Singapore's noted oceanarium Underwater World has begun offering a "20-minute aquatic reading session" featuring a librarian turned scuba diver.Using a special deep sea marine communication system the librarian reads ocean-related books while sharing the tank with some of the largest freshwater fish in the world.The series is sponsored by the National Library BoardStory at Channel NewsAsiaThanks to AL Direct for the lead
William Blake at 250
Today is the 250th birthday of the Romantic poet, artist and engraver William Blake.How important was Blake. A 2002 poll by the BBC of the 100 Greatest Britons has Blake coming in at 38. Not bad for someone who was pretty much unrecognized during his lifetimeTerry Eagleton honors the occassion with a commentary in The Guardian titled The original political vision: sex art and transformation"Politics today is largely a question of management and administration. Blake, by contrast, viewed the political as inseparable from art, ethics, sexuality and the imagination. It was about the emancipation of desire, not its manipulation."The Tate...
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...
Roller Derby Hits the Books
Roller Derby is back and its packing a literary punch.My friend and fellow bookseller Charles Seluzicki took in a match in Portland last week and shares this:Anyone who has ever seen a women's flat track roller derby game knows the mixture of high camp theatricality and hypnotic sport. It is the last place you would think of in terms of literature and books. But scrolling through the on-line register of roller derby names reveals a recent trend in names that reference books and literature. These derby identities function as both acts of hommage and in-your-face persona of fun-loving menace.The following...
Google the Bookseller
It was bound to happen.Word from the London Book Fair is that Google is going into the book business. By year's end they will launch two book related initiatives that will further alter the book landscape.What's in store:A book rental program that will let you rent the content of a book on a weekly basis.andA book retail program that will allow users lifetime access to the texts they purchase.They are not attaching the cursed e-book tag to either project.Michael Cairnes, who was at the Google sessions at the London Book Fair, has the scoop in his blog post titled "Google...