The annual AbeBooks’ charity book auction ended earlier this week and we raised (USD) $2,081. The money is split between the United Way, BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and the Royal Marsden Hospital in the UK. The headline lot of the six Penguin leather-bound novels and leather carrying case was sold for $1,350. Thanks to everyone who donated items for the auction and thanks to everyone who took part.
Archive for November, 2008
Charity auction raises $2,081
Friday, November 28th, 2008Playwright William Gibson dies at 94
Friday, November 28th, 2008Playwright William Gibson, who wrote The Miracle Worker about the story of deaf-blind student Helen Keller, has died at 94. The BBC reports.
World’s oldest woman dies at age 115
Thursday, November 27th, 2008I read this news headline this morning and just tried to imagine the changes in the world that this woman had seen. Mass production of cars, two world wars, women’s suffrage, equal rights movement and so much more.
The same year she was born Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Catriona and Jules Verne wrote The Castle of the Carpathians… which started to put the date into perspective for me.
FLOW for ALL and Voices of the Poppies
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
Earlier this week I was contacted by Mac Macdonald, who told me about FLOW for ALL. It is a new not-for-profit organisation set up to help to those who have suffered from the affects of war, including family members and friends.
The organisation helps anyone to read writing by people who may have also had similar experiences and troubles. FLOW for ALL believes in the therapeutic value of poetry or stories, and they have just published a book called Voices of the Poppies. It’s an anthology of forces poetry.
It’s an interesting approach to coping with the affects of warfare.
Penguin’s new translation of Arabian Nights
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
The Guardian revisits The Arabian Nights in honour of the fact that Penguin has just published a new translation of these classic stories. It’s an interesting article but my wonderful friends at Penguin are giving us a set of these books as a competition prize for AbeBooks.co.uk. There were only 3,000 limited edition copies printed and they are beautiful. More details soon.
New York Times’ notable books of 2008
Thursday, November 27th, 2008The New York Times has released its list of the 100 notable books of 2008. Notable? Doesn’t necessarily mean the best.
AbeBooks TechTube Video
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008Love Thy Neighbour
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008I almost felt a sniffle, reading this story about an 84-year-old man who, when he was unable to live in his home for a period and his pipes froze and burst, was served a water bill to the tune of over three grand. He lives in Appleton, Wisconsin, and when his story got out, his community rallied around him, and raised over $4,000 in just one week. The man is going to give the excess to charity, and is humbled by the help he received.
I often feel like we’ve compartmentalized ourselves right out of our sense of community. I live in a condo building and have done for five years; I know a couple of neighbours well enough to say hello in the elevator, but that’s about it. I’d like to be friendlier, but these days, if I wandered over with cookies and asked to sit for a cuppa, I’d likely be thought weird. I really like people, and while I’m all for privacy sometimes, I wish I’d lived when neighbours were more neighbourly, and knew each other. So, here are some of my favourite neighbours from books.
Mrs. Rachel Lynde from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books. She was nosy to a fault (I remember a line that was something like “it was said that if you went to your room in the middle of the night, shut the curtains, got under the bed and sneezed, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how your cold was doing”), but loving and caring and always there for her neighbours in a pinch.
Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The neighbour everyone wondered and gossiped about but rarely saw. He took such joy in the neighbourhood kids that he left them treasures in an old tree, and watched out for their safety. Honourable mention to Miss Maudie, too, who always has time for the Finch children.
Edna Poppy in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees. Edna Poppy is a blind old woman who lives next door to Taylor and Lou Ann. She is happy to be part-time caretaker to Turtle, Taylor;s daughter, and is a tremendous source of comfort and wisdom at a much needed time.
Mrs. Lim from The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy. While the writing is from the perspective of the children (Jung-Sum and Jook-Liang, and later, Sek-Lung), and Mrs. Lim is portrayed as a busybody and a pain in the neck, the subtext is that Mrs. Lim is very much a friend and comfort to the children’s second mother, referred to only as “Stepmother”, who is isolated, much younger than her husband, and likely very lonesome.
Milk – In Theatres Not the Dairy Aisle
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008
The description of an audio/video clip from the New York Times caught my attention this morning. “Director Gus van Sant discusses how he created a 1970s look for his film “Milk”.”
In my ignorance and pre-caffeinated state, I’m imagining a dairy-based cinematic experience. A few bell-bottomed jeaned farmers trudging through mud to milk cows lulled into complacency by a spinning disco ball. Maybe a scene depicting the perils of Afros and farm equipment.
With a little more investigation, I learned my imagination had no grounding in reality. (Although I think my imagination came up with a pretty good comedic production!)
Milk, the movie opening today, is the story of Harvey Milk, American politician and Gay Rights Activist. Milk himself was the first openly gay man to be voted into US public office when in 1977, he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The following year, Harvey Milk, along with the mayor, George Moscone, was gunned down by a former city supervisor.
I myself had never heard of Harvey Milk – maybe because I’m Canadian or because I was too young to be aware of such events at the time they took place – but he’s recognized as having a significant impact on American politics and is considered a pioneer. His short-lived tenure in public office has even inspired an opera by Stewart Wallace.
If you’d like to learn more about Harvey Milk, check out these biographies available on AbeBooks:
- Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts
- Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings by Mike Weiss
- The Harvey Milk Story by Kari Krakow
Now about those boogieing bovines…
Spike Milligan auction
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008A host of Spike Milligan memorabilia was auctioned yesterday in the UK, reports The Times.
A copy of the book The Primal Scream by Arthur Janov, inscribed with a message from John Lennon (“Dear Spike, we saw your TV thing – it was very REAL. I think this book might ‘turn you on’ as they say. Lots of love, John + Yoko”) went for £3,500.
A Family’s Journey Told Through Food
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008I think I have just seen the most beautiful cookbook ever!
Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Vietnamese Recipes from the Heart is a visually stunning cookbook, one that you’d purchase simply to decorate your kitchen or dining room even if you had no intention or ability to cook the recipes. But you need to look beyond the cover and you shouldn’t take the recipes at face value – they tell more than just how to cook a Vietnamese dish.
“In my family, food is our language. Food enables us to communicate the things we find so hard to say.” —Pauline Nguyen
The book description sums it up this way: “At the heart of each recipe is the power of food to elevate and transform.” The recipes take you through the family’s journey as they experience hearbreak, homesickness, joy and upheaval while giving you insight on Vietnamese culture and history.
With each recipe comes a measure of heart from the Nguyen family.
Secrets of the Red Lantern has also been named the Best Asian Cookbook of 2008 by epicurious.com where a recipe for Salt & Pepper Tofu is shared.
Other titles included in epicurious.com’s Best Cookbooks for 2008 are:
- Fish Without a Doubt by Rick Moonen & Roy Finamore (Best Overall)
- Eat Feed Autumn Winter by Anne Bramley (Best Entertaining)
- A Day at elBulli by Ferran Adrià (Best Cerebral)
- Turquoise by Greg & Lucy Malouf (Best Travelogue with Recipes)
- The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri (Best Baking)
- The Paley’s Place Cookbook by Vitaly Paley & Kimberly Paley (Best American Regional)
- Urban Italian by Andrew Carmellini & Gwen Hyman (Best Italian)
- Cooking with Les Dames d’Escoffier edited by Marcella Rosene with Pat Mozersky (Honorable Mention)
Rachel Johnson wins Bad Sex Award
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008The Bad Sex in Fiction Awards took place this evening in London. Rachel Johnson – sister of Mayor of London, Boris – took home the top honour for some startlingly awful prose in Shire Hell and she appeared thrilled with the result, according to The Guardian. It sounds like John Updike should really have won for The Widows of Eastwick.
Auberon Waugh established the event to “gently dissuade” authors from including “unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels.”




