The Ten Most Expensive Books Sold in June 2007

Nothing associated with Versailles could be expected to come cheaply. It's no surprise then, that the memoirs of one of the Sun King's courtiers fetched $8,474 last month.

Can't say I'd want to read any of these. That's a good thing because I certainly couldn't afford to buy them.

Read your books and wear them too

Library-bookshelf Cardigan , edged with printed stacks of books and little library creatures. I just love it!
Via Design Observer

Remembering Jack Kerouac

Remembering Jack Kerouac: A friend of the author of 'On the Road,' published 50 years ago this month, tells why the novel still matters

How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Changed My Life

I decided I wanted to read something undemanding and this novel by Mameve Medwed fit the bill. Abby Randolph runs an antiques shop, more of a stall actually. Her dad made her feel like a failure because she failed to follow the academic path he laid out for her. She has had a couple of romances that ended badly and have contributed to her low self esteem. This book is about worth - the worth of objects and self-worth. Abby inherits a chamber pot that no one else wanted and, believing it to be worthless, she uses it as a planter in her shop. On the advice of a colleague she takes the object to The Antiques Roadshow and finds that it once belonged to that most romantic of poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and that the spaniel pictured on it is Barrett Browning's beloved dog Flush (ha ha). Squabbling over the previously unwanted object ensues and Abby learns a lot about herself in the process i.e.: it's our flaws that make us what we are. I was prompted to reread a few Barrett Browning poems and googled Flush (I love a good dog yarn) so I learned a bit in the process too. Not a keeper but subtly humourous and it has a lot of heart.

And they call it living.....

One in Four Read No Books Last Year:

"One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices."

Via Neatorama

AKA

Author Pseudonyms, aliases, nicknames, working names, legalized names, pen names, noms de plume, maiden names... etc.
Via Information Junk

Suite Francaise

Suite Francaise was written by Irène Némirovsky as the horror of World War 2 unfolded around her. It was to be a novel in five parts but Némirovsky died in a concentration camp having completed only the first two parts, Storm in June and Dolce. Her daughter kept her mother's notebook as a keepsake, not realizing that this magnificent work was contained in it. Many years elapsed before it was finally published.
Part 1 details the evacuation of Paris as the German troops advanced on the city. Rich and poor evacuees are thrown together and Némirovsky recreates the panic and chaos that ensues on their flight south.
The second volume takes place in a small occupied village and tells the stories of a few of the inhabitants, again from a range of social strata.
The author writes with a great deal of sympathy about aristocrats, office workers, landowners, farmers, the French and the Germans. The characters are portrayed with deep compassion and all ring true. It is surprising that she is able to maintain an objective view given that she was living through the horrific events that she writes about. One of the appendices to the novel contains letters written by Némirovsky and others at the time she was working on the novel, before she was arrested. One can sense her fear, desperation and concern for her two young daughters. It is remarkable that she could apply positive characteristics to those who would shortly incarcerate her and be responsible for the deaths of her husband and herself.
The considerable poignancy of the story is amplified by the real life tragedy that underlies it. Suite Francaise is far and away the best wartime novel I have read. I only wish she had lived to complete her opus.

Judging books by their covers

How to Make People Buy Books

Despite everything we learned in elementary school parables about swans and ducklings, the simple fact is that people really do judge books by their covers. And that's why Knopf art director Chip Kidd is a writer's best friend. Over the last twenty years, Kidd's creations have drawn readers to books by David Sedaris, James Elroy, and Michael Crichton (to name a few).

Vintage Children's Books Online

The Rosetta Project, Inc., the largest collection of illustrated antique books on line.

RIP Margaret Avison

Poet Avison's 'incalculable' contribution to Canadian literature: Canadian poet Margaret Avison, who was lauded as a “national treasure” when she won the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize four years ago, has died at age 89.

THE DUMBFOUNDING

When you walked here,
took skin, muscle, hair,
eyes, larynx, we
withheld all honor: "His house is clay,
how can he tell us of his far country ?"

Your not familiar pace
in flesh, across the waves,
woke only our distrust.
Twice-torn we cried "A ghost"
and only on our planks counted you fast.

Dust wet with your spittle
cleared mortal trouble.
We called you a blasphemer,
a devil-tamer.

The evening you spoke of going away
we could not stay.
All legions massed. You had to wash, and rise,
alone, and face
out of the light, for us.

You died.
We said,
"The worst is true, our bliss
has come to this."

When you were seen by men
in holy flesh again
we hoped so despairingly for such report
we closed their windpipes for it.

Now you have sought
and seek, in all our ways, all thoughts,
streets, musics--and we make of these a din
trying to lock you out, or in,
to be intent. And dying.

Yet you are
constant and sure,
the all-lovely, all-men's way
to that far country.

Winning one, you again
all ways would begin
life: to make new
flesh, to empower
the weak in nature
to restore
or stay the sufferer;

lead through the garden to
trash, rubble, hill,
where, the outcast's outcast, you
sound dark's uttermost, strangely light-brimming, until
time be full.

Thanks But No Thanks

For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital.More

This Book Will Save Your Life

This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes strengthened my conviction that L.A. is a souless wasteland to be avoided as it is headed for almost certain annihilation.

Richard Novak lives in a magnificent house in the Hollywood Hills with only his housekeeper, nutritionist and physical trainer for companionship. He has effectively cut himself off from the outside world and the folks in it and worries only about keeping up with the most faddish trends in self-improvement. His fantastic wealth is earned through day trading which he does while working out on his treadmill.

An inexplicable and intense pain drives Richard out of his coccoon and forces him to take a hard look at his life. He comes into contact with real people (who aren't working for him) for the first time in a long time and decides he likes them: the donut shop owner, the unhappy housewife, the famous actor, the Salingeresque reclusive author. He reconnects with his family. He embarks on a frenzied series of charitable activites and heroic rescues (of a stranded horse and later a kidnap victim). Through these acts he redeems himself and becomes a lovable person. Hell, he even gets a dog.

This is the sort of dark satire that I find appealing. I enjoyed reading it and can hardly wait to read other Homes books.