Posted January 29th, 2006 by admin
The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it’s also full of fourth-rate readers. – Stan Barstow. (who is stan barstow?)
Okay the Bullpen is finding it’s format footing… Monday thru Friday will be tidbits in the news or on the net that may be of general interest to old bookies. Saturday will obviously be nonsense and whatever makes me smile and Sunday will be reviews, essays and stuff worth reading.
Book reviews:
(you may need to register with NYT to access some of them, but it’s free.)
Arthur and George - Julian Barnes reviewed by Maureen Corrigan
The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax–Clarence King in the Old West By Robert Wilson
Ringside Seat to a Revolution, An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez: 1893-1923 - David Dorado Romo.
The Western Limit of the World - David Masiel
The Sinking of the Lancastria: The Twentieth Century’s Deadliest Naval Disaster and Churchill’s Plot To Make It Disappear - Jonathan Fenby
The Colony (the story of Molokai) – John Tayman.
American Vertigo Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville – Bernard-Henri Lévy
Christopher Marlowe: Poet and Spy - Park Honan
Elsewhere in the news : NYT In 200 Years of Family Letters, a Nation’s Story we used to call people like that packrats. 
Posted January 26th, 2006 by admin
“How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.” – Robert Burns
We so totally missed Robbie Burns Birthday. (Jan 25th) I can’t believe I didn’t have this marked on my calendar. Burns of the “ode to the haggis” and “luv is like a red red rose”…oh …who am I kidding?..poetry really doesn’t figure into American life, especially that of drunken Scotsmen. The fact that I even remember who is – is only due to a close proximity to old folks who tend to quote long sections of 18th and 19th century poetry verbatim. I have a friend coming up on 94 who was educated back when the word wasn’t followed by a snicker. Granted it wasn’t ‘multi-gendered & multi-cultural’ But you didn’t graduate anything without knowing how to write and read and do your own taxes.
My buddy Norm Starr asked me to print up some bound copies of his father’s (eminently late Boston bookseller Ernest Starr) favorite poems. And wouldn’t you know it…all 19th century, all long, all with familiar passages that have been pilfered for movie and book titles. Granted they are common as dirt in books and on the net. But when’s the last time you saw someone stand in a room and recite them from memory? Yeah I am drawing a blank too.
But not to fret!! you can dust off your haggis and get blind on single malt all over again on April 6th’s Tartan Day in America!
BTW A manuscript of a Robert Burns poem separated more than a century ago has been put back together.
and Ayrshire, Scotland will hold their fifth annual “Burns an’ a’ that” Festival 25-29 May, 2006.
and in late breaking silliness...readers are suing Random House over Jame’s Freys fibs. hmm…wait i think this has some merit…..
Posted January 25th, 2006 by admin
“Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs” – Scott Adams.
Hazzah! –
Astronomers have found an earth like planet outside of our solar system (take THAT intelligent design fans) between that and all the bits of junk we have flying around the galaxy – one of these days we are sure to piss off our neighbors enough for them to wanna come over for brunch – unless of course they are dining here already.
Why look? Cause we’re human, we like to huddle, that’s what we do. Grouping keeps us from getting eaten by the meaner nastier things on the planet. OOPS, we are the meaner nastier things these days aren’t we? We still like cluster, we like to stand around and kick mud off our boots and talk about the weather and Angelina’s twins.
Even if you discount the non-joiners in the crowd like me, I’m not a joiner, I’m only on the biblio list cause I lost the directions to unsubscribe and I’m too lazy to ask for help – Booksellers love to congregate. We will do it at the drop of a hat: two bookseller meet up in a bookstore aisle and poof just like that 3 hours go by and the store closed around you.
Back in the P.I. (read pre internet) days, we joined trade groups to keep in touch, to promote a sense of togetherness but basically it was good for business. Networking was the only way you could get access to stock that wasn’t your own. Trade groups don’t perform the same function anymore, but they still give off a warm and fuzzy smell. Some offer group benefits, shows, discounts, some just send you a Christmas card. Joining something like IOBA, MARIAB, WABA, GLBA etc… can help assuage that feeling that you are the only one trying to make a living in this increasingly frustrating business.
The preceding touchy feely passage was brought to you because I have once again sworn off buying books from booksellers I DO NOT KNOW! - I ordered ten books by and about a certain author and eight of them came either packaged badly or not as described. Join a group if you don’t know how to do what you are doing. Like most customers I’d rather pay more to be pissed off less.
-thank you – the Management.
Posted January 24th, 2006 by admin
“No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read” - David McCullough.
Whitbread awarded to Hilary Spurling for Matisse the Master : A Life of Henri Matisse: The Conquest of Colour: 1909-1954. £30,000 that’s a nice chunk of change. And while we are at it:
2006 Caldecott, Newbery, King Winners and the winner of 2006 Kingsolver’s ‘Bellwether Prize
BTW Turkey apparently decided it wanted to be part of the EU more than it wanted to lop the head of some poor novelist ( Orhan Pamuk) for exercising the freedom of speech he didn’t have.
Things you find when looking for other things:
University College London found a nifty little volume in their stacks: “The Pleasures of Memory” (1910) by Samuel Rogers inscribed to Byron, and containing some Byron scribbles. COOL.
On the other hand- new PEW studies have found that college graduates are leaving the halls of learning with little more than damaged livers and eardrums.
Posted January 24th, 2006 by admin
“Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs.” – David Ben Gurion.
Thanks to gentleman bookseller Samuel W. Coulbourn for the heads up about today’s tale of an intrepid Boston bookseller:
“On this day…in 1776, Colonel Henry Knox reached the headquarters of the Continental Army in Cambridge. The young Boston bookseller had pulled off a daring plan. He had led a small group of men on a 300-mile journey from Boston to Fort Ticonderoga in New York State. Once there, the party disassembled cannon taken when the British surrendered the fort and retreated to Canada in May 1775. In less than two months time, Knox and his men moved 60 tons of artillery across lakes and rivers, through ice and snow to Boston. On March 7th, 2,000 Continental soldiers maneuvered the guns to a hill overlooking the city. The British had no choice but to evacuate Boston.” Listen to this story on audio at Mass Moments.
Reportedly the US Army has taken an interest in poetry – On Jan 10th we stormed a Mosque and walked off with a High School Student slash Poet – Sayed Ahmad Qaneh, he and some of his kinfolk are at present incommunicado. We can only hope that in a few months they will be dumped on some hillside somewhere in Macedonia.
“I used to teach in a comprehensive school and I know from experience that many children are not capable of reading the books I wanted them to read.” -Nick Hornby
