Hard evidence of the existence of a parallel universe has recently surfaced, delighting physicists, confounding naysayers, and blowing the minds of independent book shop lovers.Tesco, the British super-supermarket chain that sells, amongst other non-grocery items, books, is, at its Wirral store in Liverpool, promoting the indie bookshop across the street in an effort to improve community relations.Through signage in its book department, Tesco is advising its customers that:“For a wider selection of titles and book-buying advice, why not cross the road to Lingham’s, where the specialist staff would love to help you.”Lingham’s has faced tough competition from the corporate behemoth,...
A Reading-Slut’s Confession: I Slept With 12,775 Books!
According to a new biography never to be published, over the course of fifty-two years of reading in bed (since age 6), I've slept with 12,775 books. Fifty-two years = 245.7 books a year = a book every day and a half. I keep my optometrist on retainer.I did so shamelessly, with little regard for the books as individuals. When I get an itch, I reach for a bitch of a book. 'Might as well face it, I’m addicted to livre.I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t remember many names; their title-pages are a complete blank.As a kid, I went...
Are Rare Books Too Good For the Rich?
I just came across a website, Stuff Rich People Love, which has published #80 - Rare Books. It begs for feedback.Here’s how blogger Chas Underwood III begins:“James Bryce, nineteenth century British politician, diplomat and historian, said ‘The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.”Excellent start. But then Mr. Underwood, whose full name suggests old money (lose the “III,” sir, it’s a bit airy), continues:“Bryce was referring to knowledge, ideas and imagination. These are all well and good if you are a card-carrying member of the public library but to the rich,...
Bloomsbury Rare Book Auction Lets the Market Decide (How Novel!)
Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635)Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois... Paris: Chez Jean Berjon, 1613.Estimate: $250,000 - $350,000. Realized $758,000Bloomsbury Auctions, which has been leading the auction world into no- and low-reserve sales, realized twice its estimate for the recent auction of the de Orbe Novo Collection of early books related to the New World 1492-1625, with complete sell-through of all eight-one lots for a total of $3,489,000, or $43,000 per lot.At a time when rare book auctions are typically selling only 70%-75% of lots offered, this is big news. Yet the sale has received zero coverage from the book...
2009’s Most Amazing Story About Reading Books
Kim Peek, the savant who was the inspiration for Barry Levinson’s original screenplay and film, Rain Man, died last week at age fifty-eight.The New York Times obit limns the many extraordinary abilities and skills this man possessed.Of those, none is more head-snapping than the astonishing skill that allowed him to simultaneously read facing pages of a book— one with each eye. He ultimately read as many as 12,000 volumes. Even more remarkable, he could remember what he had read.This, despite the fact that, as the Times noted, Mr. Peek “was born with severe brain abnormalities that impaired his physical coordination...