March 29, 2013 On the Shelf Faulkner Nobel on the Block, and Other News By Sadie Stein “The largest and most important group of William Faulkner material ever to appear at auction”—including his Nobel medal, an unpublished short story, and illustrated letters, recently found at the Faulkner home—is expected to fetch at least $2 million at Sotheby’s come June. Here is a sweet library marriage proposal for you. (To read, that is.) In further library human-interest, Flavorwire rounds up nifty librarians from around the country. (Just a small sampling, of course.) Now for something completely different: the all-seeing eye that is Amazon.com is acquiring Goodreads for an undisclosed sum.
March 28, 2013 On the Shelf Medieval Pawprints, and Other News By Sadie Stein Presumably fifteenth-century paw prints have been found in a medieval Croatian manuscript. Herewith: Swan & Edgar, a Marylebone pub lined completely with books. Related: the International Edible Books Festival is a real thing, and here are pictures. “You are a wonderful writer. But you really should do something a little more interesting with your hair.” And other things people have said to authors.
March 27, 2013 On the Shelf #Librariansasteenagers, and Other News By Sadie Stein Because it is a truth universally acknowledged that every celebrity has a children’s book in him, Jim Carrey is penning How Roland Rolls, a metaphysical story about a wave. French cultural minister Aurélie Filippetti says the government is creating a fund to help struggling independent bookstores to ensure that France “never suffers the same fate as the United States.” Fair enough, France. We all know the stories of authors who abhor the crass Hollywood commercialization of their work. Here are some happier outcomes! (Susan Orlean’s approbation is especially generous, considering!) Encouraging or dismaying? Books on bullying are big business. Or, in the Times’s somewhat unfortunate parlance, “hot and profitable.” #Librariansasteenagers is a hash tag.
March 26, 2013 On the Shelf Teen Writers, and Other News By Sadie Stein Herewith: writers as teenagers. Only Allen Ginsberg looks suitably awkward. Feisty indie Inkwood Books, of Tampa, lives to fight another day. The secret lives of unfinished books. The uneasy marriage of poetry and e-readers. Applying science to the Shakespearean authorship mystery.
March 25, 2013 On the Shelf Indian Comics, Professor Nabokov, and Other News By Sadie Stein You must begin your week by looking at this list of head-scratching moments from Indian comics. “Facing him on the stage was his white-haired wife Vera, whom he identified only as ‘my course assistant.’” In Professor Nabokov’s classroom. In light of the matter of Wikipedia plagiarism, Jane Goodall’s book has been postponed. The very first ad for Winnie the Pooh. Remembering the Warner Sisters, “America’s answer to the Brontës.”
March 22, 2013 On the Shelf Chinua Achebe Dies, and Other News By Sadie Stein Chinua Achebe has died at eighty-two. The Guardian rereleases a stirring interview with the Nigerian literary giant. (Yes, the words “things have fallen apart” have been, appropriately, invoked.) An Oxford University librarian has been fired after students staged a textbook Harlem shake on her unwitting watch. It’s been a while since we gawked at literary tattoos. If you feel this lack keenly, this one’s for you.