BibliophileBullpen

bank toaster • How to create Elephant Dung paper

birthday • 1899 - Ernest Haycox, American writer (d. 1950)

events •
MI – 44th Michigan Antiquarian Book & Paper Show – Lansing Center, MI
NYC – Collectible Paperback & Pulp Fiction Expo

worth reading • from the Guardian Julian Barnes looks back at the 150 year old Madam Bovary.

worth hearing • from NPR a feature on Qiu Xiaolong’s English-language gritty Shanghai detective novels.

naughty audio • from NPR Dana Shuster was a celebrated Vietnam war-era military nurse who wrote poetry about her experiences. One of her poems was read by Vice President Al Gore when the Vietnam Women’s Memorial was dedicated in 1993. But it turns out she was never a nurse, never in the military and never in Vietnam. what IS it with literary frauds lately? is there something in the ink?

google gobbling • University in Madrid becomes the first Spanish-language library to join the Google Books Library Project but unlike some of Google’s partners in the United States, however, the library will only allow scanning of public domain works

lost and found • more from NPR – Scott Simon takes a moment to note the discovery of a previously unknown work by Robert Frost. The work was discovered by a graduate student at the University of Virginia.

two new visitors 5 week old – Aria and Widget.
these little black powder puffs are still a bit nocturnal and Aria likes to cry all night.

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this is what i have to contend with when i try to work.
Dave expresses his displeasure at having so many kittens around by laying on my work and trying to hook me when i try to move him.

1868 – First edition of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is published.

birthdays •
1924 - Truman Capote, American author
1953 - S.M. Stirling, Canadian-born author

event • 23rd Montreal Antiquarian Book Fair

worth reading • Steven Rinella files this blog post from the Montana Festival of the Book

audio • Barry Lopez does a reading from his new book Home Ground at the Montana Festival.

novel idea • Borders starts an online book club, book clubs without the ‘club’ what’s next, book clubs without the books?

idiot alert • A mother’s recent attempt to solicit donations and money for an elementary teacher’s classroom library is against school district policy in Pascagoula Mississippi.

obit of note • Norman Lewis, 93, wrote 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary and Word Power Made Easy.

new tune • Placido Domingo is writing The Joy of Opera to be published in 2009

something new • a new edition of Ptolemy’s Geography which clearly includes maps which depicted a world that was round.

wraparound cover n. also called self cover. A one piece softcover where the artwork encompasses all three side.

Long story short – life gets in the way of blogging . . . I have stopped begging my friends for contributions and guest blogs, so until things change around here, you will have be sated with my haphazard schedule of posting, if you get bored there are plenty of blogs on the sidebar to keep you busy. My mother is doing well, she will probably give herself a heart attack before she ever succumbs to cancer. My problem is that she thinks cause I work from home all the time now, I am just sitting around doing nothing and should be cleaning my house. Yeah like THAT’ll happen.

talking head • AP has an interview with writer Peter Quinn who writes his books the old fashioned way . . . in long hand on legal pads.

worth hearing • from NPR – A new generation of women’s writers has emerged and they disown the literary genre known as “chick lit.” The editor and authors of a new anthology, This Is Not Chick Lit, offer their take on women’s literature.

worth reading • Michael Hess is plotting Jack Kerouac’s On the Road with google maps. via Critical Mass.

audio cookies • from New Hampshire Public Radio - Naturalist, author and illustrator David Carroll has won one of this year’s MacArthur Foundation genius grants. He’ll receive 500-thousand-dollars.

more later . . . i am running away for a couple of hours.

Residents object to library books in Spanish

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Some people who live in Lewisburg are upset that the local library has bought some children’s books which tell stories in Spanish.

At a meeting of the Marshall County Memorial Library board, an eighth grade social studies teacher said if one penny has been spent on Spanish language books, it’s too much. Teacher Robin Minor said Tuesday he thinks a lot of county commissioners will be interested to learn of the expense. A few others also spoke against providing books not printed in English.

Asked how much of the library’s 13-thousand-dollar public appropriation went to buy the books, a library official said the total was about 130 dollars. The board also told objectors the shelves held books in Japanese, Russian, Polish and French. Protesters responded that those books shouldn’t be there either.

When the board told the protesters it planned no changes in library policies, those upset over the language issue said they would take it up with the county.

birthdays •
1547 – Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (d. 1616)
1810 - Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist (d. 1865)
1930 - Colin Dexter, British author of Inspector Morse novels is born
1864 - Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish writer and philosopher (d. 1936)

event calendar •
KS - Kansas Book Festival - Wichita, KS
MD – Baltimore Book Festival – Baltimore, MD
MT – Montana Festival of the Book – Missoula, MT
NJ - Dodge Poetry Festival – Hillsborough, NJ
VA - Fall For The Book Literary Festival – Fairfax, VA
WI - Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention – Madison, WI

from Flickr -
Sreiny has made a pinhole camera from a book.

I had no internet connection yesterday so I spent the day having panic attacks. Perhaps I have an addiction?

1822 - Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta stone.

birthdays •
1961 - Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer
1906 – Jim Thompson, American author (d. 1977)

event – Fall For The Book Literary Festival - Fairfax, Va. Sept 27-Oct 5th.

new toy • Sony has announced plans to introduce its long-delayed electronic book store on the Internet on Sunday and also sell a device that displays e-books purchased from the store.

advice • U.S. novelist Walter Mosley says if you’ve got a novel in you, write it.

super shopping • A book by Soeren Kierkegaard that features a handwritten dedication to famed storyteller Hans Christian Andersen is to be sold at auction.

obits of note •
Maureen Daly, 85 – author of Seventeenth Summer.

Joseph Hayes, 88 a novelist, playwright and producer – author of The Desperate Hours.

audio • from NPR – Mommy? is the newest children’s book from artist Maurice Sendak, who is famous for putting child characters in jeopardy in stories like Where the Wild Things Are.

resurfacing • Despite having 5,000 gallons of water unleashed on more than 15,000 books, the Edwardsville Illinois Public Library will reopen after two days of cleaning up.

cookies • Haruki Murakami has won the second Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, his third collection of short stories to be published in English.