, November 12 and features Bruce Benderson, Seattle novelist Matt Briggs, musician/journalist John Roderick and Matthew Stadler.

Michael Upchurch has more about 'Night School' at the Seattle Times

World Record Price For 1477 Printing of Ptolemy’s Map of the World

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:37:00 +0000

A copy of the extremely scarce and considered unobtainable 1477 Bologna printing of Ptolemy’s world map fetched a record price of 210,000 Euros ($312,000) plus premium at Reiss & Sohn auctions in Konigstein, Germany last week.

The map shows the whole hitherto known part of the world and is the first copperplate engraved map of the world. Its estimated price was 25,000 Euros.

The map is from the 1477 first printed edition of the Ptolemy Geographia with maps (and the first printed book to employ copperplate engravings) and the rarest of the incunabula atlases. Only twenty-six copies from the original printing of five hundred have been traced. Of all the early Ptolemy geographies, the Bologna edition was the only one never to be reprinted or reissued.

This, the first printed atlas of the world, was hastily prepared in 1477 in Bologna, Italy. The maps are thought to have been engraved by famed manuscript illuminator Taddeo Crivelli, who had learned this art only a few years earlier. Being inexperienced as an engraver, Crivelli made several errors in the map, including spelling mistakes. Crude line work, and letters and words in mirror (such as the name of the wind Vulturnus) make this Renaissance print all the more fascinating.

For some unknown reason the original map's frame was cut off at both sides of the Equator. Later in its printing history corrections and minor alterations were made, and the original blank sea areas were decorated with billowing lines.

This copy of the map was, evidently, excised from the atlas at a very early date.

Théâtre des Cités du Monde (Civitates orbis terrarum)

The highest price at the Reiss & Sohn sale was achieved for a hand-colored copy of the French edition of Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates orbis terrarum which sold for 230,000 Euros ($342.000) plus premium.

This great city atlas, the most famous of all town books, edited by Georg Braun and largely engraved by Franz Hogenberg, eventually contained 546 prospects, bird-eye views and map views of cities from all over the world. Braun (1541-1622), a cleric of Cologne, was the principal editor of the work, and was greatly assisted in his project by the close, and continued interest of Abraham Ortelius, whose Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570 was, as a systematic and comprehensive collection of maps of uniform style, the first true atlas.

The Civitates was, indeed, intended as a companion to the Theatrum, as indicated by the similarity in the titles and by contemporary references regarding the complementary nature of two works. Nevertheless, the Civitates proved to be more popular in approach, no doubt because the novelty of a collection of city plans and views represented a more hazardous commercial undertaking than a world atlas, for which there had been a number of successful precedents.

_______
Ptolemaeus, Claudius. Geographia. Bologna: Dominicus Lapis, 23 June 1462 [1477].
Braun, Georg. Théâtre des Cités du Monde. N.p., n.d. [Bruxelles 1574, volume one].

Lowenbrau Goes Highbrow At Beer Carton Library

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy Mattoon) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:01:00 +0000

Let it be Lowenbrau at the library? Residents of Magdeburg, Germany wanted a library in their economically decimated downtown, so they built one themselves. And made it out 1,000 recycled beer cartons. The project began in response to the closing of the neighborhood's branch library. Faced with high unemployment and an 80% vacancy rate for central city real estate, the community needed a gathering place to maintain civic pride. The pop-up beer carton library was created with the help of a tiny Leipzig firm KARO Architekten. It survived for only two days, but the citizens remained inspired.

Downtown dwellers continued to collect donated books, and stored them in one of all too many abandoned storefronts. The makeshift collection eventually held 20,000 volumes. Fundraisers were held, and grant applications submitted. Ultimately a government grant for a permanent library came Magdeburg's way.

The citizens of Magdeburg showed an admirable loyalty to both the architectural firm that built with beer cartons, and to creative recycling: the commission for the permanent library was given to KARO, and the building was made with modernist cast concrete blocks salvaged from the facade of an abandoned warehouse.

The permanent structure boasts a unusual open-air design, with communal space dedicated to an outdoor theatre which hosts school plays, poetry slams, public readings, and live music. The populist spirit of the original beer carton library is retained in the library's liberal lending policies: no library cards, no late fees, and no limits on loans. Magdeburg calls this a "Library of Confidence." The book collection is available 24 hours a day, and users are encouraged to replace each borrowed book with a new donation. (More recycling.) The staff is made up entirely of volunteers. And readers feel free to relax with a book and a bottle of--you guessed it--beer.

Photos by Anja Schalmann.

The Great Art Deco-Designed Brooklyn Central Library In Vintage Photos

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:30:00 +0000

Mount Prospect Park, 1939.
New [main branch of Brooklyn Public] Library is in [far right] background.
Image courtesy of BPL.

Brooklyn Public Library in New York City was established in 1896. Between 1901 and 1923, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie donated $1.6 million toward the development of twenty one branches.

January 13, 1941. Entrance, Brooklyn Public Library (Ingersoll Memorial),
Prospect Park Plaza, New York. Acetate negative by Samuel H. Gottscho.

Ground was broken for a Brooklyn central library on Prospect Park Plaza (Grand Army Plaza) in 1912. The design of the original architect, Cornell-educated and Beaux-Arts-trained Raymond Almirall, called for a domed, four-story Beaux Arts abomination. Spiraling cost overruns and political wrangling slowed construction throughout the decade. World War I and the Great Depression ensured that Almirall's building, whose Flatbush Avenue wing had been completed by 1929, would never be built.

February 4, 1941. Foyer, Brooklyn Public Library (Ingersoll Memorial),
Prospect Park Plaza. Acetate negative by Samuel H. Gottscho.

In the 1930s, new architects Githens and Kealy were commissioned to redesign the building. After much public and critical praise for the comparatively inexpensive Art Deco structure, construction began anew in 1938. Completed by late 1940, the Central Library opened to the public on February 1st 1941.

January 21, 1941. Brooklyn Public Library, Prospect Park Plaza. Balcony curve.
Githens & Keally, architect. Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho.

Located at Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library now contains over a million cataloged books, magazines, and multimedia materials. Its local history division, the Brooklyn Collection, holds over a million individual items including photographs, maps, manuscripts, Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia and other ephemeral items.

February 1, 1941. Brooklyn Public Library, Prospect Park Plaza.
Children's Room, from balcony. 5x7 safety negative by Sam Gottscho

The Brooklyn Central Library was landmarked in 1997.

January 21, 1941. Brooklyn Public Library, Prospect Park Plaza. New York. Popular Room.
5x7 safety negative by Samuel H. Gottscho.

Over one million people enter through Central Library’s doors each year and countless others access its services, i.e. the archives of the borough's newspaper, Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1841-1902, available online.

August 2008

The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is the fifth largest public library system in the United States. It is not a New York City government agency; it is an independent nonprofit organization.

Sunset, June 3, 2008

________

Black and white images courtesy of Shorpy.
Thanks to LISNews for the lead.

From The Tippy-Top Floor Of The Plaza Hotel to NYPL: Eloise Makes A Move

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy Mattoon) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:01:00 +0000

New York Public Library better ramp up security: a gum chewing six-year-old holy terror is about to take up permanent residence in their archive. Yes, Eloise is prepped and ready to write on the walls and skate down the halls, thanks to the only man who'll ever own up to being her father, illustrator Hilary Knight. On November 3, 2009, Knight donated his personal papers, including sketches for over 60 books, theatrical posters, contracts, and publicity materials to the Library.

Knight is the co-creator of Eloise, along with author Kay Thompson. Thompson has long held the spotlight as Eloise's literary mother, but no less a luminary than Maurice Sendak, author/illustrator of Where The Wild Things Are, credited Knight with making her famous: "My first happy response to Eloise was entirely due to the brilliant, iconic images. That brazen, loose-limbed, delicious little girl monster is Hilary Knight at his best."

Eloise was born in 1955, but she is forever six years old. She lives in the penthouse of the Plaza with her nameless nanny, her pug dog Weenie, and her turtle, Skipperdee. Eloise's father is never seen or spoken of in any of the five books in which she appears. Her mother is perpetually absent. She never goes to school. (She does have a "boring boring boring" tutor who she listens to, but "not very often.") All of her meals are charged to Room Service. (A typical order is: "Planked Medallion of Beef Tenderloin with Fresh Vegetable Maison, two raisins, one strawberry and one clams in season.") She would be the original anti-heroine of children's literature, except that author Thompson insisted that the Eloise stories were: "Books for precocious grown-ups." And nobody with a brain challenged Kay Thompson. Including Hilary Knight.

According to Marie Brenner of Vanity Fair, Knight and Thompson were introduced by a mutual friend in 1954. Thompson had already created the character of Eloise, which was based more than a little on the author herself. At first the relationship between author and illustrator was a pleasant one, according to Thompson: "Hilary and I had immediate understanding.... We wrote, edited, laughed, outlined, cut, pasted, laughed again, read out loud, laughed and suddenly we had a book." Shortly before the publication of Kay Thompson's Eloise (make a note of the exact title--it's important), Knight caught his first glimpse of the less than friendly side of his collaborator. At a meeting with their publisher, Knight was given a one-page contract. He recalls: "I totally trusted her. I signed it without really looking at it. I totally signed my rights away." The contract gave Thompson the copyright to Knight's drawings, and 70 percent of the royalties not just on Kay Thompson's Eloise but on any future books that featured the Eloise character.

Knight and Thompson went on to collaborate on three more Eloise books, but their relationship grew increasingly strained. In 1966 Knight arrived in Rome to work with Thompson on fifth Eloise story. Knight had drawn hundreds of sketches of Eloise in an overflowing bathtub, creating a flood which engulfed everyone from visiting movie stars to the Plaza's manager. Thompson hung his drawings haphazardly snarled:"Think of this as a movie." She would compliment Knight's work at night, but the next morning, he recalled: "That drawing that was so glorious would have a big clot of rubber cement on it, and there would be a piece of paper over the drawing." At Thompson's request the book was yanked just before publication. It remained unpublished until after the author's death in 1998, when her estate released it as Kay Thompson's Eloise Takes A Bawth.

Knight wasn't the only one to feel the wrath of Thompson. A few years before Thompson took up permanent residence in the heavenly version of the Plaza, the New York City's Books Of Wonder featured a window display celebrating Eloise's 40th anniversary. An employee working late one night received a phone call from Thompson inquiring: "What is the title of the book in the window?" "Well, it's Eloise," replied the hapless clerk. Thompson shouted: "That is incorrect! The title of the book is Kay Thompson's Eloise!!" Thompson's obituary in The New York Times put her age at "between 92 and 95." But like Eloise, it appears she was in many ways perpetually six years old.

About That Halloween Book Burning

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:39:00 +0000

Well now that Halloween has come and gone Book Patrol wanted to follow up on our previous post regarding the planned Halloween book burning at the The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina.

The good news is that book burning never took place. It rained and the police were present. Interestingly enough, as you'll see below, the congregation actually prayed for the rain to come. They also declared that the "Book Burning was a great success." The bad news is that they claim to have destroyed the books anyway.

Here is a version of the evening's festivities from someone who showed up to see witness the madness. It was left as a comment on the original post:

Tonight the heavens opened and rain fell. Book burning didn't take place. There were several news crews, reporters, Sheriff and protesters. If I had been the pastor I would have been embarrassed that more protesters came out than members. There may have been books destroyed but when the flock left the building it was the woman and children first, only five of them and then the pastor himself. As the woman and children left he turned out the porch light, as if trying to hide their identities and turned it on and then back off when he left.

During the service it was said the news crew and others were listening through the floor upstairs and could here yelling from the service. The only disappointing thing was that more locals didn't attend the event. One came as far as Chattanooga, Tn and others an hour or so away. Was a peaceful event and most that were there didn't agree with this radical man!

There were signs that read things like: What would Jesus do, Who are we to judge and several others. A gentleman that was dressed in an outfit of a Nazi soldier came out, gave an interview saying this promotes hate. He wouldn't give his name and held two books, one was the Mormon bible and the other was not able to be seen. He did say that he was only wearing a costume and that is all it was. Protesters were unsure if he was there in support of the event or against it. Left most of us puzzled.

We are unsure if chicken and all the sides were served!

Now, in it's entirety, Pastor Marc Grizzard's version of the event:

We wanted to say that the Book Burning was a great success. It was a success because God's Word was glorified and uplifted. God magnifies His Word above His name, and so do we. The video of the entire service will be up in a few days. We wanted to thank all the Bible doubters who prayed for rain with us. All the protestors and media got wet; we were inside where it was nice and dry. Someone said that we were “hiding” out, but that is not so. The Chief Deputy asked us to keep everything inside, and we agreed, so we were obeying those in authority. We also have others that rent spaces in that same building that we have to respect.

This event was successful not because of the rain, it was just an added blessing. A blessing in the sense that less people came out to protest, and there were no problems. We are not glad people got wet, we are glad that His Word was honored. Some have written praising God that he intervened and stopped the Book Burning because of the rain, protestors, and state laws about burning paper. Nothing was stopped. Our goal was to destroy garbage as noted below, and we did just that. We didn't care how it was destroyed; only that it was destroyed. These same people must have never heard about "Paper, Rock, & Scissors." Scissors cut paper, and paper tears real easy. We destroyed everything as planned. Praise God! God answered every prayer that everyone prayed, but they don't like the answer.

If there were any disappointments, it was that there were no other Independent Fundamental Baptist churches or individuals standing with us locally on the KJV. They hook up with the Southern Baptist and the Freewill Baptist to fight the liquor crowd, and the abortionist, but will not stand with the KJV, the Word of God. Next year we will have others standing with us, as you will see. We have heard from hundreds of churches and individuals from around the world that will be happy to do the same thing next year. Some of our members were out of town on vacation that is planned every year about this time. This we can understand with no problem, but they still supported us in what we did.

Man, this guy is God crazy.

When and if the purported video of the event is released we will be sure to let you know.

Image via

Book Vandals and the Dust Jackets of Joe Orton

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Maury County, TN Library Director Elizabeth Potts shows one of several books
which have had “dirty” words marked through. Others have editorial comments added.

Library books attacked by censors and vandals have recently been in the news. This is not strictly news; library patrons with blue pens and scissors have been a bane of librarians for centuries.

Neatnik Censor Attacks Books Neatly

According to the Columbia, Tennessee Daily Herald, someone has been crossing out dirty words in books. Employees at the Maury County (TN) Library are not amused.

“It bothers me because nobody is holding a gun to their head making them read these books,” said Elizabeth Potts, director of the county library. “If they don’t like them, they should just return them.”

Curiously, the mark-outs are not the traditional scrawled scratch-throughs; thankfully, the censor was a neat-freak.

Books? Books? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Books!

How ‘bout that trio of thirteen and fourteen year olds in Brookfield, Mass. under investigation for spitting - spitting! - into library books (and engaging in curious acts with stuffed animals)?

The intelligence level of this unholy triad of adolescent idiots can be measured by the fact that they video'd themselves and posted the results - six videos! - on YouTube. Saliva in the Stacks/Hockin' Loogies In the Library - The Series has, fortunately, been removed from the website. Crude. Artless. Unimaginative. Next stop: America's Funniest Philistine Home Videos.

This is a far cry from The Wicked Cabin of Book Defacement, a section of Abraxa’s Garden of Sadistic Delights, dedicated to defacing the Bible:

“Defacing the Bible and other types of 'holy writ' now comes to be a fond past-time of mine. I like to fill books whose laws and teachings sought to repress my sexual fantasies with images that, instead, express them.”

(Imagery NSFW).

"Libraries might as well not exist; they’ve got endless shelves for rubbish and hardly any space for good books." Joe Orton, 1967

None of these acts compare, however, with the guerilla warfare book art created by British playwright Joe Orton and his mentor, partner, and eventual murderer, Kenneth Halliwell.

“Orton and Halliwell first came to the public attention not as writers but through an elaborate and extended prank played out at their local library, altering book covers and adding new blurbs to dust jackets. Incensed at the poor choice of books at Essex Road, their local library, they began stealing books. These were smuggled out, dust jackets altered, new blurbs written on inside flaps and then surreptitiously returned.

  “They had been suspected for some time and extra staff had been drafted to catch the culprits, but with no success. They were eventually caught by the careful detective work of Sydney Porrett, a senior clerk with Islington Council. A letter was sent to Halliwell asking him to remove an illegally parked car. Their typed reply matched typeface irregularities in the defaced books and the men were caught.

  “While never openly admitting the reasons for the prank, these acts of guerrilla artwork were an early indication of Orton’s desire to shock and provoke. His targets were the genteel middle classes, authority and defenders of ‘morality’, against whom much of Orton’s later written work would rail against.”

If you feel a compulsion to mess up library books, stifle it. But if you must, kindly do it with style.

Picturing the London Book Trade

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:10:00 +0000

Bernard Shapero

"Bookdealing must be amongst the most wonderfully eccentric
professions on Earth" - Mike Tsang

Photographer Mike Tsang had recently returned to London from a demanding project in the Sudan when he popped in to visit his friend who was then manager of the Biblion bookshop in London. By the time he left the seeds for "The London Book Trade" project were planted. Tsang would go around town photographing booksellers in their domain with the end result being an exhibition at Biblion. When all was said and done Tsang had photographed most of the booksellers of note in London and the result is astonishing.

Henry Sotheran's, founded in 1761

On one hand, you get the feeling Tsang is documenting an endangered species; a visual record of a vanishing breed. Almost all are pictured alone. Yet, through the solitude, there is this subtle sense of power. The power of being surrounded by books and what they hold. This is the stuff everything is built on.

As we witness the monetary value of most books being sucked out by the online marketplace we can also can see an enhanced value being created by such technological pressure. The bookseller has become as much a guardian of our printed history as he is a proprietor.

Ed Maggs of Maggs Brothers

I had a chance to ask Mike Tsang a few questions regarding the project and his own book life.

Book Patrol: How did the project come about and what was your relationship to books before it started?

Mike Tsang: My friend Ben Houston was at the time the manager of Biblion, a shop in a prime Mayfair location renting shelf space to independent book dealers who wanted a different outlet for their stock or who otherwise couldn’t afford such a location themselves. I had just came back from photographing a difficult project in Sudan and popped in to see him on a whim – we got talking and he showed me around the gallery space Biblion also housed, for which he was also the curator. As I recall it was exhibiting some fantastic sculptures but the subject matter was quite unrelated to the world Biblion inhabits, and Ben convinced me that photographic portraits of rare and antiquarian bookdealers would be a fantastic project, and also an exhibition of these at the gallery would be the perfect blend of subject matter and setting.

I must admit that despite being an avid reader of literature since childhood, I had very little inkling of what bookdealing was or even what makes a rare book rare. At the time however I was looking for a personal project that could get me re-involved with my hometown of London after some time away, and this seemed an intriguing prospect with a ready-made outlet for my work.I started by shooting a few eminent local bookdealers that Ben arranged contact with and we both loved the portraits and direction of the project. The London book trade is by definition quite close and I then made contact with a lot of the portrait subjects by purely word of mouth from a previous subject who supported the project. Things progressed rapidly from there and I have now luckily photographed almost anyone worth taking a portrait of in the industry, something I feel very privileged to have done since as far as I know such a photographic collection has never been assembled before.

Robert Frew

BP: With so much attention being paid to the demise of the bookshop these days it is quite refreshing to see a glimpse of booksellers in their domain. As you visited the booksellers of London did you a get sense of the doom and gloom that seems to permeate the current media coverage of bookshops?

MT: It’s true that the book trade is suffering from challenging times. I made sure to ask each dealer I photographed how their business was going – a common answer was that the Internet age had eroded the dealer’s traditional advantage: knowledge of the rarity of a cook and thus an accurate estimate of the value of it. Now an average punter can look on Google very quickly to establish a rough price to ask from the dealer – so now knowledge has become more disseminated amongst the public instead being confined to learned professionals, reducing the dealer’s margins. Other factors such as the rise in high street rents, the fall in literary budgets, the competition from charity bookshops also come into play - these causes combined have led to the reduction in the number of independent book dealers in London by almost a third in the last decade alone. They have in various numbers taken proactive steps to take advantage of new technology – most have moved cataloguing online, concentrated on email marketing and gained access to a wider international customers through the Internet – one dealer was even in the process of setting up a YouTube channel!

And whilst some book dealers have closed their brick-and-mortar shops and moved to phone and email dealing only, all stressed the still-present need for personal contact with customers, whether that is in a five-story English townhouse in Mayfair or simply a coffee and a chat at the next book fair. As Sheila Markham, writer and lover of books in equal measure, told me: "Where is the thrill of the chase in much of today’s online book buying?” And I believe that is the reason the business will still survive. Like all industries, the book trade is subject to change, and although change with the times bookdealing must I hope that the tradition and romance involved in finding that perfect rarity and the perfect buyer to match will remain – although perhaps they will be matched over a YouTube channel and not a bookshop.

Pom Harrington of Peter Harrington Books

BP: What did you take away from the experience? Has your relationship to books changed?

MT: The biggest privilege I have had the pleasure of receiving is to have met some of the fascinating characters involved in the trade. Bookdealing must be amongst the most wonderfully eccentric professions on Earth, and a five-minute conversation with anyone involved can be worth 5 hours of entertainment with someone else. To have the opportunity to photograph them and document this trade as it embarks on an uncertain future, and in my very own hometown – it has been an immensely enjoyable project for me. As for my relationship with books – I have always loved them, but only ever to read and not to find or collect. I think now I appreciate that every book really tells two stories – the one written through the words inside, and the one written by the hands through which it has passed through.

"The London Book Trade" is on view at Biblion through the 7th of November. Tsang is also looking for potential venues in U.S.

More information and photos at Tsang's website and here.

Gerda Yourselves For Pleasure: Wegener Bared at NYC Rare Book Shop-Gallery

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:30:00 +0000

Scène de Carnaval. ca. 1920s. [11" x 16 7/8"]

A fine selection of works by famed Art Deco book illustrator and painter Gerda Wegener is on exhibition at Leonard Fox Ltd, in the rare book dealer’s shop-gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City October 29 through November 25, 2009.

A small section of the exhibition.

Where to begin about Gerda Gottlieb Wegener Porta (1886-1940)? Many, this author included, were first introduced to the Danish artist through her spirited and playfully exquisite erotic imagery. But her initial success was as a fashion and contemporary scene illustrator for Vogue, La Vie Parisienne, Fantasio, and many other Parisian magazines; she covered the Parisian pleasure beat.

Mais Les Elements Ne Sont Plus Les Mémes. Fantasio, February, 1926.

Model and Painting. 1922. [11 1/4" x 8 7/8"]

Here’s where her story gets extremely interesting and why the contemporary mainstream had to gird themselves for the details of Gerda’s avant-garde personal life:

Night on the Town. 1925. [20" x 16"]

Cafe. ca. 1925.

In 1904, she married fellow Dane and artist Einar Wegener (1882-1931). In female guise, as "Lili," he became Gerda's favorite model. Einar Wegener eventually came out as a transsexual woman, and, in 1930, had the first publicly known sex reassignment surgery, taking the name Lili Elbe. Gerda Wegener supported Elbe throughout his/her transition. The king of Denmark declared the Wegener marriage null and void in October 1930. "Not to be" was his answer to the classic Danish dilemma.

After Lili's death in 1931, Gerda married Major Fernando Porta (born 1896), an Italian officer, aviator, and diplomat ten years her junior, and moved with him to Morocco, specifically Marrakech and Casablanca. She divorced Porta in 1936 and returned to Denmark in 1938. Her last exhibition was held in 1939 but by this time Gerda's work was, alas, largely out of fashion.

Not in the Fox exhibition: Three of the twelve watercolors in pochoir by
Wegener for Douze Sonnets Lascifs Pour accompagner la Suite
d'aquaelles Inituléeles Déclassements d'Eros. Erotopolis [Paris]:
A L'Enseigne du Faune [M. Duflou], 1925. (Pia 363). Wegener did not sign
her erotic artwork but it is easily identified as hers by the signature
"Domino" mask-symbol located at lower right or left of her work.

Amongst the books that Gerda Wegener illustrated, often in pochoir (as the original erotic works above) are:

"Le Livre des Vikings" by Charles Guyot (1920 ou 1924)
"Une Aventure d'Amour à Venise" by Giacomo Casanova. Le Livre du Bibliophile. Georges Briffaut. Collection Le Livre du Bibliophile. Paris. 1927.
"Les Contes" by La Fontaine (1928-1929).
"Contes de mon Père le Jars" & "Sur Talons rouges" by Eric Allatini (1929)
"Fortunio" by Théophile Gautier (1934)

___________

Exhibition images courtesy of Cecily at
Leonard Fox Ltd
790 Madison Avenue, Suite 505,
NYC, NY 10065.

Book Yourself Into The Library Hotel

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:18:00 +0000

Entrance to the Library Hotel

Bibliophiles visiting New York City and in need of a space to check-into should check-out The Library Hotel, a beautiful luxury boutique hostelry conveniently located on Madison Avenue and 41st Street, also known as Library Way, just steps away from the majestic New York Public Library.

Each floor has six rooms and is laid out according to the ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System: Social Sciences, Literature, Languages, History, Math & Science, General Knowledge, Technology, Philosophy, the Arts, and Religion. Each of the sixty exquisitely appointed rooms have been individually adorned with a collection of art and books relevant to one distinctive topic within the category of the floor it belongs to.

The Reading Room

The third floor, for instance, is classified as Social Sciences with room 300,006 devoted to the Law; 300.005 devoted to Money; 300.004 World Culture; 300.003 Economics; 300.002 Political Science; and room 300.001 for Education, each room containing a small library of books concerning the room’s theme-subject.

So, if you really want a bad night’s sleep, spend your off-hours in Manhattan in the Library Hotel’s room 300.002, Economics.

Lobby

Need to recover after a night of tossing and turning in parallel play with the markets? No problem. Ask to be moved to the twelfth floor, Religion, where a higher power will tuck you in and say Amen after you’ve read about Ancient Religion (Mythology) in room 1200.006; or Native American creeds in room 1200.005; Germanic Religion in room 1200.004; New Age, 1200.003; African Religion, 1200.002; and Eastern Religion in room 1200.001.

Judeo-Christianity is, presumably, shoe-horned into Ancient Religion (Mythology), though I suspect certain members of the body politic would consider that an insult and loudly demonstrate their protest at the hotel’s entrance: where oh where can I find a Bible in this joint that isn’t on the same shelf as the Khorda Avesta, the book of common prayer in Zoroastrianism, or The Egyptian Book of the Dead?

The other floors are (going up!):

Fourth Floor: Language

400.006 Ancient Language
400.005 Middle Eastern Language
400.004 Asian Language
400.003 Germanic Language
400.002 Romance Language
400.001 Slavic Language

Fifth Floor: Math and Science

500.006 Astronomy
500.005 Dinosaurs
500.004 Botany
500.003 Zoology
500.002 Geology
500.001 Mathematics

Sixth Floor: Technology

600.006 Health & Beauty
600.005 Computers
600.004 Medicine
600.003 Management
600.002 Manufacturing
600.001 Advertising

Seventh Floor: The Arts

700.006 Fashion Design
700.005 Music
700.004 Photography
700.003 Performing Arts
700.002 Paintings
700.001 Architecture

Eighth Floor: Literature

800.006 Mystery
800.005 Fairy Tales
800.004 Dramatic Literature
800.003 Poetry
800.002 Classic Fiction
800.001 Erotic Literature

Ninth Floor: History

900.006 Biography
900.005 Geography & Travel
900.004 Asian History
900.003 Oceanography
900.002 Ancient History
900.001 20th Century History

Tenth Floor: General Knowledge

1000.006 New Media
1000.005 Journalism
1000.004 Museums
1000.003 Encyclopedic Works
1000.002 Almanacs
1000.001 Libraries

Eleventh Floor: Philosophy

1100.006 Love
1100.005 Paranormal
1100.004 Psychology
1100.003 Philosophy
1100.002 Ethics
1100.001 Logic

(I'm anxious to experience a good paranormal night's sleep, myself. Throw in a little Shopenhauer and enjoy a side of suicidal depression with your breakfast sausage n' eggs).

It’s a regular Tower of Babel at the Library Hotel, with languages touted as spoken there including Slovak, Czech, Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Danish, French, German, Spanish, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati and English. It pains me to report that Phuthi, the Nguni Bantu language spoken in southern Lesotho and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border, is not amongst the hotel’s tongues of choice. Take your clicking consonants elsewhere for a good night’s sleep.

The hotel has a Book Lover’s Deal offering bibliophiles 20% off room rates but it is unclear if and how one needs to offer proof of bibliophilia. Ink stains on fingertips? An optometrist's diagnosis of eye-strain? A bank statement as evidence that all your money has been funneled into book stores?
________

The Library Hotel
299 Madison Ave (41st Street)
New York, NY 10017

Sherman Alexie at Big Think

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:37:00 +0000

Here is a 21 minute gem of an interview with Alexie at Big Think. From his literary influences to his place in both the current literary cannon and in the Native American Literature canon. From his thoughts on e-books and the printed book to readings and being a multi-genre writer and the role of drugs and alcohol in his life and writing.

A must see for any Alexie fan or really anyone interested in writing, reading and the state of the book world.

Here's the full transcript of the interview:

Sherman Alexie: My name is Sherman Alexie and I’m the bantamweight champion of the world. No, I’m a writer, poet, short story writer, novelist, screenwriter.

Question: How has it felt becoming a literary community “insider”?

Sherman Alexie: You young bastard, I’m doing okay. It is a strange dilemma because in some sense, you know, I was very native, very native identified, and I still am, but that’s almost become secondary. I’ve sort of joined the tribe of highly established literary writers. So, you know, I’m with the Jonathan Franzens of the world. You know, I know him a little bit, but that’s sort of my peer group now, rather than just sort of, you know, Indian world, literary world, I’m now in, you know, this sort of make-believe world of writers who supposedly hang out a lot, although none of us ever do. So I’m in a faux community of writers, highly successful, literary writers now.

Question: Has success changed your work?

Sherman Alexie: Oh, it’s all, I mean, I haven’t changed anything I’ve written based on all that stuff. So the perceptions of me may have changed, or my career, but I’m still writing the same stuff, it’s still pretty much about Spokane Indian males, you know, stumbling through life. So I think it’s because of the combination of skills I have, you know, I work in multi-genres, you know, I do stand-up comedy, I help make movies, I think all of that has contributed to it. I’m not just a novelist or not just a short story writer. So I think in this highly technological world with many diverse and diffuse influences, I think I’m able to hit a lot of aces.

Question: When you’re a writer, is doing anything besides writing selling out?

Sherman Alexie: Nobody who’s ever been poor would ever use the phrase “selling out.” You know, my influences in the multi-genre artists come from my Indian writing ancestors, the previous generation. When you’re talking James Welch, Simon Ortiz, Scott Momaday, Joy Harjo, Leslie Silko, Linda Hogan, Adrian C. Louis, all of these writers were multi-genre. They all wrote poetry and novels and short stories and non-fiction and dabbled in songwriting and filmmaking and documentary making. So my original influences were Native American, multi-genre artists.

Now, these days, the younger Native writers are not multi-genre, so it’s very interesting. I’m not sure what’s happening, why that has changed, but I grew up as a kid writer. Nobody ever told me I was supposed to be one thing, so just because I happened to become successful in a number of those genres, it wasn’t because I was pursuing them economically, it was because I saw the artistic possibilities in all of it. And I was taught those when I was a, you know, 19-year-old undergraduate.

Question: Why haven’t you joined academia?

Sherman Alexie: Yeah, I think I’m the least educated Indian writer out there. I’ve taught at the University of Washington, so, but I’m not a good teacher, so I think that probably disqualifies me. Yeah, I’m not in academia at all, in terms of a full-time career. I think it’s interesting, because I think, when you look at Native American literature, you’re going to find that it doesn’t really reflect the diversity of the ways in which the writers actually lived their lives. Nobody’s ever written, for instance, an academic farce, a Native American teacher at college farce, which is a time-honored and wonderful genre. You know, David Lodge made a whole career out of it, writing academic farces and, you know, every writer you can name has written it, but we haven’t done it. You know, where’s that novel about that Indian architect or that Indian lawyer. There’s a distinct lack of white-collar Native American literature, despite the fact that most of its most visible practitioners are white-collar themselves. So I think there’s an effort, somewhat of an insecurity to prove your Indian-ness by focusing almost entirely on a reservation-based identity.

Question: What’s the connection between your writing and your stand-up comedy?

Sherman Alexie: Well, I think it’s old-fashioned actually. You know, I think people think it’s something new, but the idea of being a storyteller, you know, for most of our existence was not related to books, it was about the ability to stand up in front of the fire and, you know, earn your supper. So I think it’s just something old and inspired in me, but I never really was the funny guy growing up. If you’d ask my siblings, they’d tell you I was the depressed guy in the basement, but they’re the funny ones. But it just, I got on stage and started talking and people laughed. At the beginning, I didn’t even necessarily know what was happening, but as the years have gone on, I realized that humor is pretty amazing in its ability to transcend differences, politically, ethnically, racially, geographically, economically. There’s something about it that really opens people up spiritually, I think, and they listen. They pay attention. And it’s also a great way to offend people.

I don’t know, we’ve all been to literary readings, you know, where we got theater, but so bored by the person up in front of us reading their work so dispassionately that it nearly turns us off their books. You know, there are writers who I’ve heard do their work that I can only hear their voice when I’m reading their books and it’s so disinterested in their own stuff and I just never wanted to do that. I wanted to make the mistake the other way, you know, I’m pleased when somebody’s offended, you know, by my large stage presence, because there’s still people who show up who get offended. I get up there and give a show and I’m improvising and, you know, talking about current events and what happened yesterday or what happened an hour ago, what happened five minutes before I walked into the place, you know, and giving people a glimpse of how my, you know, crazy mind works. And then they’ll come up after me and say, “Well, I’m really disappointed you didn’t read the story,” and you look at them and think, “Well, you can read the story, you know, what happened tonight will only happen once! You know, you were here for a one-time thing!” So I guess people are trapped in their perception of what a literary artist is supposed to be.

Question: Do you find narrative or poetry harder?

Sherman Alexie: You know, I write poems naturally. I’m writing them all the time. I think it’s more of a reflex talent than fiction is for me. Seems like I have to work harder to write fiction. That said, poems are much more demanding, you have fewer words, you can make fewer mistakes. You know, if you write a ten-line poem, you really can’t make any mistakes. If you do, the poem is terrible. But when you write a novel, you have all that space to mess up in and people are more forgiving. So I think poetry audiences are far more demanding than fiction audiences are.

Question: What do you consider your best work?

Sherman Alexie: Well, you know, writers generally come in two groups, those who love what they do and those who can’t stand what they do. I’m in the second group. I have a really difficult time looking back. Yeah, so I figure out of the thousands of pages I’ve published, there’s probably about 100 great pages. I think I worked on probably about a 2 percent greatness rate. So there’s probably 10 poems, 2 stories that are great and the rest of it is from anywhere from pretty good to, you know, total crap.

Question: Does the print book have a future?

Sherman Alexie: You know, the book is not played out. The idea of what a book can be is not played out in its form as it is, with paper and covers. And there are things that can be that digital will never touch, and that’s one of the things I wanted to do with this, and comparing it to a cassette tape, the old-fashioned way of making a mix tape, which, you know, I love burning CD’s, too, but there is something far more passionate and hands-on and hard work about making a mix tape on a cassette. It’s too easy to revise with a CD. And today’s technology makes it too easy to change immediately. You can cover your mistakes quicker. I think it allows you to have the sheen of perfection around yourself and with an old-fashioned book or an old-fashioned cassette tape, you can actually see all the flaws and imperfections and the bad choices. And I think there’s something we lose with technology when you talk about bad choices.

Question: Why do you consider e-books elitist?

Sherman Alexie: Well, they cost $300, number one. I don’t think anything that costs $300 can be called egalitarian. You know, how much of the world can afford a $300 reading device? 1 percent of 1 percent of 1 percent, it automatically qualifies for, you know, economically elite status.

But what’s really going on here, the reading public doesn’t really know about, and all they’re concerned about and all they’re defending is their reading convenience, which I completely understand. Whether it’s because of physical disabilities or because of personal preference, or just the newness of it, why they love a digital book. But they don’t understand the economic, corporate pressures going on in the publishing world. And what’s going to happen, and this is going to happen on the Internet, too. We like to pretend that the Internet is free, you know, we like to pretend it’s an open source culture, but as culture changes, as old corporate models of distributing information are changing, you know, I don’t know why people assume that corporations aren’t going to take over this medium as well, because they can.

And so what’s happening in the book world, the digital books, is that these e-book companies, you know, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, others that are rising, they just don’t seek to publish books, they’re going to end up seeking the books to be chosen to be published. So this economic model, the way it’s set up now, is going to favor a certain kind of book and publishers and being economically motivated companies are only going to be publishing those kinds of books. And the divide between pop culture, pop writing, and literary writing is just going to increase and increase and increase and it’s going to make it harder and harder and harder for first-time writers to get published in any form whatsoever where they’ll get attention.

Question: Does the Web help or hurt the connection between artist and audience?

Sherman Alexie: Who can find you? Who’s going to find anybody? Nobody’s really risen out of the Internet to become a major voice. They always end up getting a book published and then the book makes them a major voice, but nobody has. I mean, I’m trying to think, you know, I’m not Internet averse at all, I’m doing this. I mean, I love the Internet. But the fact is, is that it’s a giant, giant, unfiltered library which has its strengths and beauty, but it’s impossible to find people.

And, you know, what we end up doing anyway is I go to about five sites. You know, and I think most people probably do the same thing, you create this little small town inside the Internet and we end up in all these little, tiny separate communities. Joan Jett, an interview with Joan Jett, she said about the music industry, she said the thing that’s missing now is anticipation. She said that nobody gets in a big line outside of Tower Records any more waiting for that new Stones album to drop. And nobody stands in line outside a record store waiting to buy the tickets for The Who concert. There’s a real lack of community, you know, in the Internet experience when it comes to art. And you can’t tell me and it’s not true, that communicating strictly through the Internet forms community in the way that being together does. You’re missing all but one sense. You don’t smell people, you don’t really hear them, you don’t see them, and we’re animals, we’re creatures of senses, and the Internet deprives you of many of those.

And so I know there’s new art coming based on this technology and some if it’s happening and it’s exciting and interesting, but there’s nothing wrong with the old art. And I always worry and you see it with certain Internet folks, the way in which they’re completely willing to jettison their past in the pursuit of something new, and that’s what I’m worried about.

Question: What does it mean to be a “method author”?

Sherman Alexie: Well, in order to write about the emotional state of a character, I have to get as close as possible to being in that emotional state. So I have to get that sad, I have to get that happy, that crazed, that bizarre, that obsessed. You know, whatever one of my characters are going through, I have to find my way into it. You know, it’s just the way I do it.

Question: Can you give an example from your latest book?

Sherman Alexie: Well, there’s a story in this book [“War Dances”] called the “Ballad of Paul Nonetheless,” where he becomes so obsessed with pop music and so obsessed with his iPod, that he, you know, every thought he has becomes directly related to a song. So I went that far into it. I tried to talk only in song lyrics. You know, whenever anybody was talking to me, I drove my friends and family mad, because whenever they would talk to me, you know, I would say, “Well, that reminds me of this, you know, Rolling Stones song,” or whenever anybody said something accidentally that was a lyric or a title of a song, I would then sing the song. So it was crazy. But it got me seeing the way it was completely alienating my friends and family, really got me to a place where I could write that story about this really genial guy who’s actually very much an anti-hero.

Question: How did you know you had a drinking problem?

Sherman Alexie: Oh, a case of beer a day. You know, I could drink a fifth of tequila a day. You know, it becomes a drinking problem when it affects your relationships with people, when it affects your job or your school, your grade point average. You know, affects your, it’s a drinking problem when you’re sitting on your couch at home drinking the case of beer all by yourself, and then you pass out and grab the fifth of tequila when you wake up. So pretty obvious what my problem was.

Question: Does alcohol primarily help or hurt writers?

Sherman Alexie: Well, I wrote “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and “The Business of Fancy Dancing” while drunk and drinking. So there’s certainly a lot to be said for my desperate years, my alcoholic years, my active alcoholic years is being the source of some pretty good work, for being the source of the two books that established and made my career. But the thing is, it’s unsustainable. You know, if you are using substances to fuel your creativity, you’re going to have a very, very short artistic life. You’re going to be a sprinter and by and large, I wanted to become a marathon runner. And I can only run the marathon if I’m sober.

You kill your brain. You kill your brain. You know, please try to find me, the successful drug user. You know, try to find me, the high-functioning alcoholic, you know, career person, and you could probably find in their work when they were drinking, when they weren’t. I bet you could look at the downfall of some amazing writers who wrote one or two great books and then just fell apart, I’m pretty sure that’s related to alcohol consumption. So, it’s unsustainable, you know, it’s sort of like the environment, you can only pour so much pollutants into it before the temperature changes dramatically. So I think drug and alcohol abuse is like the greenhouse affect for writers.

Question: As a Native American writer, do you feel special pressure to address alcoholism?

Sherman Alexie: Well, I mean, I’m an alcoholic, that’s what, you know, my family is filled with alcoholics. My tribe is filled with alcoholics. The whole race is filled with alcoholics. For those Indians who try to pretend it’s a stereotype, they’re in deep, deep denial. It’s an every day part of my life and as a writer, I use that to write about it. You know, partly for fictional purposes, and narrative purposes, but partly with the social hope that by writing about it, maybe it’ll help people get sober, and it has. I’ve heard from them. You know, the social function of art is very important to me. It’s not just for art’s sake. I have very specific ideas in mind about what it can do. I’ve seen it happen. So it is writing about alcohol that helps me stay sober. And I think reading about alcoholism helps other people stay sober.

Question: Have your kids affected your writing?

Sherman Alexie: I try to meet deadlines. I have, you know, more dependents, so it’s a very, very basic triangle needs. That bottom, you know, part of the triangle. But, well, they’re always surprising me. The kids are always surprising me with their insights into the world and of course because they’re my children, I pay more attention to what they’re saying than pretty much everybody else on the planet. I care more what my kids say on a daily basis than, you know, the smartest people on the planet. You know? And so I listen and their insights are really surprising and the way in which how unfiltered they are and their obsessions and passions, they don’t apologize for any of that. So I learn a lot from them, you know, it’s also aggravating and irritating and exhausting, the sacrifices you make and, you know, sometimes it feels like my whole life is a to-do list. But, you know, I think their passion for life really has re-inspired me.

Question: Do you want your children to read your work?

Sherman Alexie: No. I don’t, I mean, they’re autonomous. I certainly, if they want to read my stuff and talk about it later, that’ll be great. But until then, it was so funny though, I was profiled on the Lehrer News Hour recently and I was watching the rough cut of it and my son came down, my eight year old, and he was watching it on the TV with me and it was a five-minute piece about poetry and I read a couple poems and I read one very emotional one about my father’s death. And it was over and my son looked at me, he’s eight years old, he looked at me and he goes, “Dad, you’re pretty good!” So that was a great moment.

Question: Whom would you most like to meet?

Sherman Alexie: It’s funny, this popped into my head, so I’ll go with it, Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was banned from baseball in 1919 for allegedly fixing the World Series. Country boy, ended up being a great baseball player, one of the greatest of all time, I’d like to talk to him about that World Series, about the mysteries of human nature. Because, you know, you’re looking at the stats, I’m pretty sure he didn’t participate in the fix, but he knew about it, so I’d like to have a discussion of morality with Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Question: Who are your literary heroes?

Sherman Alexie: Well, there are just certain poems and novels and stories that resonate forever and ever. You know, poems I always return to, Emily Dickinson: “Because I could not stop for Death, that kindly stopped for me.” You know, Theodore Roethke: “I know a woman,” you know, “I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, when small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them.” James Wright: “Suddenly I realized that if I stepped outside my body, I would break into blossom.” And then, you know, the end of “Grapes of Wrath,” when Rose of Sharon breastfeeds, you know, her child has died, but she breastfeeds the starving man, that moment? So it’s always individual works. Even in life, I don’t have heroes. I believe in heroic ideas, because the creators of all those ideas are very human. And if you make heroes out of people, you will invariably be disappointed.

Question: Was there a particular work that moved you as a child?

Sherman Alexie: Oh, Ezra Jack Keats, “A Snowy Day,” the book. You know, the idea of multicultural literature is very new and so as a little Indian boy growing up on the reservation, there was nobody like me in the books, so you always had to extrapolate. But when I picked up A Snowy Day with that inner-city black kid, that child, walking through the, you know, snow covered, pretty quiet and lonely city, oh, I mean, when he was making snow angels and, you know, when he was getting in snowball fights and when he got home to his mother and it was cold and she put him in a hot bathtub and put him to sleep, the loneliness and the love in that book, oh, just gorgeous. So that picture resonates with me still.

The Good "Book Reverend"

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:32:00 +0000

Reverend Martin Weskott

In 1987 President Ronald Regan made his now famous plea, "Tear Down This Wall," to Mikhail Gorbachev in front of the Berlin Wall. Nowhere in his speech did he say Tear Down This Wall and Throw All the Books Out.

Twenty-nine months later the wall was gone and with it went upwards of 100 million books published in East Germany that were simply thrown away.

Enter Reverend Martin Weskott. After seeing an image in the newspaper of thousands of books in the Leipzig garbage dump Weskott went to work. With a truck and a few friends he went down to the dump to save as many books as he could.

To date, Weskott has gathered over one million discarded books. Many he has sent to libraries around the world but about 50,000 of them live in the barn next to his church where after Sunday services parishoners and book hunters are allowed in to shop.

Here's the story and a video tour of the place via the AFP.

Books For Treats

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:03:00 +0000

click to enlarge

Each Halloween Americans spend $950 million on candy; we buy 20 million pounds of candy corn alone. Beside the dress up and the pumpkins many of our kids experience their biggest sugar rush and crash of the year. And as fun as trick or treating is Halloween night often ends ugly for them and for us! The sugar meltdowns wipe out all the fun we had getting ready for the big night.

Well, there might be a better way.

Since Halloween 2001 Book for Treats has given away thousands of used books each year to kids in the San Jose, CA area. Their tagline reads "Give Brain Candy. Feed Kids' Minds, Not Their Cavities."

Books For Treats was founded by Rebecca Morgan, who amazingly enough does not have kids. Morgan; however, is deeply "concerned about literacy, childhood obesity and diabetes and wanted to make a difference to the children in my community.” And she has. The program has garnered support from the San Jose mayor, current and former city council members and the Diabetes Association.

So far only a few libraries around the country have picked up on this worthy concept and I hope more jump on board in the years ahead.

I know I'm sold and tomorrow night when you come to my door you will get a book and a piece of candy.

Comic by Greg Evans

A "Witch" So Rare It's Scary

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:30:00 +0000

Yes, some water-stains; it's a maritime novel, what'd you expect?

This copy, apparently, skimmed the seas.

Some days I wake up lucky. I now have before me one of the great rarities in American literature, the true first edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Water Witch. Published no later than September 18, 1830, the London edition followed in October, and the Philadelphia edition in the the Spring of 1831.

Only sixteen copies of this, the Dresden edition, are known to exist: OCLC and KVK locate twelve copies in institutional collections worldwide, and ABPC records only four copies at auction within the last thirty-five years (one of which was a bound-up train-wreck).

This edition was printed by C.C. Meinhold and Sons in Dresden for the German bookseller who grandly styled himself as Walthersche Hofbuchhandlung, and then distributed to Cooper's translators and other publishers. Cooper, per his (draft) contract with Walther (at Dartmouth College Library), was given ten copies out of an unknown total print run which must surely have been exceedingly small.

"I do not know of any copies of the Dresden edition now existing" (Susan Fenimore Cooper, Letter dated October 4, 1886, to Rev. Richard Salter Storrs, D.D.).

The copy under notice is bound three volumes in one, in contemporary half-cloth over German marbled boards; a typical Dresden binding of the era.

The most romantic of Cooper's sea-tales (as a young man Cooper was a midshipman in the United States Navy), the novel occurs entirely in New York City, its environs, and on its waterways during the close of the seventeenth century. The chief character of this rousing drama is the charming and restless brigantine named the Water Witch, whose charming and restless owner and commander is known only as the "Skimmer of the Seas." The rakish brigand's romantic abduction of a local burgher's beautiful niece sets the story in motion.

Cooper's genius here was to use the late seventeenth-early nineteenth century popular plot device of European lady-kidnapped-by-oriental-pirates and adapt it to an American locale with American characters. Its popularity, like that of Cooper's novels and tales featuring Natty Bumpo, i.e. The Last of the Mohicans, rests on its faithful recreation of early America, with romance and adventure.

"Cooper's achievement, although uneven and the result of brilliant improvisation rather than a deeply considered artistry, was nevertheless sustained almost to the close of a hectic, crowded career. His worldwide fame attests to his powers of invention, for his novels have been popular principally for their variety of dramatic incidents, vivid depiction of romantic scenes and situations, and adventurous plots. But a more sophisticated view caused a revival of interest in the mid-20th century concentrating on Cooper's novels in their creation of tension between different loevels of society, between society and the individual, between the settlement and the wilderness, and between civil law and natural rights as these suggest issues of moral and mythic import" (OCAL).

"This was rather a drama of the coast than a tale of the sea; the movements of the vessels being confined entirely to the waters connected with the harbor of New York. If less brilliant than 'The Red Rover,' the spirit and interest which pervade 'The Water-Witch' are still very striking; there is an atmosphere of romance infused into the narrative, singularly different from the sober coloring of Puritan life in 'The Wish-ton-Wish.' It is strikingly picturesque also, more so than most works from the same pen. But on the other hand, there is less of high moral tone in the book than was usual with Mr. Cooper; it carries a carnival aspect about it; the shell was very gay and brilliant, the kernel was less nourishing than usual" (Susan Fenimore Cooper, Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper, p.231).

Cooper (1789-1851) wrote the novel in Rome, during his travels abroad (1826-1833) as the nominal U.S. consul at Lyons.

It is a novel that cries out for adaptation to film.

As far as this scarce edition is concerned, the odds are that I'll never see another copy in my lifetime. Like I said, I woke up lucky this morning
________

[COOPER, James Fenimore]. The Water-Witch or The Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale by the Author of Pilot, Red Rover, etc., etc. etc. ... In Three Volumes. Dresden: Printed for Walther, 1830. Three octavo volumes. xii, 207, [1, blank]; [4], 292, [4]; 250, [2] pp. BAL 3845.

Glamorous Ghost Haunts Louisiana Library

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy Mattoon) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Perhaps it is the quiet that draws them in. Or the musty scent of aging leather bindings and brittle pages. Or maybe it's the all too rare reverence those who frequent them have for history and literature. Whatever their reasons, ghosts are especially fond of libraries. One librarian has documented haunted libraries in 44 of the 50 states, with most claiming more than one poltergeist-plagued public institution. Whether or not one swears by the mantra of the Cowardly Lion of Oz, ("I do believe in ghosts, I do believe in ghosts, I do, I do, I do, I doooo.") these fables of folio-fancying phantoms continue to fascinate. In celebration of Halloween, Book Patrol brings you the biography of a singularly seductive specter of the stacks.

Fittingly, this glamorous ghost haunts a Neo-Italianate mansion turned public library located on St. Charles Street in the Garden District of New Orleans. The Milton H. Latter Memorial Library is distinguished not only for its lavish architecture but also for its celebrity ghost. The celestial being who haunts the halls is thought to be a former owner of the stately manor, silent film star Marguerite Clark.

The diminutive Miss Clark stood only 4 feet, 10 inches tall and was blessed with a remarkably youthful appearance well into her thirties. She exuded an air of virginal purity and innocent charm. This led to a successful career playing the sweet ingenues in vogue as film heroines before the liberated flappers of the 1920's became all the rage. Her portrayal of Snow White (1916) inspired Walt Disney to base his first animated heroine on her performance. She also took on the literary roles of the Prince and Tom in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper (1915) and again played dual roles as Little Eva St. Clair and Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1918). In her last film, Scrambled Wives (1921), she inadvisedly chose to play a collegiate party girl forced into a marriage of convenience to salvage her ruined reputation. Audiences did not accept the childlike star in such a racy role, and the film flopped. Acknowledging that her days as a leading lady were numbered, Marguerite Clark retired from the silver screen at the height of her fame in 1921.

Unlike Norma Desmond, Clark made a trauma-free transition from screen goddess to civilian. Her marriage to the son of a millionaire New Orleans lumber baron bought her a new life on easy street in The Big Easy. In addition to inherited wealth and social position, Clark's new husband, Harry Palmerston Williams, was said to possess "more charm than the law allowed." Williams was a carefree daredevil with a taste for danger. The only thing he loved more than speeding in a fast car was piloting one of the racing airplanes he designed with his business partner, aviation pioneer Jimmie "Speed King of the World" Wedell.

Mr. and Mrs. Williams were a golden couple who effortlessly became the toast of New Orleans society, hosting lavish parties in their palatial Garden District mansion. (The house boasted a ballroom occupying the entire third floor, as well as one of the city's first elevators.) Mrs. Williams was chosen to be the "Tsarina" of the first New Orleans Ball of Alexis in 1924. At this event she wore a gown worthy of an empress, priced at a record $5,000. Such an elaborate haute couture design would cost a customer a cool $63,000 dollars today.

Marguerite and Harry Williams enjoyed a happy marriage until tragedy struck in 1936. Harry Palmerston Williams finally paid the price for his lifelong addiction to adrenaline when the small plane he was piloting inexplicably crashed. Williams and his passenger were killed instantly. The widowed Marguerite stayed on in the Garden District mansion for three more years, but eventually could no longer endure the memories of her late husband which lingered there. She moved to New York City and died of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage and pneumonia in 1940. The charismatic couple are interred side by side in Metairie Cemetery.

According to many witnesses, however, Marguerite Clark Williams still watches over what was once her opulent estate. The mansion was donated to the New Orleans Public Library and opened as the Milton H. Latter Memorial Branch in 1948. Soon thereafter strange sightings of a "woman-child spirit" roaming the building after sunset were reported. Lights inexplicably flickered as this ethereal entity passed by, leaving in her wake downdrafts of chilly air scented with an exotic oriental perfume. Those who beheld the spirit at first thought the slight and graceful figure to be the ghost of a teen-aged girl. But the figure was later identified by a more careful observer as the dead ringer for the tiny silent movie queen.

Superstitious readers will be glad to know the ghost of the Latter Library is a friendly one. Not only do those who have seen the ghost maintain she radiates an appealing "lightness" but many also believe she protects the historic landmark from harm. While Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage to many of the Garden District's neighboring estates, the library unaccountably emerged completely unscathed save for a few missing roof tiles.

The skeptical among us might attribute this good fortune to a meteorological oddity, but the Cowardly Lion would surely find it to be proof of the presence of a benevolent spirit. Do you believe in ghosts?

A Big Book. A VERY Big Book.

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Welcome to my book. Please, step inside.

Oh, to curl up in bed with a good book! But not this book.

Measuring more than 5 x 7 feet and weighing in at 133 pounds, Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest published book in the world. At this size, it may qualify for its own zip code.

Production of the book stretched image-processing systems to their limits. The life-size portraits of people and the panoramas convey some of the staggering sweep of the mountains and the ancient architecture in Bhutan, the last intact Himalayan kingdom.

The book's creator, Michael Hawley of MIT, challenged Acme Bookbinding of Charlestown, Mass, the world's oldest book bindery. "Every page in this book is a masterpiece," notes Paul Parisi, president of Acme. "We built the permanent binding it deserves." Acme invented a hand-built binding that combines the strengths of Western-style stitched books with Asian-style fanfolding.

The book features 112 pages of spectacular images and showcases the variety of digital, photographic and printing techniques that Hawley used. Copies are printed on-demand (imagine warehousing a print run!) using a roll of paper longer than a football field and more than a gallon of ink. It takes a full twenty-four hours to print.

Copies may be bought for a mere $30,000. Stick a mast on it and you can raft your way around the world, just like Thor Heyerdahl, Kon-Tiki-style.

Love the book but turn a page and we capsize. The damp-stains are really annoying.

O. Henry's Morphine Overdose, Pay-Scale, and Advice to Writers

stephen@bookpatrol.net (Stephen J. Gertz) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:30:00 +0000

Recently, while on recon for Book Patrol, I discovered Fog in Santone, a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) set in San Antonio Texas and loaded with morphine. In it, O. Henry limns the nexus of tuberculosis, desperate sufferers, and drug addiction amongst the sick and “sporting class" with lighthearted morbidity.

In contrast to Fog in Santone, At Arms With Morpheus takes place in turn-of the-century New York City boarding house. From clues in the narrative, it is the boarding house located off Madison Square where Porter lived.

In At Arms With Morpheus, which first appeared in the October, 1903 issue of Ainslee's Magazine under the pseudonym S.H. Peters and in book form in the posthumously published collection, Sixes and Sevens (1911), O. Henry, who was a registered druggist at age nineteen, tells a story about a morphine overdose. It appears to be the first literary treatment of a narcotic OD in American literature; it is certainly the first time that a drug overdose is played for laughs.

"’Oh, Billy, I'm going to take about four grains of quinine, if you don't mind -- I'm feeling all blue and shivery. Guess I'm taking cold.’

"’All right,’ I called back. ‘The bottle is on the second shelf. Take it in a spoonful of that elixir of eucalyptus. It knocks the bitter out.’

“After I came back we sat by the fire and got our briars going. In about eight minutes Tom sank back into a gentle collapse.

“I went straight to the medicine cabinet and looked.

"’You unmitigated hayseed!’ I growled. ‘See what money will do for a man's brains!’

“There stood the morphine bottle with the stopple out, just as Tom had left it.”

And from there, Billy narrates the amusing trials of keeping the dimwitted, wealthy Southern gent, Tom, alive with the help of citrate of caffeine, coffee, walking him around, and keeping him awake. The amateur therapy hasn’t changed much in a hundred years.

Now, another literary gem is added to the corpus of drug literature in English.

* * *

On April 4, 1909, an interview with O. Henry appeared in the New York Times that provides insight in the writing profession and the author’s working habits. Current writers may rush to the needle when they learn what O. Henry earned and how facile a writer he was.

"After drifting about the country I finally came to New York about eight years ago. I have Gilman Hall, now one of the editors of Everybody's Magazine, to thank for this fortunate step. Mr. Hall, then the editor of Ainslee's Magazine, wrote me saying that if I would come to New York he would agree to take $1,200 worth of stories annually at the rate of $100 a story. This was at a time when my name had no market value.Yes, since I came to New York my prices have gone up. I now get $750 for a story that I would have been glad to get $75 for in my Pittsburgh days.

[We pause here to contemplate in a swoon the fact that $750 in 1911 is worth approximately $16,000 in 2009, an opium pipe-dream for most writers of any era].

"Editors are just like other merchants--they want to buy at lowest prices. A few years ago I was selling stories to a certain magazine at the rate of 5 cents a word. I thought there was a chance that I might get more, so I boldly asked the editor for 10 cents a word. 'All right,' said he, 'I'll pay it.' He was just waiting to be asked.

[Who knew that's all it took to get a pay raise? Readers who write or edit may now ROTFL].

"I’ll give you the whole secret of short story writing. Here it is. Rule I: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule II. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can't write a story that pleases yourself you’ll never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

"I get a story thoroughly in mind before I sit down at my writing table. Then I write it out quickly; and, without revising it mail it to the editor. In this way I am able to judge my stories as the public judges them. I've seen stories in print that I wouldn't recognize as my own.

[Submitting first drafts that are accepted as is. Holy mackerel!]

"Yes, I get dry spells. Sometimes I can't turn out a thing for three months. When one of those spells comes on I quit trying to work and go out and see something of life. You can't write a story that's got any life in it by sitting at a writing table and thinking. You've got to get out into the streets, into the crowds, talk wtth people, and feel the rush and throb of real life--that's the stimulant for a story writer.”

Amen.
_________

O. Henry. Sixes and Sevens. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1911. BAL 16298.

A Library for Astro Boy and Cultural Cat Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy Mattoon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Japanese androids Astro Boy and All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku will find a home in the stacks, along with Totoro, Pikachu, and many other famous graphic novel characters, upon completion of the proposed Tokyo International Manga Library at Meiji University. Slated to open in 2015, the huge library and archive is expected to house two million graphic novels, animation cels, illustrations, video games, and cartoon artifacts.

Library spokesman Susumi Shibao sees the collection as the first "solid archive for serious study"of the Japanese art forms of anime and manga. Shibao hopes to help scholars worldwide publish academic research on Asian graphic novels and their animated film adaptations. He believes manga has been "taken lightly" in the past and is ripe for a major reappraisal: "We want to [encourage] academic studies on manga as part of Japanese culture."

To give those scholars eager to investigate the collection a taste of what's forthcoming, the school will open the Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subculture on Halloween of 2009. This smaller library is named in honor of an illustrious alumnus of Meiji University.

Yoshihiro Yonezawa was Japan's most famous critic of manga and anime, as well as an avid collector of and advocate for dōjinshi.

This self-published subgenre of manga is more experimental and controversial in nature than mass market graphic novels. Dōjinshi creators frequently base their materials on other creators' works and publish only a few copies of each volume to avoid copyright litigation. This makes dōjinshi a scarce and coveted commodity. Yonezawa amassed the world's premiere collection of dōjinshi before his untimely death from lung cancer at age 53, and left over 140,000 rare volumes to his alma mater.

Serious study of manga and anime may be the goal of Meiji University, but the fun and entertainment that graphic novels provide to millions of rabid fans worldwide can't be overlooked. Fifty-seven years after his debut, Astro Boy is making a reappearance in movie theatres in 2009. And this Halloween tribute to Cultural Cat Girl is a testament to the undying devotion of her most avid readers.

Maintaining the balance between the fun of popular culture and the goals of serious researchers might require the help of a couple super-powered androids, too.