Reading Copy

Biblioasis will publish John Metcalf’s latest memoir, Shut Up He Explained, this fall.  The publisher posted design ideas for the books cover and asked for feedback from their readers.  One reader took the this a step further and actually designed an entire new book cover suggesting the house should use it instead.  The asking price? $8 and a one year subscription to Canadian Notes & Queries.

That is what they in the business call “a steal”

Popularity: 25% [?]

Well BEA kicks off today and a number of the Abe staff will be working the floor this weekend.  If you want to head over and say hello the AbeBooks booth is number 4300.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Expected to open in 2009 at Universal Studios in Florida.  The Harry Potter theme park will feature a life sized Hogwarts Castle, Forbidden Forest and the village of Hogsmead among other attractions.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Barbara Holland has just published her 15th The Joy of Drinking to counter the rise of broccoli, exercise and Starbucks. 

If you like this one you can venture into her back list and pick up Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences

Popularity: 10% [?]

Randy Kearse, a former South Carolina crack, dealer has written a 686 page book on the language of urban youth called Street Talk.

Kearse found prison the perfect research ground for the book, interviewing other inmates while serving his 18 year sentence and is working on two more books: “How to Use Incarceration as a Stepping Stone for Success”  and a book of uplifting thoughts.

Popularity: 10% [?]

This one is for Brits, but also Aussies, Kiwis and the other cricket playing countries of the Commonwealth. The Guardian has a digested read of Test Match Special: 50 Not Out.

“I say! That’s the third bendy-bus in the last 15 minutes. That really must be a champagne moment.”

If you don’t know your full toss from a bouncer then you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.

Popularity: 10% [?]

A set of indentical twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray, have just published their first book, a crime novel called No Suspicious Circumstances, and made a piece of literary history, according to The Times.

Morna, who is the elder by ten minutes, said: “We both sit at the laptop, and whoever happens to be closest to the computer or feels like it does the typing. The ideas and the vocabulary bounce off each other.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

The Independent reports that the Hay-on-Wye literary festival has sold out.

Leading the charge is the novelist Margaret Drabble, who attended the first festival in 1988 but has vowed never to return. The author of 17 novels, two biographies, a television play and winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize told The Independent on Sunday it had become too “celebrity conscious”.

“It’s a pity,” she said. “The whole thing has become a celebrity festival, not an author’s festival. Of course there are some very fine writers there this year. But the whole thing of festivals has become about book sales and marketing, nothing to do with meeting readers.”

Popularity: 16% [?]

Everyone is ticking off the days until July 21 and the final Harry Potter book - in the meantime, let’s do some knitting to kill time. Apparently, there are lots of knitting references in JK’s books. The Pioneer Press in Minnesota reports….

“Knitting is an ancient craft, and if you go back to a magical, historical environment like Hogwarts, it makes sense that you would find knitting and hand-knit things around,” said Catherine Mandle, a 33-year-old stay-at-home mom.

Popularity: 9% [?]

The Times has the summer reading list of Gordon Brown - the UK’s prime minister-in-waiting.

The first two choices are fairly predictable: The Assault on Reason by Al Gore, the former US Vice-President; and The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board.  His third choice, Engleby by Sebastian Faulks, is a more intriguing choice.

Popularity: 13% [?]

The Observer has another story about literary tourism in Edinburgh with the haunts of Ian Rankin and JK Rowling overtaking the traditional book-related sites in popularity.

Popularity: 14% [?]

The Commonwealth Writers Prize has gone to a Kiwi author Lloyd Jones.

The book, Mister Pip, is set in Papua New Guinea during civil unrest in the 1990s. It tells of a man who educates a small village by reading them Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, and of a girl who is enchanted by the story. The award acclaims writers born in former British colonies and is worth £10,000.

I have no idea whether Lloyd is a man or a woman - if anyone can help, please let me know.

Popularity: 9% [?]

There was an interesting book-burning event at Prospero’s Books in Kansas City yesterday until red-tape put an end to it. The Kansas City Star reports…

“This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,” (owner Tom) Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.

The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn’t have a burning permit.

Wayne said he would get a permit for next time. He said he envisioned monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — was exhausted.

Popularity: 8% [?]

An 1823 atlas that was stolen last month has been recovered, reports the AP. The atlas, titled “A New American Atlas” and published in 1823 by Henry Tanner, is about two feet tall and is bound in red leather. It was half-inched from the Historical Society of Rockland County in Pennslyvania. There’s a similar copy on sale at AbeBooks.com for a cool $85,000.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Librarything just announced the winners of their cookbook pile contest. The object of the game was to take the most interesting photo of your pile of cookbooks for fabulous cash and prizes.

You can take a look at the winners and runners up here

Popularity: 22% [?]