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On Friday night, I was back home in the UK when the news broke that the News of the World was being shut down because of the phone hacking scandal. It was a huge story. This newspaper has been around since 1843. It sold millions of copies each Sunday and had a huge influence on [...]
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Whoops! The folks at the stunningly beautiful Spanish cathedral in Santiago de Compostela have lost a priceless 12th century manuscript called Codex Calixtinus. Last week, the rare document was stolen from the cathedral’s safe. The thief didn’t have to work to hard for his or her crime as they had the keys to the safe [...]
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There are still 10 days left to enter the CBC’s Literary Cocktails contest. Personally, I’d serve V.S. Naipaul a “Naipaul Bitter”, inspired by his attitude: one pint of bitter 1 oz Raspberry Sour splash vinegar splash lemon juice salt (to rub in the wound) If you’d like to get in on the fun, you have [...]
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Jane Austen began and abandoned writing “The Watsons” in 1804. She had just finished drafting Sense and Sensibility but was still seven years away from publishing her opus. The manuscript has been written in her own hand and is assumed to be about one quarter complete. Perhaps the most interesting part of the piece is [...]
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What books would you take with you if you knew you were going to be stranded on a deserted island (we’re making the stance that it’s not a desert island it’s a deserted island). The UKs former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, recently suggested to the Guardian that if he were in this predicament he would [...]
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These unusual bindings skip leather and cloth in favor of extraordinary methods and materials. Creative bookbinders have explored some unlikely media.
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Authors often get into verbal jousting matches. William Faulkner once said that Hemingway “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” to which Hemingway replied “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” The recent squabble between V.S. Naipaul and Keri Hulme, [...]
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Strange things ARE afoot at the Circle K. Keanu Reeves, the actor who brought us cinematic greats like Speed, Speed 2, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey and Johnny Mnemonic* continues to give back to the world, this time with a book of poetry titled Ode To Happiness. The New York Daily News explains that “Ode [...]
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The most common theme in black humor is death but many taboo subjects are satirized, including depression, drug and alcohol addiction, disabilities, violence, mental illness, poverty, sex and bodily functions.
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For those of you who don’t know, AbeBooks.com has a page on FaceBook and every day on that page we ask a daily literary quiz question. For example earlier this week we asked our little group to name the American author who’s drinking led him to working as a garbage man towards the end of [...]
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