National Poetry Month continues with a title mash-up salute to 'poetry.' From a collection of 47 issues of Poetry Magazine, all featuring the poet Billy Collins as a contributor, to the first volume, 12 issues, of the seminal literary magazine The Poetry Review published in 1912/13 here's 10 with poetry in the title. All selections for 'Poetry in the Title' come from the booksellers of the Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA), an organization dedicated to promoting quality independent online bookselling. Billy Collins in Pieces P ...
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang praises Beijing’s first 24-hour Bookshop
This one might take the World Book Day cake. On World Book Day in China Premier Li Keqiang sent a letter to the staff of Beijing's Sanlian Taofen Bookstore. Recently the bookshop, which is owned by the China Publishing Group Corp, started a government-funded trial period of staying open 24 hours a day. And it looks like its working. Li praised the creative idea of a 24-hour bookstore and that it sets a good example for nationwide reading and hoped it could become a spiritual landmark of a city to make reading a common practice. Hmm.. "could become a spiritual landmark...to make reading a common...
Shakespeare Takes Center Stage in the Rare Book World
John Baret’s Alvearie, 1580 Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven ---William Shakespeare For some it would be as close to the Holy Grail as one can hope for. A copy of the dictionary Shakespeare himself once owned, annotated! As you can imagine, the antiquarian book world is in a tizzy. Two of their own, New York booksellers George Koppelman of Cultured Oyster Books and Daniel Wechsler of Sanctuary Books, have claimed to have unearthed a copy of John Baret’s Alvearie, a dictionary printed in 1580, with annotations in Shakespeare's hand and have just released a book documenting their find, Shakespeare’s Beehive: An...
World Book Night is here!
World Book Night started in the U.K. in 2011 and on April 23rd every year publishers, authors, booksellers, libraries and volunteers join forces to spread the love of reading and distribute hundreds of thousands of books for free. The mission is simple: To give "books to those who don’t regularly read and/or people who don’t normally have access to printed books, for reasons of means or geography." Between 30-35 books are chosen annually by a panel of booksellers and librarians. The author's then waive their royalties and the publishers pay for producing World Book Night editions which are sent to to "host" booksellers and...
The original painting of one of the most iconic book images, “The Bookworm,” might be sold
It came to the Milwaukee Public Library in 1972 from the collection of René Von Schleinitz. It was the only item from his "significant collection of German steins, figurines and genre paintings" to go the library. The rest was donated to the Milwaukee Art Museum, including other images of his featuring readers and scholars. Now the library is seriously considering an offer of $400,000 from an undisclosed party for the painting. It is called Der Bucherworm "The Bookworm" and was painted by Carl Spitzweg around 1853. It is by far Sptizweg's most famous work and has become one of the most well-known biblio-images...