"Mediocre Writers Borrow; Great Writers Steal" – T.S. Eliot

Google Book Search: The New Literary Lie Detector The plagiarism police have found a new weapon: Google Book Search First there is the story of Winston Churchill borrowing a few lines from H.G. Wells, though not directly attributed to the Google Book Search technology one would assume there was a good chance the writer employed it during his research.War of the Worlds - World Wars - Talk about the boundaries of truth and fiction.I can't wait to find out who President Bush is getting his lines from. Then the story of Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan "copying phrases and sentences...

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Google Book Search: The New Literary Lie Detector

"Mediocre Writers Borrow; Great Writers Steal" - T.S. EliotThe plagiarism police have found a new weapon: Google Book SearchFirst there is the story of Winston Churchill borrowing a few lines from H.G. Wells, though not directly attributed t0 the Google Book Search technology one would assume there was a good chance the writer employed it during his research.War of the Worlds - World Wars - Talk about the boundaries of truth and fiction.I can't wait to find out who President Bush is getting his lines from.Then the story of Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan "copying phrases and sentences for his...

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Biblio.com: Less is More?

Last Monday Biblio.com issued a press release stating that the site "has seen a steady decrease in traffic over the last few months...though, the bottom line conversions have increased".I actually like the business model of biblio.com better than the competing aggregators but a release like this is a little troublesome to me. This is not good news and makes me a little suspicious of their intentions.Firstly, I have never heard a company celebrate a decrease in traffic to their website. A declining traffic trend greatly reduces your ability to land new customers who in turn can become repeat customers. You...

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Searching for a German Identity: Anselm Kiefer’s Homage to Paul Celan

Installation view at Galerie Yvon Lambert, 2006Book Patrol as been occasionally featuring Anselm Kiefer's book related works in honor of the exhibit Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth at the San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtThere is also an exhibit of his work currently showing at Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris that deserves mention. The show is titled "Für Paul Celan" and features 10 new works being shown in two galleries.Kiefer continues his post war quest to understand the German Identity and books continue to play a seminal role in his journey.The piece on the floor in the image above is:Aschenblüme...

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