Courtesy of the artist and Alexander and BoninIn 1972, in response to the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated the Palestinian intellectual Wael Zuaiter in Rome. They fired 13 shots. 12 hit Zuaiter and 1 hit a copy of "A Thousand and One Nights" that was in Zuaiter's pocket. Zuaiter was in the midst of translating the book from Arabic into Italian.To commemorate the event Jacir has created an ongoing documentary, "Material for a Film," One element of the piece has Jacir shooting 1000 white books successively, "each with one bullet using the same gun the...
The Art of Pricing
click to enlargeWhile technology is transforming much of the book world there is one practice that remains virtually untouched for many booksellers, the act and method of pricing inventory. Yes, many booksellers now place printed descriptions with the price inside their books but if you look close enough you will still see a price written somewhere in the book. Barcodes have more to do with one's drinking life than as a form of inventory control for many of us."On the first white page in pencil" is our mantra when asked where our books are priced. Others price their books on...
A Few by Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley was one of the leading illustrators of his time. His work is a high-spot of the Art Nouveau movement. He was the art editor for the first 4 editions of the Yellow Book and was a friend of Oscar Wilde's. He illustrated the first English edition of Wilde's play Salome.He died at age 25.The images below were included in the seminal 1966 exhibition of Beardsley's work at the Victoria & Albert Museum.Frontispiece to The Wonderful History of Vergilius the Sorcerer, 1893Debris d'un PoeteBookplate designed for Herbert J. Pollitt. This image is currently featured on Book Patrol's sidebarIncipit Vita...
Author 2.0
It seems like the days of an author simply writing their way to bookshelves across America are coming to end.In his essay in the New York Times, See the Web Site, Buy the Book, J. Courtney Sullivan tracks the evolution of author Web sites and the "sizable industry" that has sprung up to meet the demand.HarperStudio, the new tech-savvy publisher who "believe traditional publishing models are broken and are experimenting with new ones," recently held a Social Networking pow wow for their authors. Here is a pdf of the presentation.Here's a look at role of the author in pre-internet days...
More Lovejoys
A reader of my previous post, Books and Sex, on the intriguing neon sign in the window of Lovejoys alerted me to a review of the book/sex shop that appeared on Spotted by Locals. The review entitled Lovejoys - Don’t let the “adult shop” sign fool you was written Vasco Rodriques.Here's part of his take on the place:If there is a London shop that misses more visitors because of a neon sign, that has to be Lovejoy’s. Whether you like it or not, some people still shy from getting into a shop that advertises Licensed Sex Shop, even though their...