"And when the underwear was worn out, it provided a steady supply of material used by papermakers to make books."That's the word out of the recently held International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds in Northern England.Marco Mostert, of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who is was one of the conference organizers goes on to say:The development of literacy was certainly helped by the introduction of paper, which was made from rags...These rags came from discarded clothes, which cost much less than the very expensive parchment which was previously used for books. In the 13th century, so it is...
The Space Cowboy Wants a Space Library
"Everywhere where humans are I think there should be a library," is what Charles Simonyi told a Moscow news agency before he became the world's fifth space tourist.Simonyi, a billionaire who has already changed the world once by bringing Microsoft Word and Excel into our lives, packed two books to add to the Space Station Library.The books:Goethe's "Faust" which he declares "is a part of our literary heritage. It belongs to all of humanity and it deals with man's relationship with the universe and man's relationship to science"and "the moon is a harsh mistress" by Robert Heinlein that Simonyi says...
Ben Schott Down
The NYT has gone on record to say it "regrets publishing" a recent essay, "Confessions of a Book Abuser", by Ben Schott due to "certain resemblances to passages in someone else's essay". That is the gentle way to say plagiarism.That someone else is Anne Fadiman whose essay "Never Do That to a Book" appeared in her 1998 book and soon to be bestseller "Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader".I had read Schott's essay when it came out and had begun a post on it titled “Sir, that is no way to treat a book!” which is one of the...
The Prince of the Literati: Glenn Horowitz and Bookselling
There is no one like Glenn Horowitz. He is the loose cannon of the bookselling world.He is not a member of the most prestigious organization of Antiquarian Booksellers, the ABAA, yet he handles some of the choicest literary material that appears on the market.Rachel Donadio profiles Horowitz in this Sunday's NYT Book Review section.What makes Horowitz so successful?He is a businessman and a bookseller. It is not a question of whether he loves or appreciates books it is the fact that he can negotiate and seal the deal that makes everyone happy. He understands that these days it is simply...
Shakespeare in the City
"What Bards These Mortals Be" is the title of the Ron Barrett cartoon that appears in the Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times.A day in the life of a 21st Century Shakespeare. An amusing journey.