Book Patrol

ABC's of Book Collecting : Anonymous

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:45:00 +0000

ANONYMOUS

There is the formal anonymity of a book whose author, though his name is not on it, is known (e.g. Gulliver’s Travels, The Vicar of Wakefield or Sense and Sensibility). For the cataloguing of these and similar pseudonymous books (e.g. Alice in Wonderland or Jane Eyre), some booksellers use, and others dispense with, the conventional square (or equally common round) brackets.
There is also, however, the real anonymity of ‘authorship unknown’. And once in a while the cataloguer has to admit defeat. Since a book by an unidentified author is harder to sell (other things being equal) than one of known paternity, it may reasonably be assumed that he has consulted halkett and laing and the other obvious reference books. Yet Anon. is an infrequent entry-heading in catalogues, less because there are not in fact many books whose authorship is unknown, than because anonymous titles are usually (and sensibly) listed under subject or category. There is generally a fair sprinkling among ‘Old Novels’, and more amongst ‘Economics’ or ‘Civil War Tracts’.

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

Bloomsbury Sets Loose the Dogs of Deflation

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:56:00 +0000

The following originally appeared last week in Fine Books & Collections magazine. The Update that follows appears here for the first time, exclusive to Book Patrol.

In a recent column, I discussed deflation coming to the rare book world, with particular emphasis on the auction houses.

In my mailbox this morning comes news that Bloomsbury, the auction house that has been leading the market to realistic reserves, has now made it official with their first No Reserve Bibliophile Sale.

The sale features property from Heritage Book Shop, Colonial Williamsburg and
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will occur this Tuesday, June 30, at 2PM in New York.

Here's their blow-out the competition deal: Minimum bid is [drumroll] $25. Twenty-five dollars.

This is major. While Bloomsbury is clearly trying to move the goods, the goods ain't bad.

"The Bibliophile Sale includes historic, modern and contemporary works in addition to an manuscript letter written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and signed to Elizabeth Craig Clarkson written the day after he was accepted at Princeton (15 September 1913) with the original mailing envelope. 'I am in a particularly despondent and dissipated mood. Outside the sun is shining but I am perfectly positive it is only doing it out of spite...So I sign myself your humble Servant Francis Scott Fitzgerald.' It was a humorous and playful letter which was to influence much of his life ($3000-$5000.)

"Also included in the 20th Century grouping is a 22 volume illustrated set of Mark Twain's Works (1923). Bound for Brentano's in contemporary red levant half morocco over red cloth boards, spines tooled and lettered in gilt ($3000-$4000.) A rare large paper copy of Rousseau's complete works in contemporary full tree calf binding is contained in 38 volumes, Paris (1788-1793) Engraved frontispieces, Nouvelle Édition, ($5000-$7000.) Other titles include: The Works, Jonathan Swift 1755. 6 volumes, $1200-$1800, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain (1885.) A first American edition, early issue. $1000-1500. Babbitt Sinclair Lewis (1922) First edition $1000-$1500 and Tractatus de corde(1669) Amsterdam Richard Lower $1500-$2500."

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Bloomsbury is opening the market to bidders who may not have ever dreamed it possible to get this close to desired material. Eyes will be fixed on the percentage of lots sold and what the sale prices were. The market is finally beginning to correct itself to new realities.

View the full catalogue to the Bloomsbury No Reserve Bibliophile Sale here.

UPDATE

Market-Busting 90%-95% Sell-Through at Bloomsbury No Reserve Bibliophile Sale

In its first No Reserve Bibliophile Sale Bloomsbury-NY blew the roof off the house with an astonishing 90%-95% lot sell-through rate. The rare book auction market has not seen lot sell-through figures like that in more than twenty years.

As reported here earlier, "declining lot prices and percentage of lots sold [for rare books at auction] have hit a wall and splatted against the recession. Median prices, which had risen from $410 in October of 2006 to $485 n January of 2008 have dropped back and below to $400 'with no evidence to suggest the correction is over. Not so many decades ago auctions regularly sold 90% or more of lots offered. Over the last five years auctions have struggled to complete even 80% as the percentage of lots sold fell from 78% to 70%.'

In an immediate post-sale interview, James Cummins III, head of rare books at Bloomsbury-NY, said:

"I do not [yet] have a concrete figure for the sell through rate although I believe it to be around 90-95%. The sale brought in $94,421 with premium.

"The sale was conducted differently in a few ways. We didn't have any telephone bidding, there was no printed catalogue, lots that were unsold were bundled up and reoffered in groups and we were selling at nearly 200 lots an hour.

"We had quite a lively audience of approximately thirty-forty collectors and dealers in addition to absentee and online bidders. This sale was done as an experiment to see how the market would react to quality material being offered at no reserve. It proved to be very successful with many lots selling at higher prices than they had previously been offered at. We are very happy with the results of the sale and look forward to more no reserve sales in the future."

This sale and its results are a breath of fresh air to a business that has been struggling with change since the advent of the Internet opened up and democratized the rare book marketplace with buyers seizing control from sellers who have not been happy ceding it. The market has been under pressure for some time and the current recession has only increased that pressure for sellers to come to grips with reality and make downward price adjustments.

It is hoped that the other auction houses will follow suit. And, significantly, that individual dealers, to insure the health and continued viability of the business into the future, will follow and begin to lower their posted prices to welcome back wary book collectors and openly invite interested newcomers who may feel that current prices push the "gentle madness" of the hobby into a full-blown psychosis that few can afford.

_____

Coming Soon: Caveat Rare Book Emptor: The High Cost of Low Prices.

Dropping the Books from E-Books

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:45:00 +0000

The race is on. Amazon, Google, Apple, Sony and a host of other companies are moving at breakneck speed to create the e-book atmosphere that will become your e-book universe of choice.

In his insightful piece at the Huffington Post, Eebs: A History of Future Publishing, Giles Slade gives us a good look at the current battlefield.

"In the emerging world of e-Books, Kindle-Amazon will increasingly occupy a position similar to the iPod while Google (a collector and purveyor of e-Books) together with its partner Sony (a manufacturer of e-Readers) will forever be positioned at the lower end of the e-Book market along with several other manufacturers" says Slade.

But the future, says Slade "is not the dominance of any one format, device or publisher, but a qualitative change in the actual use of the technology."

We have to grow into the technology and maximize its usefulness not parse it out to various companies so they may build their own selfish versions. These new technologies demand new types of "books," not simply digitized versions of existing ones.

No matter how many different e-readers hit the market, each with their bundles of features, they will never replace the book they will only, at best, complement it. As Slade so aptly puts it "no Swiss Army Knife will never replace a good corkscrew, a good screwdriver or a good pair of scissors."

In a piece I wrote in April of 2007, The E-Book Takes Another Hit. Time For a Name Change?, I argued that "E-book is an inherently flawed term. An oxymoron. You can offer the text of a book electronically but you can never offer a book this way. A book is more than text, it is a sum of its parts. Call it an ECM - The Electronic Content Machine - or a PTM- a Portable Text Machine - It is time to lose the e-book name."

Slade says we should 'simply call them 'eebs.'

Also of note, the "hit" I referred to in the title was in response to an article at Computerworld that included the e-book on its list of "The 21 Biggest Technology Flops" of all time!

ABC's of Book Collecting : Annuals

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:00:00 +0000

ANNUALS

Of books issued serially once a year two special classes have particularly interested collectors.

(1) The anthologies of prose and/or verse, usually illustrated with steel engravings, which were a feature of late Regency and early Victorian publishing in England: copied originally from German and French models. Examples are The Keepsake, The Book of Beauty, Friendship’s Offering, The Literary Souvenir. These were the gift books or ‘table books’ of the day, and many of them contain first printings of work by famous authors, often anonymous.

(2) The Christmas annuals issued late in the 19th century by the publishers of popular or fashionable magazines; e.g. Belgravia, The Mistletoe Bough, Tinsley’s, Routledge’s. These would often contain, and sometimes consist entirely of, a short novel by a contemporary best-seller or a promising dark horse.

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

Deflation Comes to the Rare Book Market (Cheers! Boos!)

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:51:00 +0000

The following two-part post recently appeared in Fine Books & Collections magazine. Due to its importance to the rare book community, the C in C of Book Patrol asked that I reprint it here. Part Two will appear tomorrow (June 7th) with an update exclusive to Book Patrol.

The title of Americana Exchange's latest analysis of the book auction market succinctly sums up what those in the trade have been feeling for quite some time - A Market Under Pressure. It is the next logical step in the democratization of the rare book business that began with the introduction of the Internet in the 1990s: deflation, here stubbornly held at bay at auction only by the resistance of sellers to lower their expectations and allow reserves to be in harmony with what the market will bear.

According to AE's supplementary Trends in Book Auction Prices, declining lot prices and percentage of lots sold have hit a wall and splatted against the recession. Median prices, which had risen from $410 in October of 2006 to $485 n January of 2008 have dropped back and below to $400 "with no evidence to suggest the correction is over. Not so many decades ago auctions regularly sold 90% or more of lots offered. Over the last five years auctions have struggled to complete even 80% as the percentage of lots sold fell from 78% to 70%."

Consignors are not getting the message from buyers, who, for the first time in the history of the rare book trade, are now firmly in the driver's seat and are not appreciating back-seat driving from dealers and sellers. A business that has traditionally been top-down, determining what is important, what collectors should buy and at what price, has now officially become - as every other trade has had to become to survive - a bottom-up business with collectors calling the shots, the books, and prices they are willing to pay.

What Americana Exchange's data shows is that, while 45% of auctions houses are showing sell-through rates of 80%, 55% continue to encourage high reserves as a strategy to attract consignments. It is a strategy that is out of whack with the realities of the marketplace and until those auction houses (the bigger ones) and consignors allow prices to find themselves through unhindered bidding the market will continue to be distorted, "clearly interfering with the market's ability to reprice material appropriately."

Bloomsbury reports that their two most recent big sales achieved 80% and 89% lot sell-though; they have, apparently, accepted Jesus as their savior, bowed their heads, lowered their reserves, and have had their prayers answered; the kingdom of God is at hand. Other houses are encouraged to look to the skies, observe the shaft of sunlight cleaving dark clouds, and forgo pagan price structures. Right now, the best advice is to have no other gods before thee but the Rare Book Big Kahuna. who demands that sacrifice be made now to ensure fertile fields in the future.

The recession is, in my view, not the cause of this downward pressure but rather the most recent (and dramatic) catalyst for change to a business that has been struggling with change for the last fifteen years since the Internet's transparent, free-market blessing to the collector became a curse for sellers. The low and middle range of the business was thrown upside down and effectively taken out of the control of sellers. Now, the chickens have come home to roost on dealer's shelves and have left droppings that when divined by copromancers reveal that it's time for the mid to high-end material to meet their market-maker, the public. The "trickle-up" recession is now leaving lint in the deep pockets of high-end buyers who will likely never see the bubble heights of the go-go years in their portfolios again within their lifetimes. Prices, once adjusted downward, will not be bouncing back any time soon. As stock market holdings have declined to pre-bubble prices, so, too (and has, to 2003 levels, according to AE), will the equity in rare books.

Dealers have felt the same pressures as auction houses. At the 2009 New York Antiquarian Book Fair, posted prices remained high even as many dealers offered deep discounts. The general mood was gloomy; some dealers who had dramatically discounted their big books still could not sell them. Reports from the recent 2009 Olympia Book Fair in London were similar with high prices sous le manteau discounted (lest they be seen and heard) to just above cost and still no takers. A close colleague with over forty years in the trade and one of the more colorful personalities in a business bursting with them, concisely - if indelicately - described the mental state of most dealers at Olympia as "Shitting."

No dealer is yet willing to be the bad guy and be the first to lower posted prices. But some brave soul will. The trade will yell and scream, hang the dealer in effigy, invoke black magic, and stick pins in a voodoo doll.

That courageous dealer will likely experience cash flow increased to healthy while his/her colleagues' cash flow continues to suffocate. At some point, however, conniption fits will subside and sane minds prevail. The followers will follow, the fed-up will find other work or retire, the market will settle, and who's ever left will reap the benefits as buyers and sellers begin reading from the same page in the same book.

It may be time for the rare book trade to embrace the verity that rules the building of physical strength and endurance:

No pain, no gain. Orally dosed liniment in the form of ardent spirits may be indicated to ease the ache; only the ardent spirits in the trade will make it to the finish line.

Michael Jackson “Extremely Well-Read,” Had 10,000 Books

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:42:00 +0000

The King of Pop a dweeby book lovin’ geek?

Apparently so, and hooray. He was an avid reader who had an appropriately majestic library at Neverland that held 10,000 volumes on its shelves, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.

In the midst of a lengthy interview in the L.A. Weekly, Jackson attorney Bob Sanger revealed the following as his last of three golden attributes that defined the Gloved One.

“Michael was extremely well-read…I knew Michael, but I got to know him a lot better at the trial. The judge was doing jury selection, and it was time for break. Judge Melville said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that jury service is very, Tvery important.' He's trying to convince people not to have stupid excuses to get out of jury service. All judges do this. He says, 'The jury system is a very time-honored system. It's been around for 200 years. We're going to take a break and come back in 15 minutes.’

“We stand up and the judge leaves, and Michael turns to me and says, ‘Bob, the jury system is much older than 200 years, isn't it?’ I said, 'Well, yeah, it goes back to the Greeks.' He says, 'Oh yeah, Socrates had a jury trial, didn't he?' I said, 'Yeah, well, you know how it turned out for him.' Michael says, 'Yeah, he had to drink the hemlock.' That's just one little tidbit. We talked about psychology, Freud and Jung, Hawthorne, sociology, black history and sociology dealing with race issues. But he was very well read in the classics of psychology and history and literature.

“He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house. And I know that because - and I hate to keep referring to the case, because I don't want the case - the case should not define him. But one of the things that we learned - the DA went through his entire library and found, for instance, a German art book from 1930-something. And it turned out that the guy who was the artist behind the book had been prosecuted by the Nazis. Nobody knew that, but then the cops get up there and say, 'We found this book with pictures of nude people in it.' But it was art, with a lot of text. It was art. And they found some other things, a briefcase that didn't belong to him that had some Playboys in it or something. But they went through the guy's entire house, 10,000 books. And it caused us to do the same thing, and look at it.”

“And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very - especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list - he was very well-read. And I don't want to say that I'm well-read, but I've certainly read a lot, let's put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn't flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there.”

I’ll Be There
As reported in the L.A. Times. Doug Dutton, proprietor of the legendary and now, alas, defunct, Dutton's Books in Brentwood, was at a dinner with people from Book Soup, Skylight and other L.A. bookstores.

"Someone mentioned that Michael Jackson had been in their store," Dutton recalled. “Everybody said he'd shopped in their store too."

Doug first met Jackson in the early 1980s when the icon came in his shop wearing "very large sunglasses" and a suit of bodyguards. MJ was solitary and quiet. "There was no display of 'I'm Michael Jackson,'” he recalled. "I don't remember him actually saying anything." Jackson bought four-five books during visits.

Doug’s brother, Dave, remembers getting a call in the late '80s - early '90s from an MJ minion, who requested that the shop be closed early so Jackson could privately shop. "We did close early," Dave said. Then, "about a quarter to nine he showed up in a big van. Once you got over the initial caution because of those burly guys with him, he was very nice. He loved the poetry section," Dave’s son Dirk asserts that Ralph Waldo Emerson was Jackson's favorite author. "I think you would find a great deal of the transcendental, all-accepting philosophy in his lyrics."

I would have bet the farm that, considering his obsession, Michael Jackson would have been a compulsive collector of all things Peter Pan, the collecting completist’s completist, acquiring every single edition of the book, every scrap of paper associated with it, and everything from the story’s subsequent incarnations.

"He was a longtime and valued customer," a spokesperson for Hennessey + Ingalls, the renowned art and architecture bookstore in Santa Monica, said in the L.A. Times piece.

It turns out that Michael Jackson was a sort of Johnny Appleseed of reading, spreading books to all children. Former Los Angeles resident Cynde Moya remembers that "back when I worked at the Bookstar in Culver City, his people would have us keep the store open after hours, and he'd come in with a vanload of kids, who could buy whatever books they wanted."

As MJ’s life got stranger over time, so did his book buying habits. He would wear a surgical mask during his book shop visits, and in a video of him from New Year's Eve 2008, he’s at Hennessey + Ingalls browsing for books, a black umbrella, held by an assistant, shielding him from the unflattering glare of florescent lighting.

Or, maybe to prevent his love for books from being exposed.

This is a problem that will never threaten the unread, book-hating and proud singing star Kanye West. It is a fact that intellect and pop entertainment values do not mix well in American culture: A pop star could never mysteriously disappear for a few days, drive family, friends, and the nation crazy with anxiety, then resurface with the rambling confession that he was incognito in Buenos Aires visiting the sultry, irresistible National Library of Argentina, full of hot-blooded Latin-American tomes, because he needed a change of scenery.

Completely unbelievable. There must have been something else, something seamy, going on, perhaps with La Biblioteca Nacional de la Republica Argentina’s head of special collections, right? I mean, really, is nothing sacred?

ABC's of Book Collecting : Ana

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:53:00 +0000

ANA

A collective noun meaning a compilation of sayings, table talk, anecdotes, etc. Southey described Boswell’s Johnson as ‘the Ana of all Anas’. Its most familiar use is, however, the original one (from which the noun was made) in the form of a Latin suffix meaning material related to as distinct from material by; e.g. Boswelliana, Railroadiana, Etoniana. Like other such suffixes it is not always easily attachable to English names, even assisted, as commonly, by a medial i. Shaviana, Harveiana and Dickensiana are well enough; but Hardyana is repugnant to latinity, Cloughiana and Fieldingiana are awkward on the tongue, and should one write Wiseiana, Wiseana or Wisiana?

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

"Twitterature" Has Book World Atwitter

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Two nineteen year old freshmen at the University of Chicago have scored a publishing deal for their book, Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less, to be released later this year by Penguin.

The students, Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman, “had an epiphany,” they declare on their website. "What, we asked, are the grandest ventures of our or any generation? And what, to give this a bit more focus, best expresses the souls of 21st century Americans?"

Their answer: that the two most important platforms of expression for their generation were literature and Twitter, and so they sought a way to marry the two.

"More than any other social networking tool, Twitter has refined to its purest form the instant-publishing, short-attention-span, all-digital-all-the-time, self-important age of info-deluge that is the essence of our contemporary world. So what could be better than to combine the two? After all, as great as the classics are, who has time to read those big, long books anymore?"

And so their "humorous retelling of works of great literature in Twitter format aimed at people aged between 18 and 35.”

The intent is to metaphorically throw the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Stendhal, Joyce and JK Rowling into a log-chipper and have twenty 140-character Tweets for each come out the other end. The humor, presumably, will be added somewhere along the process, like carnauba wax in a car wash, then polished to hilarious sheen. Humor’s a tricky thing; without meta-context the laughs get lost and there's no room for any sort of context in a Twitter tweet.

This is not exactly a fresh idea. In early May of 2009, the U.K. Telegraph reported that writer Tim Collins has a new book, The Little Book of Twitter, comprised of plot summaries of the great books and aimed at the Twitteratti, i.e.:

Ulysses:

jamesjoyce: Man walks around Dublin. We follow every minute detail of his day. He’s probably overtweeting.

Great Expectations:

charlesdickens: Orphan given £££ by secret follower. He thinks it’s @misshavisham but it turns out to be @magwitch

The Catcher in the Rye:

jdsalinger: Rich kid thinks everyone is fake except for his little sister. Has breakdown. @markchapman is now following @johnlennon

Pride and Prejudice:

janeaustin: Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.

Bridget Jones’s Diary:

helenfielding: RT @janeaustin Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.

Okay, this is fun up to a point; I got paid to do this in an earlier incarnation: Ultimately, Collins’ book is an exercise in writing what in TVLand-speak is called the “high-concept,” a high-fallutin' way to describe the log line for the program/movie’s TV Guide entry, nothing more. Writing “high-concepts” sounds a lot more significant than writing TV Guide teasers, along the lines of “sanitation engineer” for garbageman which, come to think of it, was exactly what I was doing.

Twitterature apprs 2B aimng at smthng mre &, hopefully, litteratwerps hu thk plot is bk wll B dsapntd.

If Rensin and Aciman can capture the soul of a book within its theme, plot, character, and milieu in twenty Tweets of 160 characters each or less, and include a wry slant, that would really be an accomplishment; high art, I think, and poetry of the highest rank.

I’m not counting on it.

There is, however, a way to salvage the project so that the preciousness and intrinsic humor of each Twitter-fied book is suitably captured but it'll have to wait for the audio book version: Twitterature. As Read by Internationally Renowned Star of Looney Tunes Cartoons, Tweety-Bird.

"Cawl me Itchmale! I taut I thaw a mighty whitey-whale dwown a cwazy captain and hith cwew!"

Image ™Warner Brothers.

John Updike Collection Up For Grabs

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:51:00 +0000

One of the largest collections of John Updike material in private hands has hit the market.

The collection, which was amassed over a 30 year period consists of:

126 Signed works,

267 “A” items representing almost 90% of his primary publication titles,

Extensive “B” items and numerous other appearances, including a 29 year (1980-2009) run of his “New Yorker” work.

Two signed letters from Updike and multiple uncorrected proofs.

Highlights of the collection include:

Dance of the Solids, inscribed.
Earthworm, first and second state.
Lovelorn Astronomer.
The Angels.
Bath After Sailing.
Rabbit, Run, First Edition.
A Rabbit Omnibus, twvo volumes signed.
Chaste Planet, signed.
Couples, first edition review copy
Dog’s Death, framed and signed.
Carpentered Hen.
Flying to Florida, signed by Updike and Roth.
Happy Birthday, Kurt Vonnegut.
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, signed.
Hugging the Shore, with TLS by Updike to Doris Grumbach
(literary editor of “The New Republic”) laid in.
Review copy of Parini’s Robert Frost with copious notes by Updike for his New Yorker review, and also includes a poem written by Updike on the inside back cover.
The Indian.
January, limited signed edition.
Poem Begun on Thursday, October 14, 1993, signed broadside.
Query, inscribed.
Radiator, signed limited issue in wrappers.
75 Aromatic Years of Leavitt & Peirce.
Sixteen Sonnets.
Warm Wine.
Witches of Eastwick, uncorrected proofs (first and second state)
English Train Compartment, broadside.

The collection, out of Portland, Oregon, is being offered by Charles Seluzicki Fine & Rare Books. All items are in Very Good or better condition. A complete list of material included in the collection- over 500 books and broadsides plus a generous sampling of periodical appearances- is available upon request.

Asking price: $60,000.

High School Locker Is Banned Books Library

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:47:00 +0000

A U.S. student at an unnamed private school has created an illegal lending library in the locker adjacent to hers to serve the interest of fellow students in books banned from the student curriculum by zealous school officials.

Anxious that she may be subverting her future success in life by current criminal activity and seeking guidance from the wise, she posted her dilemma on Yahoo! Answers:

“Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?

“Let me explain.

“I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we're not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well... I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality. Some of these books are:

•The Perks of Being a Wallflower
•His Dark Materials trilogy
•Sabriel
•The Canterbury Tales
•Candide
•The Divine Comedy
•Paradise Lost
•The Godfather
•Mort
•Interview with the Vampire
•The Hunger Games
•The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
•A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
•Animal Farm
•The Witches
•Shade's Children
•The Evolution of Man
• the Holy Qu'ran
... and lots more.

“Anyway, I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything.

“I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it's the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading!

“Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on. So I'm doing a good thing, right? Oh, and since you're probably wondering 'Why can't you just go to a local library and check out the books?’ most of the kids are too chicken or their parents won't let them get the books. I think that people should have open minds. Most of the books were banned because they contained information that opposed Catholicism.

“I limit my 'library' to only the sophomores, juniors and seniors just in case so you can't say I'm exposing young people to material they're not mature enough for. But is what I'm doing wrong because parents and teachers don't know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels (Not just fad novels like Twilight) in my generation?

“More books I have:
•One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
•The Picture of Dorian Gray
•Slaughterhouse-5
•Lord of the Flies
•Bridge to Terabithia
•Catch-22
•East of Eden
•The Brothers Grimm Unabridged Fairytales.
...the list goes on.

“Twilight is banned also, but I don't want that polluting my library.

“As for getting the press involved, reporters are not allowed on campus. Besides, my parents would be so mad if they found out I was doing this.”

It’s a regular Vatican Library Index Prohibitum she’s running there. It’s nice to see kids engaging in productive, enriching activity rather than the usual teen shenanigans. Where was this young woman - the high school valedictorian, as far as I’m concerned, with excellent taste - when I was in high school?

Meet Ninomiya-kun, the Book-Reading Robot

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:19:00 +0000

It is 1 meter tall and weighs in at 25 kilograms, it is the brainchild of Kitakyushu National College of Technology and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

He "reads by training its camera eyes on printed materials placed on a special book stand. Character recognition software installed on a computer in the robot’s backpack translates the text into spoken words, which are produced by a voice synthesizer"

Here it is reading some fairy tales:

After a little more tweaking "the robot will be ready to read books to children and the elderly for a living"

Now that is one glorified audiobook. Shouldn't it be reading from a Kindle?

More at Pink Tentacle
Story at Daily Yomiuri (in Japanese)

Thanks to American Libraries Direct for the lead

On Spines and Memories

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:39:00 +0000

"Scan your bookshelves. Consider the spines. Connect one to a specific memory. It's easy."

This is how, noted designer and creative director of Marquand Books, Ed Marquand kicks off his short essay On Spines and Memories, the first volume in a new series by Marquand Editions.

On how important a spine's design is to the whole of the book Marquand says "The spine becomes the most familiar part of a book after it is slid into a bookcase, but it is often designed in haste"

The series will feature essays from writers, publishers, curators and the like and will focus on the various aspects of books and publishing. Each book is printed letterpress and is hand-bound

On Spines and Memories is printed in an edition of 500 copies printed with less than 200 being offered for sale as most sent as gifts to friends of the author/publisher. Delivery offered two ways: the traditional well-packed method or sent without packaging with publishers mailing sticker on fore-edge and rear board.

Buy the book here

To be notified when future publications in this series become available please click here

Kindle Sighting

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:17:00 +0000

The picture above shows a book reader existing peacefully with a Kindle reader while they ride the bus.

With all the hype surrounding the Kindle I have yet to see one in public and this is one of the first images I've seen of one out in the world. And to boot it was taken on mass transit. Is mass acceptance far behind?

Image via Narisa Spaulding (@narisas) of Seattle

Thanks to @emersonsalon for the lead

2010 Havana Book Fair Open To U.S. Librarians

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:17:00 +0000

The 19th Annual Havana International Book Fair - Feria Internacional del Libro de La Habana - considered by some to be the most important in Latin America, is scheduled for February 13-20, 2010.

The entire island becomes a festival for books. Beginning in Havana's San Carlos de la Cabaña fortress overlooking Havana Bay, the fortress becomes a fairground with numerous expo pavilions and several halls where authors present their books throughout the day. There are also poetry readings, children’s activities, art exhibitions, museum events, and evening concerts. The Book Fair then extends to other cities throughout all fourteen provinces, ending in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. Over one hundred international publishing houses exhibit their books.

Each year, the fair, whose motto is Leer es Crecer ("To Read is to Grow"), highlights a country—last year it was Chile—and features international booths, screenings, and author readings. It reviews all aspects of Cuban libraries, and Cuban literary and cultural production. The fair is an all-encompassing event drawing huge crowds.

Cuba boasts a 93% literacy rate, the highest in Latin America but it was hard won. At the time of the 1959 revolution, the illiteracy rare was 26%. During 1960-61 there was a major push for island-wide literacy and the illiteracy rate dropped from 26% to 7%. The Cuban literacy program, Si, Se Puede ("Yes, We Can"- no relationship to a certain U.S. president) is now used as an international model, and over twenty-seven nations have adopted it to success.

Overlapping for three days with the Book Fair is the Havana International Jazz Festival, February 7-16th. Double-whammy. Add the great food, the dancing, and the people and this is a monster event.

The Havana Book Fair routinely attracts librarians from all over the world, and their feedback on the experience is uniformly positive. University and public librarians in the U.S. can legally attend as professionals and LegalCubaTravel.com provides an easy step-by-step license/visa application kit.

Cuba Educational Tours has an all-inclusive travel program for the Havana Book Fair. Early registration to ensure participation is encouraged.

ABC's of Book Collecting : Americana

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:07:00 +0000

AMERICANA

Books, etc., about, connected with or printed in America, often, but not exclusively, the United States of North America; or relating to individual Americans: as distinct (properly, though nowadays not invariably) from books by American writers. The Columbus Letter is a piece of
Americana, as describing the discovery of the continent; the Bay Psalm Book, as the first known book printed in what is now U.S.A.; and Thomas Paine ’s Common Sense, as one of the influential documents of the War of Independence. Poe ’s The Raven, on the other hand, is not Americana, nor is Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn or Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers might be considered borderline cases, for if they are primarily outstanding works of American literature, they are also classically descriptive of the countryside and life of the people.

A currently fashionable sub-category should be mentioned: Western Americana. This embraces any piece of manuscript or printed matter documenting or deriving from the great westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century, from Lewis & Clark and the Louisiana and Gadsden Purchases down to Buffalo Bill and Frederic Remington. More local enthusiasms are reflected in other neologisms, such as Texana or Californiana.

Since Canada, Mexico, Central and South America are just as much part of the hemisphere as the United States, and since their ana have keen collectors, the implicit limitation in terms like ‘Latin Americana’ is beginning to break down. This catholic view has been enhanced by the publication, begun under the editorship of the late Mr John Alden, of European Americana, a catalogue of generous comprehension, as applied in the collection of the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I.

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

Birth Of The Slow Reading Movement (The Longest Story Ever Told)

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:52:00 +0000

A shortage of oddities has compelled Ripley Entertainment, parent of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, to send great weird hunters across the land in search of strangeness. Seems Ripley’s has been opening so many new museums of curiosities that their collection of bizarreness is being spread thin and needs to be beefed up, according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal.

They need look no further than Opium magazine, Issue 00, The Infinity Issue, featuring The Longest Story Ever Told: Estimated Reading Time: 1,000 Years.

The story is nine words long.

Before you sign up for a master class at Evelyn Wood Speed Reading school, be forewarned that no matter how hard you try you cannot read this nine word story in less than the appointed 1,000 years.

The writer is San Francisco-based conceptual artist, journalist, and diabolically inspired Jonathan Keats who in the cover to the magazine has embedded the nine word saga.

Wired reports:

“The printing process in question is a simple but, as usual with Keats, pretty clever idea. The cover is printed in a double layer of standard black ink, with an incrementally screened overlay masking the nine words. Exposed over time to ultraviolet light, the words will be appear at different rates, supposedly one per century.”

“The precise quantity of ink covering each word is different, so that the words will appear one at a time,” Keats said. “Provided that your copy of Opium is kept out in the open, and regularly exposed to sunlight over 1,000 years to be read progressively."

One may have to smoke opium to have the patience to read the story to the end - or perceive to have done so.

“The high-quality acid-free paper on which Opium is printed will certainly last that long,” Keats assured the anxious. Then, dashing all peace of mind, he added “Whether humankind will, of course, remains an open question.”

Keats is not your average reader-writer. It has never occurred to me to copyright my mind, try to pass a Law of Identity, or attempt to genetically engineer God. But they have to Keats. So, what’s the point?

“Like most people, I live my life in a rush, consuming media on the run,” Keats admitted. “That may be fine for reading the average blog,” he said, “but something essential is lost when ingesting words is all about speed. My thousand-year story is an antidote. Given the printing process I’ve used, you can’t take in more than one word per century. That’s even slower than reading Proust.”

Yes, reading should never be about speed. Yet this is a cruel man. He doesn’t even provide a plot summary. So, after waiting with baited breath, century by century, we will either be blissfully satisfied at the outcome of this tale or bitterly disappointed to have invested so much time and for what?

I’ll wait for the reviews.

ABC's of Book Collecting : American Book Prices Current

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:01:00 +0000

AMERICAN BOOK PRICES CURRENT

Published annually since 1895: first edited by Luther S. Livingston, for many years afterwards by Edward Lazare and now by Katharine Kyes and Daniel J. Leab. Now divided into two sections: (1) printed books, maps, charts and broadsides, (2) autograph letters and manuscripts. Each volume (published in January every year – ABPC is the most punctual, as well as accurate, of such records) contains an entry for every lot in all recorded sales. Nothing is included which sold for less than $50.00.

Since 1958 ABPC, as it is commonly called, has included (without feeling the need, as yet, to change its title) the record of printed books (and, unlike its British competitor, of MSS) sold in the principal London and European auction houses as well as those of the United States and has recently added Australia to its coverage. From January 1994, too, ABPC has been made available in CD-ROM, with over half a million entries going back to 1975. It is now, since the demise of book auction records, the only record of sales, and a very good one at that. See also auctions (3).

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

A Word With You, Please. The Millionth Word.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:14:00 +0000

On June 10, 2009 at 10:22AM in Stratford-on-Avon in the U.K. a new English word was born.

“No one said nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ a baby” to me, so at precisely the same time in Los Angeles, 2:22AM, I was asleep with not even a duffel bag at bedside in case I needed to rush to the natal ward, catch this neologism as it exited the womb, and sack out in the neonate department afterward. I like to think of myself as a lexicographical Mother Teresa; all words are my children no matter who sired them, the more humble their beginnings, the better.

I hate it when parents give their newborn a name that will become fodder for schoolyard cruelty so imagine my chagrin when this new word was declared, “Web 2.0.”

Was that the sound of Samuel Johnson choking in his grave?

The birth announcement was sent out by a media consulting company in Texas. (Why the time of birth was noted in Stratford-on-Avon remains a mystery). And immediately lexicographers consulted their slang dictionaries of the vulgar tongue and reached for the most appropriate oath they could come up with. For, you see, declaring a word, any word, as the millionth word in English, is a fool’s game. The New York Times covered the story recently and recorded the vicious execrations of a few experts.

“Bushwa, fraud, hokum,” said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.

Grant Barrett, a lexicographer and co-founder of the online dictionary Wordnik.com, said: “It’s a sham. It’s a hoax. It’s fake. It’s not real.”

Whoa, throw some water on these guys, they need to cool down. Anger management may be in order.

The OED lists 600,000 words with 1,000 new words added each year. Merriam-Webster’s claims 1,000,000 plus or minus 250,000. I have trouble coming up with a thousand words for this space, and am now consumed with guilt because with 600,000-1,000,000 words to chose from all I can come up with is what you’re reading now.

But wait. Call the verbal OB/GYN. I’ve had this one gestating within for almost nine months and I’m about to break word-water. I’ve taken lexicon Lamaze classes, and have my breathing under control.

But yikes, it’s crowning! Look out world, here it comes:

“Hemolexiphiliac.” One who bleeds words, a condition whose only cure is a daily transfusion via reading books.

My luck, I'll be hooked up to a copy of Jacqueline Susann's, Every Night, Josephine, the story of a poodle, a pseudonovelist, and puddles of love. Poison in the blood; call the toxicologist. Drain my arteries and refill with embalming fluid. That book is death; a million words, give or take a few, and not a decent one in the lot.

I'm feeling faint, Web 2.woozy.

Tom Bloom's Illustrations for Between the Covers

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:12:00 +0000

In was sometime in the late 1980's when Tom Congalton, the proprietor of Between the Covers Rare Books, and cartoonist, book collector Tom Bloom struck a deal. They agreed to swap books for art. Now, some 20 years later, Tom Bloom's illustrations have graced the covers of over 100 catalogs for BTC. His work has also appeared on numerous lists issued by BTC and is a seminal element of their website.

Bloom's work has also regularly appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Village Voice. His cartoon illustrations have also appeared numerous times on the front page of The New York Times.

Bloom's work has become as much a part of the BTC brand as the Modern First Editions they specialize in. The relationship is reminiscent of the one Edward Gorey developed with the Gotham Book Mart.

Dan Gregory has begun to document this relationship with a series of galleries featuring Bloom's work for BTC. In addition to the images for each catalog he provides a brief history of the catalog itself. He also notes that many of the catalogs did not have names until after Bloom's illustrations arrived.

Here's to the next 20 years of this amazing collaboration!

Previously on Book Patrol:
The Return of the Bookseller Catalog

ABC's of Book Collecting : Almanac

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:56:00 +0000

ALMANAC

A calendar, usually in pocket-book (more rarely sheet) form, augmented
with Saints’ days, fair-dates and astronomical and meteorological
data; a bestseller from the start and protected by jealously guarded
patents, the different titles, hot rivals in the 17th century, were all
finally swallowed up by Dr Francis Moore’s Vox Stellarum, familiarly
known as ‘Old Moore’s Almanack’.

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

A Book Club For Hipsters? Solid, Baby!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen J. Gertz) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:18:00 +0000

Sisters and Brothers and Children of the Flip:

When, in the course of literary events, it becomes necessary for one peeps to dissolve the bonds that are such a drag due to connection with Squaresville, and to assume it’s a gas to watch the laws of nature and nature's Big Sky Daddy-O pull their coat on respect to the jaw music of mankind, man, it requires that they should lay out the beefs which impel them to Splitsville.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Listen, knock me your lobes, ‘cause, DIG!, we hold these riffs to be self-evident, that all you cats n’ kitties are created equal but that some are more equal than others - y’know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! - that they are well-endowed, baby, oh yeah!, by the Hip One on High with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of hipness.

Feeling the need to channel your inner Lord Buckley? Does Danielle Steel homogenize your blood and thin it to sugarwater? Does the sound of one hand clapping tickle your cochlea? Do you run down the Best-Seller list and realize to your utter joy that you have not read a single one nor will you ever read any of them, on principle?

Welcome to The Hipster Book Club, a “website…created as an offshoot of the LiveJournal community of the same name. Formed in October, 2003, the Hipster Book Club LiveJournal community grew from word of mouth alone. It currently boasts over 3,400 members from a variety of nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, Japan, Honduras, and the Netherlands.

"The website began when one community member asked why a good comprehensive website didn’t exist to focus on book reviews and literary topics…so we decided to make one.”

What makes this site so “hipster”?

“Well, obviously, we’re better than you.

"Just kidding. The term 'hipster' is and always will be used in an ironic sense for us. We don’t consider ourselves particularly ‘hip.’ Instead, we strive to be accessible to people of all ages without pandering only to what is popular. We do, however, bear some of the elitism associated with what people consider hipster: We believe that if you don’t read books, you’re totally not cool.”

Amen, sista!

The latest issue of The Hipster Book Club features a must read piece, The Influence of Anxiety: Wading In by Marie Mundaca, who, while a production staffer at Little, Brown worked with David Foster Wallace, designing his book, Oblivion. This is the story of their collaboration and friendship.

Not much point in reiterating what Ms. Mundaca has so well-written. Suffice it to say, if you value your hip cred – or are looking to gain some – check out The Hipster Book Club.

Now, it’s a sad state of affairs when reading becomes so marginalized, so fringe that it becomes an activity only for in-the-know initiates. In other words, hip. I’m quite certain that when R&B group Tower of Power released What Is Hip? (1973) they did not figure reading into the equation.

Pure, vintage hip used to have a timeless connotation. Now, alas, it has deteriorated into an adjective for faddish style.

That is SO unhip.

Reading? Hip eternal. Goatees and berets for the gents, black turtlenecks and capri pants for the ladies, unnecessary. Wear words on your sleeve, all you Jacks n' Jills!

Liz Moody's "Burgeoning Blossoms/Fairy Tales"

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:11:00 +0000

Brightest in the Garden #1, 2008

The work of Liz Moody is featured in the inaugural exhibit at the Shooting Gallery.

From the artist's statement:

Liz Moody is inspired by her mother's old vogue dress patterns, the magic and texture in the pages of vintage children's books, and the profusion of blossoms when spring finally arrives in the Northwest. Liz uses acrylic paint, India ink, collage, and pastel to build up layers of texture in each piece. She loves brilliant, saturated color and playful organic shapes that reveal small mysteries of text and paint.

The show, titled "Burgeoning Blossoms/Fairy Tales," showcases Moody's multi-layered work which combines text, collage and paint and connects the power of fairy tales on a child's fertile imagination with the profusion of blossoms that accompany each spring.

Andersen's Fairy Tales, 2008

These "small mysteries of text and paint" are worth seeing.

the Shooting Gallery lives inside newly opened Wallflower Custom Framing in West Seattle. There will be artist's reception this Thursday June 11 from 6-9pm

More images at Moody's website
and at imagekind

BoysRead.org is on a Mission to Transform Boys into Lifelong Readers

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Here are the cold facts:

America's boys are the most violent in the industrialized world.

50% of all minority male students drop out of school.
87% of boys play explicitly violent video games.
92% of convicted violent felons are male.

Seattle-based BoysRead.org is an organization of parents, educators, librarians, mentors, author that believes that "male literacy is part of the solution."

In 2004 the NEA study, "Reading at Risk: a Survey of Literary Reading in America," found that reading by young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent; by working to develop a lifelong passion for reading in boys, which includes teaching them about the realities of war, BoysRead.org hopes to reverse this potential catastrophic cultural trend.

Their website offers numerous helpful hints and resources to get and keep the boys reading.

We can't afford not to support them.

The Perfect Shelf for Your Kindle, IPhone or E-Book Reader

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:23:00 +0000

The folks at Not Tom design studio have done it; perhaps unintentionally.

The good old book has become the fodder for what might be the perfect charging station for your electronic reading devices.

Here's how the design came about:

The idea for the Book Book Shelf came from the realisation of how many books are discarded on a regular basis. These particular books were to be thrown out at the end of a jumble sale and we wondered what more could be made of them. We like the idea that value can be added to many discarded items through ingenuity and redefinition of context.

"Ingenuity and redefinition of context." Imagine this shelf a little shorter and installed over an outlet.

Thanks to @prathambooks for the lead

ABC's of Book Collecting : All Published

michael@bookpatrol.net (Michael Lieberman) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:49:00 +0000

ALL PUBLISHED

This means that, despite appearances or an original intention to the
contrary, the volume or series described was not continued, and is
thus as complete as it ever can be in this form, given its (usually)
unexpected truncation.

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