The world’s best travel writer, Jan Morris, has a new book but we have to wait until she “kicks the bucket” to see it. Her words not mine. When I came to Canada, I picked up City to City by Jan Morris – a book that looks at many of this country’s major cities.
Archive for February, 2008
Finding books
Friday, February 29th, 2008Michael Dirda, the esteemed book critic at the Washington Post, conducts regular online chats with this readers. He often gets questions about where to find out-of-print books and he usually recommends AbeBooks.com. We’re always grateful for his support.
But this week he wrote…..
“Once I could have sold my books to any number of local used bookshops for a reasonable sum–now nobody much wants anything, aside from rarities–because everything is available online. I myself understand the attractiveness of being able to buy everything you want, but I don’t like the whole outlook. It’s like a billionaire buying a beautiful woman any time he wants one to sleep with–where’s the romance, where’s the excitement, the heartache, the attendant glories and sorrows of romance? Once it was exciting to go out ‘booking’–and there were scores of places to go. But now, now. To make everything freely available makes everything seem that much less interesting and desirable. But I begin to rant.”
Michael – things change. Making things (eg books) easily available on the Internet is a liberating experience. Are you going to love the hard-to-find book any less because you found it on the Internet being offered by a bookseller thousands of miles away from you? We know our customers visit bookstores as much as they use the Internet – the thrill of the chase still exists for most book buyers but they don’t want to ‘chase’ every time. Sometimes they want to turn the computer on and find the book.
Anne Frank’s true love
Thursday, February 28th, 2008We can now put a face to Anne Frank’s “one true love.” A photograph of the boy with the “beautiful brown eyes” is to go on display in Amsterdam says Reuters.
Million dollar middle classes
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Rockstar poet
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Book Ninja points to rockstar poet, Mary Oliver.
Weird Travel Books
Thursday, February 28th, 2008A few months ago we asked AbeBooks visitors to vote on the world’s weirdest travel books
Starbucks takes over your shelves
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Not only is the coffee giant selling books, making bestsellers out of Ishmael Beah and Mitch Albom’s titles, but they are taking over your bookstore too.
Starbucks now has its own mini-genre, Starbooks
Canada Reads
Thursday, February 28th, 2008I was delighted to see that my favourite novel, Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley, was one of the five Canada Reads books this year. Canada Reads is a lively and highly-followed discussion (at least here in Canada) where five celebs (O.K….Canada’s version of a celebrity) defend their choice on CBC radio. Each day one book is voted off and then the winner is the recommended read for all of Canada. The other books being discussed are:
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
From the Fifteenth District by Mavis Gallant
Icefields by Thomas Wharton
King Leary by Paul Quarrington
You can check out the discussion on the CBC website.
Book/Staircase
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008I love small houses with clever space design. This staircase / bookcase is quite lovely.
The Reanimation Library
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008The Reanimation Library rescues books destined for the trash heap and collects them and are given new life as resource material for artists, writers, and other cultural archeologists. Some curious stuff in the catalog.
Bits and pieces
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
The Boston Globe interviews Booker Prize-winning novelist Anne Enright.
The Guardian looks at reading in Calcutta after the cancellation of the city’s book fair.
Robin Moore, author of The Green Berets, has died. Here’s The Guardian’s obituary. Do you remember the John Wayne film?
Conversative commentator William F Buckley died today. He founded the National Review and wrote several books, including spy thriller Saving The Queen.
Be The Pack Leader by Cesar Millan
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Unlike other online retailers, AbeBooks has a single global database of books that is searchable through all of our five websites. We record the bestselling books for each of our websites but essentially buyers are purchasing from a single list of 110 million listings. So a buyer in the UK can buy a book from a bookshop in the US very easily on AbeBooks. This often happens when there is demand for a book in Britain but the book is simply not available from UK-based retailers.
This is happening right now….with a dog training book. I’m sure North Americans will be familiar with Cesar Millan – aka the dog whisperer – but he isn’t so well known in the UK.
It turns out that British dog lovers are scouring AbeBooks for his latest book, Be The Pack Leader, that has yet to be published in the UK. Be the Pack Leader is the bestselling book on AbeBooks.co.uk in 2008 so far with UK dog owners purchasing the book from our booksellers in the United States. I can imagine all these people in places like Norwich or Coventry trying to find this book while in the background uncontrollable dogs are chewing slippers or destroying furniture.
The book will be published in the UK on March 6 but has been available in the United States since October 2007. Millan is a household name in the US thanks to appearances on Oprah, CNN, Good Morning America, Martha Stewart, and Jay Leno. He also has his own cable TV show called The Dog Whisperer. Clearly news about Millan has spread across the Atlantic, probably via blogs and dog websites.
AbeBooks.co.uk top 10 bestselling books from Jan 1 – February 24 2008
1. Be The Pack Leader by Cesar Millan
2. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll
3. Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
4. Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
5. When God Winks at You by Squire Rushnell
6. If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg
7. The Mass Book for Children by Rosemarie Gortler
8. Cesar’s Way by Cesar Millan
9. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore
10. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
Finds at the book sale
Monday, February 25th, 2008
Last weekend was my favourite weekend of the year here in Victoria, BC – the Times Colonist Book Drive. Here’s what I picked up for a song at the charity book sale….
John Buchan’s autobiography – Memory Hold-The-Door. I found the 1941 Canadian edition.
I’m also looking forward to reading Hard Courts by John Feinstein where he spent a year on the pro tennis circuit as John McEnroe’s career was fading away. It was only published in 1991 but is out-of-print already.
I also picked up Life of a Country Vet – Gordon Lord’s biography of vet-turned-author James Herriot – to remind me of life back home.
In the papers….
Monday, February 25th, 2008The pick of the weekend….
The Independent tells how winning the first Booker Prize didn’t change the life of PH Newby;
The NY Times book review devotes a page to Upton Sinclair – the American socialist who wrote Oil!, the book upon which Daniel Day-Lewis’ There Will Be Blood movie is based. Did you know it was originally self-published and banned in Boston for obscenity?
Some ancient books have turned up in China and no-one can understand them. They’re probably about a young boy who has a scar on his forehead and becomes a wizard…. no!
