Finally there is some good news coming from the government about our First Amendment rights.U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker has ruled that Amazon does not have to reveal the identities of thousands of people who purchased used books through Amazon Marketplace.At Amazon's request the court documents from Crocker's June ruling have just been unsealed. "The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote. "It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting...
Books as Investments. Asia Joins the Fray
This came in a bit late for my previous post Book Collecting Juice which including a link to a recent article in the Telegraph about books as an investment.The Standard, an English language paper in Hong Kong, has a piece by Ronald Chan titled Judging the Fine Print which comes on the heels of the inaugural Hong Kong International Antiquarian Book Fair that will take place from November 30 to December 2Chan, founder and chief executive of the private investment company Chartwell Capital, says:"The growing interest in rare books has finally hit Asia, with alternative investors seeing them as an...
Starbucks Meet Anne Fadiman
Honoré de Balzac: The Patron Saint of Coffee Coffee is the name of the essay and it appears in Anne Fadiman's new book At Large and At Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist published by Alan Lane in the UK.Fadiman is fully caffeinated the entire time she is researching and writing the essay, sharing the same caffeine buzz experienced by the literary giants who populate her essay.Who knew that it was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "who had swallowed oceans of coffee in his younger days and regretted his intemperance," who first summoned a chemist to see what the magic ingredient...
Book Collecting Juice
Timothy Taylor has a great piece in the December issue of The Walrus titled Unlimited Editions: a collector's obsession of award winning books. Taylor profiles John Meier of Vancouver, B.C. whose collection of the Governors General Award winners trumps that of the Canadian government. A fascinating read, sprinkled with bibliomania, espionage and Howard Hughes .Upon first seeing the collection Taylor says:And then I saw them, looming in the grainy half-light. Custom-built glass-front bookcases from floor to ceiling along every available wall, every shelf full, the colours of a thousand spines seeming to rustle in the darkness. And in the same...
The Reading Reading Light
Little Man With a Book Reading LightPolished zinc-plated arms and legs with a 40 watt bulb as the body.From Black and BlumRuns about $45.Went from cool to weird in a minute when it started to look too much like a Little Man With a Book in the Bathroom Reading Light.Thanks to The Puget News for the lead