This selection of rare almanacs stretches from Benjamin Franklin to a sporting reference book still being published today. Don’t rely on your trick knee – get your hands on an almanac, and prepare for what’s coming.

Our bus has a reading club. Not a book club, but definitely a reading club. There are five members in this club, although the number of participants varies from day to day. I don’t know their names or where they live or what they do, but all are a part of my work day routine.

From We Need to Talk About Kevin to Lord of the Flies, there are numerous utterly evil children in literature, and we’ve put together a selection whose crimes are far worse than lying, stealing or most other childhood misdemeanors. Be warned.

In the case of these amazing, fantastic, I-can’t-stop-raving-about-them examples, there is also flour and sugar, presumably. Yes, a creative genius whose friend I would very much like to be, over at the luminarium blog, made a batch of illumination cookies for his friend. He chose historiated initials from a variety of manuscripts and created what looks to be 24 letters of the alphabet (not sure whether Y and Z are just missing from the photo for symmetry, or they did not get created) using edible paper attached to square cookies, and then piped on edible gold edging. I really think the result is so gorgeous. I wonder if they were tasty, too.

I love when people combine food and literature. It’s like the world gets brighter, just for a moment. *happy sigh*

Read our illuminated manuscript feature to learn more about illuminations, historiated initials, and medieval books of hours.

via BoingBoing.

But the greatest has to be the one by Honor Blackman. If you don’t know who Honor Blackman is, she’s a remarkable woman. She was Cathy Gale in The Avengers in the early 1960s and she was one of the greatest of all Bond girls as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger in 1964. Blackman was an icon of the 1960s and, like most folks who become famous, she brought out a book at the height of her celebrity.

In 1965, Andre Deutsch published Honor Blackman’s Book of Self-Defence and it’s a remarkable piece of 1960s girl power. See Honor slam some villain into the hay, see Honor deal with some creep in stripey Speedos on the beach, see Honor bust the arm of some bloke who touches her up on a park bench, see Honor dish out some old school violence to a drunk in the Dog and Duck.

Ladies – you don’t need pepper spray, you need this book, which is filled with useful judo techniques and self defence moves. Honor was no fraud and developed her judo skills at London’s Budokwai dojo for her TV and movie roles. All that attention to fitness served her well, Honor Blackman is still acting today – not bad for a lady born in 1925. And Honor Blackman’s Book of Self-Defence has become a cult classic and rather scarce.

The image on the left is from an 1802 book called Histoire naturelle generale et particulière des Mollusques by Denys Montfort. The image on the right is one I came across today, from 2004, listed as original children’s book art by Tom Leonard, and called Mysterious Giant Squid.

The Kraken hasn’t changed much in 202 years. Which version do you prefer?

Novel Winner: Among Others by Jo Walton

Novella Winner: The Man Who Bridged the Mist by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2011)

Novelette Winner: What We Found by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011)

Short Story Winner: The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation Winner: Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Wife by Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Winner: The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman