16 year old Surjit Singh wrote a love poem in praise of an older girl. The problem was the girl was an "upper caste girl" and such cross-caste appreciation is taboo in India."When the teacher came to know about the Surjit's love poem, he caned him till he almost dropped dead." said one of Surjit's fellow students. If that wasn't enough the day after he was "thrashed in front of other students by an upper caste teacher" he was beaten to death by members of the girl's family.The schools headmaster pleaded ignorance about the tragedy saying "he was out of...
Bill Gates Gets His Book Back
This is Bill Gates' copy of "Introduction to Programming," a 1969 manual for Digital Equipment Corp.'s PDP-8 mini-computer that Gates had in high school.Using an IBM Selectric typewriter with a rotating typeball that produced italic lettering Gates typed the following on the inside cover "Bill Gates owns this book. He wants it. Give it back to him! He will tell you."Well, Gates finally got it back. 35 years after fellow high school classmate Rami Grunbaum "packed the manual away with other books after graduating in 1974, a year after Gates," it was returned to him by Seattle Times technology reporter...
The Used Bookstore : House of Junk or Secondhand Wonderland
"I can't stand second-hand books. For me, as a literary experience, they are akin to sloppy seconds, a salad bar in a staff canteen at the end of a hot weekday, or a recently-vacated cubicle in a public toilet. Let's be clear: I don't merely have a mild preference for buying brand-new. No, I'm digestively squeamish about used books."...
The Bookshelves of Bruno Petronzi
Looking at Italian designer Bruno Petronzi's bookshelf designs I am immediately reminded of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.Many book people face a constant struggle to house, arrange and bring order to their books and once they get somewhat comfortable with how things are, once they feel some semblance of biblio-control, more books appear and beg for attention. Many booksellers face this challenge on a daily basis.Petronzi's designs convey this struggle perfectly. They combine the human form with the bookshelf and the inseparable connection of weight and illumination.Thanks to the blog on the bookshelf for the lead
Shelfari’s Looking Good
The book social network site Shelfari has relaunced