Archive for January, 2010
Top 10 books about drink
Friday, January 29th, 20101 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett
A piece of history from 1931 that reveals how posh folks drank before Prohibition.
2 The Savoy Cocktail Book
A highly collectible example of 1930 Art Deco but affordable reprints (link to PLP) are available.
3 The Tale of John Barleycorn or, from Barley to Beer by Mary Azarian
Printed in 1982, a beautiful version of this folksong illustrated with woodcuts.
4 Wine in War and Peace by Evelyn Waugh
Waugh’s 1947 tribute to his beloved vino with illustrations by Rex Whistler.
5 Drinks-Man-Ship by Len Deighton
This 1964 collection of essays were culled from Town Magazine. Very scarce.
6 The Stork Club Bar Book by Lucius Beebe
First published in 1946, this cocktail recipe book also offers an insight into saloon society.
7 Bar Room Ballads by Robert Service
First published in 1940, a lusty collection of poems and ballads from frontier saloons.
8 Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England by Frederick W. Hackwood
First published in 1909, this covers the lot – pub signs, drunkenness, breweries, songs etc.
9 The Broom Is Out: Confessions of a Budweiser Beer Drummer by Dick Wall
A memoir from an Anheuser-Busch executive – details pre-WWII life in St Louis, Missouri
10 Mother’s Ruin: The Story of Gin by John Watney
A long forgotten gem from 1976 – details how gin drinking became a political hot potato.
And the bonus 11th book is…. The Class Book of U.S. Beer Cans
Homer Simpson would love this one from 1982 – photos of 2000+ beer cans from 1930 to 1980.
See more books about drink here.
JD Salinger Dead at 91. 1919-2010
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
JD Salinger, 1919-2010
A private man who valued his personal space and being left alone, Salinger had struggled with unwelcome attention and legal battles more than once, most recently last year when he filed a lawsuit against the author of 60 years Later: Coming Through the Rye, an unauthorized and (extremely) thinly veiled sequel which features Holden Caulfield as an elderly man, leaving his nursing home and taking a trip to New York.
Salinger’s son has issued a statement that his father died at home, on January 27th, of natural causes.
The Most-Used Cover Image?
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Have you ever wondered which single image has appeared on the greatest number of books? According to the Caustic Cover Critic blog, Diego Velázquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’ has been widely used on various covers excluding the many other Valazquez focused books which also make use of it.
The Rokeby Venus depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by her son Cupid. The painting currently resides in the National Gallery in London.
Here are just a few book covers which feature the painting:
- The Forgery of Venus – Michael Gruber
- Kings & Connoisseurs – Jonathan Brown
- In Praise of Older Women – Stephen Vizinczey
- The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity & Sexuality – Lynda Nead
- What Great Paintings Say – Taschen
- Venus At Her Mirror – Andreas Prater
- Blue Guide Museums & Galleries of London
- The King Amaz’d: A Chronicle – Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
- Desde el divan – Irvin D. Yalom
- Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age – Frederick A. de Armas
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Banned from Classrooms. Really.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
In further “the world is going insane and I want to go to space” news, a school district in Southern California has pulled the 10th edition of Merriam Webster’s dictionary from the classroom.
Why? Because it contained what they felt to be a graphic definition of “oral sex”. For the record, this appears to be legitimate, and not an Onion-style spoof, or anything. The offending definition – which as I understand it, was not accompanied by illustration or instructions – read: “oral stimulation of the genitals”.
I understand wanting to protect and shelter our children, and have them learn adult concepts and terms when they’re at an age ready to process that information and understand it, and I appreciate parents wanting to ensure their kids get the kind of education (sexual and otherwise) they feel appropriate.
But the world is made up of television and internet and other kids and older kids and words written on walls. That’s just the way it is. I think a clinical definition written in a dictionary – which might bring up more questions, which we can always encourage our children to openly bring to us – is a much better place to start than having a kid hear a term, not know what it means, have nowhere to look, and either come up with their own erroneous ideas, or trust what they’re hearing on the tire swing.
The more we try to hide and censor and bury and shelter – aren’t we just adding more layers of “it’s dirty, it’s bad, it’s something to be ashamed of”, so that when children hit puberty and start to have perfectly natural sexual feelings, the chances of them feeling really terrible, secretive and shameful about it are increased?
Personally, I think open communication, honesty and encouragement of questions and discourse is the best way to have healthy, happy kids. Removing access to education and learning seems backwards to me.
Just my two cents.
But hey, maybe Merriam-Webster should consider publishing a “Krazy Kids” version of their dictionaries, with every 10th definition consisting of “Ask your parents.”
Biggest book in the world
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Imagine putting this bad boy on your bedside table? This is the behemoth of books. You’d need a truck to get it home and you have to get up to turn the pages and walk them from one side of the book to the other. A couple of my cars have been smaller than this book.
(Imagine the shipping costs if you bought it on the Internet?)
Top 10 Books Written by Librarians
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
1 The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin
The 1955 poetry collection that made his name – Larkin was a librarian at the University of Hull.
2 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Her 1962 sci-fi/fantasy classic (rejected by many publishers) – L’Engle worked as a librarian in New York.
3 The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges
Repeatedly overlooked for the Nobel Prize, Borges was a municipal librarian in Argentina – this 1949 collection is one of his best.
4 Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
This 1964 novel became a movie in 1970. Berger worked as a librarian and journalist.
5 Star Man’s Son by Alice Mary Norton
A post-apocalyptic tale from 1952 – Norton was a librarian in Cleveland and the Library of Congress.
6 Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
An ex-librarian AND bookseller, Petterson’s novel was one of the NY Times’ books of the year in 2007.
7 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
This former librarian won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1985 with this novel.
8 The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot by Angus Wilson
A librarian in the British Museum, Wilson’s 1958 novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
9 At Mrs Lippincote’s by Elizabeth Taylor
Taylor was a governess, teacher and librarian – At Mrs Lippincotes was her debut novel in 1945.
10 Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem
Breem was a legal manuscripts librarian in London – a Roman General is the hero of this historical novel.
And since we are talking about librarians, here are the top 10 best songs about librarians and libraries.
PS – if you work as a librarian then email your recommendation for the best book written by a fellow librarian to media@abebooks.com
Martin Amis Recommends Euthanasia Booths For Upcoming Silver Tsunami
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Martin Amis is certainly no stranger to controversy or public argument. He’s famously outspoken and eager to speak his mind. This time, he’s talking about the rapidly ageing population of Britain, and how he predicts the coming ‘Silver Tsunami’ will result in a clash between young and old and tear the country apart.
His proposed solution? Euthanasia booths on street corners, which issue martinis and medals before snuffing the user.
I suspect Amis’ suggestion is more tongue-in-cheek than literal, and merely meant to call attention to an important-to-him issue. In recent years, Amis has witnessed the slow and painful death of his stepfather, and the confused, bewildered and frightened decline and eventual death of his friend and fellow author Iris Murdoch who died of Alzheimer’s Disease.
While clearly Amis’ suggestion of erecting suicide booths might sound like a cross between P.D. James’ Children of Men and Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, (both excellent, if you’ve not read either/both) and too far-fetched to be anything but science-fiction or satire, the fact remains he brings up an interesting point.
We allow our pets the mercy and dignity of euthanasia, when death is imminent and suffering begins. Meanwhile, humans, who have the capacity to open their mouths and indicate their wish and readiness for death, are not afforded the same quiet, end, even though it would be at a time of their own choosing.
Read the entire article about Martin Amis and the Euthanasia booths in The Guardian.
No hable español
Monday, January 25th, 2010Top 10 international bestsellers of 2009
Monday, January 25th, 2010
The annual ranking of European international bestselling authors has been released by the British magazine The Bookseller. This year, in no surprise, Steig Larsson jumped into top spot while Khaled Hosseini dropped off the list entirely after dominating last year’s list.
From the Bookseller
The ranking analysed chart data, between January and December 2009, from seven of Europe’s largest book markets, attributing points for every month that a title has stayed in the top 10 bestselling lists of Buchreport/Der Spiegel in Germany, Livres Hebdo/Ipsos in France, Informazioni Italiani in Italy, Boekblad/GfK in the Netherlands, El cultural in Spain, Svensk Bokhandel in Sweden, and The Bookseller in the UK. Compilation and analysis by Rüdiger Wischenbart Content and Consulting
Top 10 ranking of fiction writers in Europe in 2009
1 Stieg Larsson
2 Stephenie Meyer
3 Dan Brown
4 Paolo Giordano
5 Carlos Ruiz Zafón
6 Camilla Läckberg
7 Herman Koch
8 Tatiana de Rosnay
9 Henning Mankell
10 John Grisham
