Top 10 List of Top 10 Lists...

NYT has a nice article on Top 10 (insert area of interest here) for 2006. It includes many links to various top 10 lists (heavy on tech and pop cult) and some for "what will 2007 bring".

Of particular note is the list of Top 10 Blogebrities for 2006...sadly, I was not included...however, my acquaintance/distant friend/brilliant twisted freak, Ze Frank took first place...well deserved as his "The Show" is, in my not-remotely-humble opinion, one of the few web shows that is fresh and worth watching every day.

Fair warning, Ze's, The Show can suck a huge number of hours from your life...and his broader site will eat dozens more. You have been warned.

An ATM for books...

I'm still catching on the huge pile of "things I should post about while being wildly busy with work and family, etc."...so please bear with me. As should have been mentioned elsewhere (I also have not had time to read my daily blog intake, of late), Fortune Small Business has an article on On Demand Books', Espresso...basically an ATM machine that can:

print, align, mill, glue and bind two books simultaneously in less than seven minutes, including full-color laminated covers.

It has an upper page limit of 550, but can scale text so you could, in theory, print a much larger volume in a really tiny font and have yourself a completely unreadable, but single volume, copy of, say, Sandburg's Lincoln biography.

Expect to see it one in the NY Public Library in Feb., 2007. Interesting option for reading copies of difficult to secure works...we shall see how it rolls out.

Little Rare Book Room: A quick song for your post-holiday/bibliophilic pleasure

A personal favorite of mine from my recently chatted about Scary Solstice collection, please enjoy "Little Rare Book Room" (Lyrics by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman, based on 'Little Drummer Boy,' written in 1958 by Katherine Davis, Henry Onorati, and Harry Simeone):

Come, they called me
The special book room
The rarest books to see
Librarian's tomb
Kept under lock and key
In terrible gloom
To save man's sanity,
It's pointless, we're doomed, thoroughly doomed, utterly doomed.
Necronomicon
The first I exhumed
From the book room.

Book of Eibon
So frightfully old
Vermis Mysteriis
A sight to behold
The Monstres and Their Kynde
With edges of gold
Could make me lose my mind
All covered with mold, fungus and mold, poisonous mold.
Kitab al Azif
Its horrors untold.
Still I am bold.

King in Yellow
Left me feeling glum
The Ponape Scriptures
I'd stay away from
And then The Golden Bough
My brain had gone numb
I read them all out loud
Well that was quite dumb, terribly dumb, fatally dumb.
Freed the Great Old Ones
Mankind will succumb.
What have I done?

For better or worse, I have listened to this so much over the last few days that I can not sing it all from memory...and have been...over and over and over.

Chaos reigns...or creeps...for the last week or so

Sorry for the delay in posts...several in the pipeline but things have been insane. The holiday was great fun. My boys and my new nephew (happily at the "eat, sleep, wail" stage of existence) where highly entertaining. People ate WAY too much (xmas eve dinner was our "traditional" lobster dinner (I love living in Maine) and xmas dinner was an even more traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, et al, event) and great fun was had by all.

My family has a long-standing tradition to over-indulge the whims and fancies of all involved at pretty much all gift giving holidays (and there are MANY, if you take the right approach (Bloomsday, for example)). This year was heavy on Cthulhu and friends. I received a wonderful gift from a client, a copy of Baby's First Mythos by C.J. and Erica Henderson...he had the Henderson's inscribe it and include and *wonderful* color sketch of Cthulhu draped over a cityscape and thinking, "Hmmmmm, city" (think, "hmmmmmm, chocolate"). Everyone should have clients who get them wonderful books.

I also received two pairs of bookish gargoyles from my wonderfully crazed father. Mom did her part, too. She discovered the wonders of the H.P. Lovecraft Society. As a result I found, lurking under the tree, the CD, DVD *and* script for A Shoggoth on the Roof (a slight adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof). Even better (and more in keeping with the holiday) was the exceptional "Unbearably Scary Solstice" collection...this included A Very Scary Solstice and An Even Scarier Solstice, complete with song books and all contained in a handmade "tentacle" stocking. I can not recommend these albums highly enough. Lyrics to some will likely follow. Finally, a great t-shirt with Cthulhu reading a book (undoubtedly the Necronomicon) with "Bibliophile" beneath.

I, of course, need about 3-4 days to recover from this "holiday". Sad...so very sad.

Books, science, myth, Cobb County and the ACLU...

Fair warning, minor rant to follow: Yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a heart-warming piece titled: Cobb gives up on evolution book stickers. In brief, the Cobb County school board, in an attempt to add their own surreal touch to Cobb's colorful (or is it colorless) history ordered stickers be tipped into all the science books (35,000) basically stating that evolution is a theory, not a fact.

Needless to say, some number of rational residents of CC brought suit, supported by the ACLU and many lawyers were made extremely pleased. A judge ordered the stickers removed. Many people sat around scrapping stickers out of books. CC appealed. CC settled the action, agreeing to pay about $167,000 to cover the Plaintiff's legal fees. Add to this sum their own legal fees and I wager that CC has managed to blow about $250,000 or so that could have been spent on...er...new science books.

The issues in CC can best be summed up with the closing comments of the article. Larry Taylor, a father of three students in the system and an advocate for the stickers used the currently trendy "if I find it threatening to my myopic view of the world, blame 'terrorists'":

"They were trying to do the right thing. It's terrorist organizations like the ACLU that are hijacking our country's educational system by imposing their own secular agenda on the rest of us."

On the rational side of reality, Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., stated:

"Students should be taught sound science, and the curriculum should not be altered at the behest of aggressive religious groups. Cobb County school officials have taken the right step to ensure that their students receive a quality education."

This is, of course, the latest skirmish in the ongoing "Intelligent Design" debate and I am not going to dwell on the generalities (admittedly, I have ranted about this before). I have, however, had a thought.

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

I have had a change of heart. I rather like this statement. It is clear and states things that make sense. The textbook contains material on evolution - *excellent*, I'd be worried if it did not and it lets me know what to look forward to in the book. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things - again, *excellent*, evolution is in fact a theory (a reasonably well tested and understood theory, but a theory just the same)...with luck, this statement might trigger useful discussions about theories, hypotheses and facts, a very useful conversation in this age of reality distortion. And finally, noting that "this material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered" should be a "restating the obvious" issue...but if schools find it necessary to remind students (and/or teachers) of this *fact*, so be it.

No, to be fair, I think there should be a sticker added to the front of all bibles (and possibly other religious texts, but for the moment, just bibles. I propose something like the following:

This bible contains material on spirituality, the nature of the human condition and a hypothesis on the origin of all things. The text contained herein is the product of many centuries of an oral history, the stories being told by one person to another, with all the inherent issues origin presents. It is also the product of many iterations and revisions, again over many, many years...some official, some less so, with large portions edited, excised and/or added at various points of time and for various reasons; it should be viewed as a theory, not a fact regarding the original of all things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

Or words to that effect, this is clearly very preliminary. It's just a thought...but it might might be a useful approach. I am very open to all constructive thoughts.

Sadly, it looks like Lenin was right...

Vladimir Lenin, noted advocate of the press is quoted as saying:

Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should a man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?

So have things changed since he said this? Well, unfortunately, no. TPM Muckracker has an incredibly disturbing story: Bush Admin: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Us.

Basically, someone noticed that after issuing monthly reports on the number of attacks in Iraq since the war began, DoD suddenly declared these reports "classified" since September of this year. Curiosity as to what triggered this change led, as such things often do, to discovering an extraordinary pattern of conduct when it comes to reports/studies/commissions/etc. that produce (or may produce) data the administration does not want to hear (and/or want you to hear).

Some examples:

When a gov. report showed an increase in global terrorism in 2005, the Admin. announced it would stop publishing the report.

When the Bur. of Labor Statistics reported a significant increase in the number of factory closings in the US, the Admin. announced it would stop publishing information about factory closings.

When the Dept. of Eduction found that charter schools were underperforming, the Admin. announced it would sharply curtail the amount of information it collects on charter schools.

The EPA announced plans to close several libraries used by researchers and scientists. The agency claimed it was a cost-cutting measure...which conflicts with a 2004 report indicating that the facilities *made* the EPA a $7.5MM surplus annually.

And, of course, on November 1st, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order limiting the public's access to presidential records. This order undermined the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which required the release of such records after 12 years. Bush's order prevented the release of "68,000 pages of confidential communications between President Ronald Reagan and his advisers" (some of whom had positions in the Bush Administration).

There are many other examples. It depresses me. I want to rant about it...but lack the energy. I think I will just go reread 1984, curl up into a fetal position and wait for this to be over.

A technology whose time as come (more or less)

I just had a very interesting experience. I have an amazing collection of images of W.S. Maugham taken by his nephew (and bibliographer) Robin Maugham. They are, largely, very personal and wonderfully annotated at the rear by Robin. Oh, and there are 110 of them. While it is a remarkable collection, they are very hard to describe well in a reasonable catalogue entry. Enter the iSight.

I just spent about an hour using iChat video conferencing with a potential buyer on the "Wrong" Coast (as opposed to the "Right" Coast (look at a map, it makes sense)), and was able to show them each image. It did reverse the image, making showing them the notations at the rear a bit of a challenge. Overall, however, it worked extremely well. Given the alternative of sending the entire collection across the country for review, it was a tremendous success.

While there is still no way to actually "feel" a book (or collection of images) from afar...the examination aspect appears to have been well covered. I highly recommend trying it when the circumstances warrant it.

ADDENDUM: The client contacted me today and the deal is done...with more slick Apple tech clinching the deal. There will be a follow-up post about this in a bit. Great tech and great books, an unbeatable combinations.

A year of statistics in a literary agent's

Pub Rant's, another blog that I keep forgetting to mention, has posted a great entry on the statistics of her past year. Over 20,000 queries read and responded to and over 50 manuscripts requested/read. It makes me tired and more pleased than ever to be in the area of the trade where I dwell.

Mandelbrot Set

I must admit that I am a geek...of the math/tech flavor, not the glass/live chicken eating variety. Some time ago Jonathan Coulton wrote the best math song since Tom Lehrer wrote New Math. Personally, I much prefer the acoustic version, but the more rocking version is excellent, too. Here, I offer you FOUR different videos of the same song...all are worth listening to and watching. I've added a bit of description below each:

Very funny, pity they bleeped the one bad word.


Brilliant! Leave it to a Scandinavian.


Nice use of zooming deeper into fractals and the "plotting" of the chorus is just great.


Very simple...very beautiful and an exceptional demonstration of the complexity and stunning nature of fractals. Then entire video is set to a slowly zooming frame...it does not change position, just drills down in a wonderful example why fractals make math geeks happy.

If you do not know about Mandelbrot and/or fractals, this is actually a great starting place...both on the "art" of it as well as the math and history.

Grapes of Wrath...by Dr. Seuss

A young man re-writes Grapes of Wrath in a slightly different voice:

These are the Joads, the Joads are poor
They had a farm, they don't no more

He also provides critical analysis of his process and choices. Too funny.

Major Book Related Announcement

Pamela Anderson stars as a party girl who tries to start over in a small independent bookstore. Hilarity, of course, ensues. Christopher Lloyd is also a regular. The entire season...NINETEEN episodes...on three dvds.

You can tell its bookish goodness from the cover...see, she's holding a book. If you look carefully, you can see that it is "Bad Boys"...and it is upside-down.

There is a slim chance I will order this and do an episode by episode review of the entire season. Of course, this is only like to happen if I break my hip in the next few weeks...so keep your finger's crossed.

Pray For Coal...

This is the last holiday gift post, I promise (*hiding fingers behind back*). The fine folks over at Radar Magazine have a VERY funny article on the top 10 (ok, 11) most dangerous toys. It covers the usual suspect from Lawn Darts (Jarts, as they were branded) to cute little death hammocks to a Cabbage Patch doll designed to eat children's fingers. My personal favorite is the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab...almost as much fun as letting a pool of mercury bead about in the palm of your hand (come on, you know you did it too).

On a minor side-rant, I object to the banning of many of these toys. Granted, giving kids a "toy" that melts (toxic) plastic at high temperature might be considered...er...dangerous...but my complaint is really just with the toxic nature of the plastic, not the molten aspects. I think our over-protective nature (and over-litigious nature) runs the risk of breeding generations of small humans who genuinely can not identify/protect themselves from risk.

The analogy is what is happening with the "success" of childhood immunizations. Our success in suppressing childhood diseases is having an unintended consequence of effectively creating generations of young adults whose immune systems are *more* susceptible to later viral/bacteriological attacks because their immune systems were never tested/challenged in childhood...that is, never grew robust.

Perhaps the problem is that we have grown accustomed to buying schlock for our kids and expecting them to go off, play with it and leave us alone. Have you *tried* to find a good chemistry set for kids recently...it has become *really* hard to find one that is *remotely* interesting/challenging (that is, can make things that explode/flame/burn). I loved my chemistry set (and my electronics set, with which I could have pretty easily electrocuted myself). What I *really* loved was the time I spent with my father playing with them...because I was only allowed to use the sets *with* him.

Lawn darts were/are *really* fun as is, I am sure, a cannon that shoots eyeball sized cannon balls 35 feet, as are (I guess) "power wheels" (though, admittedly, throttles that stick open are a bit of an issue). It is sort of a shame that dangerous toys can't be seen from a sort of "applied Darwinian theory" approach...if you can't live through a childhood of dangerous toys, its simply Nature culling you from the herd.

The interesting thing to me is that my most dangerous moments in childhood were with VERY safe toys that I managed to make REALLY dangerous. For example, I went behind the barn (so mom wouldn't see me, and set up a big battlefield in the gravel drive out the back of the barn, complete with trenches and little trees, etc....all the while burying BlackCat firecrackers all over the battlefield with their little wicks over the trenches (*foreshadow*). When everything was *JUST RIGHT* I poured gasoline down all the trenches and then a stream back about 5-10 feet or so...then I lit it off. Flames, explosions, bits of rock and molten plastic flying all over...it was EXCELLENT.

I also remember making a large (3 feetish) plastic model of the the battleship Iowa, drilling a hole in the deck, pouring in some gasoline, plugging the hole with a firecracker with a *long* wick and pushing it out into the lake. The explosion was GREAT but the coolest part was the strange molten plastic abstract art piece that was all that was left of the mighty Iowa.

Then there were "Kite Wars"...where my best friend and I would take perfectly save delta wing bat kites, superglue split double edged razor blades along the leading edges of the kites wings and fight with them (you'd get less points cutting the string than you did for shredding the opponent's kite).

Oh, and then there was the "Lie Detector" that a friend and I made. It had a bunch of printed circuit boards that didn't do anything, a red LED, two copper pads and a scissor switch (the first time it is pushed, it does not make a connection, the second time it does)...and a 700 watt very low amp li-ion battery. My friend and I took it to school. We would "demonstrate" it on eachother, licking our fingers first, "to make a good connection" and then answer a question. Nothing would happen, because we answered truthfully. Then we would let our friends try. They would lick their fingers, hold the copper pads and, with the push of a button, take a shock that pretty much numbed your arms up to your elbows. I am, with the advantage of age, very pleased none of our friends had heart conditions. This was great fun all day...many people came back for more...wildly dumb. These days, we would probably be arrested. Hell, we probably should have been then. To be fair...we were quite confident it would not hurt anyone...we had tried it out on ourselves and his younger brother before bringing it to school.

Admittedly, I did a fair amount of incredibly stupid things...but I generally did them carefully and have all my fingers and toes and eyes (and only a handful of scars). The trick, I suggest, is not necessarily to *protect* kids from any and all risky toys...but to teach them trouble shooting and problem solving skills so that when they embark on some ridiculously dangerous pursuit, they manage to live through it. I worry that in protecting them from the consequences of dangerous toys, we are crippling their ability to understand and cope with "dangerous decision making". This all said, a doll that mechanically "eats" and can not be stopped when...er...a finger is being chewed...is just plain stupid.

If you are still looking for that last minute present for mom or grandma

(or, or dad, or uncle Earl). I don't knit, though my lovely and far-more-talented-than-I wife does and my mother does so in her sleep (quite literally, sometimes). I think I am going to get one of these for each of them:

Domiknitrix: Whip Your Knitting into Shape. San Francisco's Domiknitrix brings a wide variety of patterns that are off the beaten path...some more functional than others. I need to think about who I know who still wears a mohawk because the idea of a 'hawk hat it too funny.

Naughty Needles: Sexy, Saucy Knits for the Bedroom and Beyond. Racier than Domiknitrix, filled with wonderful pinup shots of items in use (the yarn for the Red Riding Hood cape is on order [begging the question, "is a 'gift' to buy yarn for your wife to knit an item that is really for your amusement...or does one need to learn to knit *g*]). The author, Nikol Lohr, is responsible for Disgruntled Housewife [fair warning, not really fit for work...and you may loose a hour].

Who thought knitting could be such fun. Thanks to Violet Blue at the SFGate for the heads up.

Toronto book thieves caught on tape

The Hartford Courant has a quick article on a pair of book thieves literally caught red handed. After noticing an earlier theft, the owner installed security cameras and actually managed to catch the nattily dressed couple stealing books. It is always nice when book thieves are caught. I'll do my best to get a copy of the film.

whatever happened to flogging dead horses...

Vintage photo of the day brought to you by, I'm not making this up, the Sheboygan Press (I admit, I thought Sheboygan was some of those fanciful places like Oz, Narnia or R'lyeh). It is unclear *why* there is a man, in a tophat, sitting on a dead horse...but sometimes you have to just enjoy an image for the image's sake.

Blog addendum...

As always, I forgot some sites that I greatly enjoy and must make amends for this gross oversight:

PhiloBiblos: Well written and fun...strong news and reviews and a wonderfully voyeuristic peek into his library (courtesy of LibraryThing...I think I may have to do this too, it is strangely entertaining).

Cuppa Joad: This Alibris sponsored blog is heavy on reviews and TWELVE contributors...an interesting one to watch for evolution. [Full disclosure: CJ recently said very nice things about this site in a post titled: Book Blogs for Bibliophiles to Pour Over, this apparent lack of judgment should not weigh against an otherwise very strong site.]

I'm certain I have still forgotten others...Please feel free to email me a quick poke with a sharp stick if I have forgotten (and/or never seen) your blog.

Apropos of nothing, I am thinking of trying to mount a web client screen in my bathroom for blog reading purposes...though clearly just for frivolous news and culture blogs...not the *important* blogs 'o books.

Also, Hugh has a great post on "Buying Books Online (Safely)". In summary, he says the same thing that ASWR said in Books & Bidders in 1926. To paraphrase both: If you want to buy books with confidence, buy from a reputable bookdealer. As I have said (ok, ranted about) before, Hugh notes that the web has made this more complex, as the "egalitarian" nature of the web makes it very difficult to tell the difference between Peter Stern, Maggs, Borders, Good Cheap Books and Devil Dan's House 'O Stolen Books when scanning the offerings of the aggregators. It is a subject that I am certain I will rant about again sometime soon...but really appreciate Hugh's eloquent analysis.

Is Crichton's poisoned pen aimed at Crowley's penis...

This has been getting a bit of play from various sources but I hope you will allow me my wee personal rant. Some time ago Michael Crowley, a political journalist of TNR fame, wrote a piece (second page here) in that journal about Crighton's brilliant writing style and intellectually stimulating plot lines. It opens with the following quotation from State of Fear:

She took a sip of red wine, then set the glass down on the bedside table. Unceremoniously, she pulled her top over her head and dropped her skirt. She was wearing nothing beneath.

Still in her high heels, she walked toward him. ... She was so passionate she seemed almost angry, and her beauty, the physical perfection of her dark body, intimidated him, but not for long.

Apparently Crichton took offense at the accolades heaped upon him. "Next," his most recent bit of airplane reading (did anyone else read Airframe while flying a redeye across the country?), includes a character named "Mick Crowley" who happens to be a Washington-based political journalist...who----wait for it----rapes a two year old baby boy.

Mr. Crowley (who often goes by "Mike" and, like the the "Mick" went to Yale...but does not, I believe, rape babies), is quoted as saying, “In lieu of a letter to the editor, Crichton had fictionalized me as a child rapist." The following is a snippit taken from the NYTs

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. (NYT, Columnist Accuses Crichton of 'Literary Hit-and-Run')

Now don't get me wrong: I am fond of trashy reading. I am fond of some of Crichton's speculative romps...though the science is *often* so broken that the annoyance level grates at me. I am fond of really public personal attacks...especially really venomous ones (as noted in the NYT's piece, Crighton took advantage of the "small penis rule" for defamation, the idea being that no one wants to go into court and say, "yep, that 'small penis', it's definitely ME").

No, what really offends me is how Crighton has slowly drifted into annoying (and...er...wrong) socio/scientific/political rantings that make his recent books little more than thinly veiled position rants with the intent, I suggest of pushing/shaping public opinion (e.g. State of Fear re global warming, Prey re nano-tech and now Next re biotech). I know, I know, people aren't that dumb to get their ideas about major social/cultural/scientific issues from the pages of Crighton's thrillers...they are too busy watching Fox News and reading USA Today.

Crowley sums it up exceptionally well at the end of his apparently offensive piece:

The Bush years have been Michael Crichton's anni mirabiles. And now, like a mighty t-rex that has escaped from Jurassic Park, Crichton stomps across the public policy landscape, finally claiming the influence he has always sought. In this sense, he himself is like an experiment gone wrong--a creation of the publishing industry and Hollywood who has unexpectedly mutated into a menacing figure haunting think tanks, policy forums, hearing rooms, and even the Oval Office. And, ironically, this leaves Crichton in the very role he and the science-fiction genre have always derided: the hubristic man of opinions, the insider, the expert.

The sad thing is that this little tiff is undoubtedly going to lead to the sale of additional copies of Next. I think I'll wait for the inevitable film.

In the meantime, I am going to go reread one of Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels...at least his happily misogynistic protagonist ("all women want him, but none can possess him") finds lots of neat things in unusual places...I learned everything I know about archeology from Dirk (well, and Indiana Jones).

Truthiness - The Word of the Year

Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2006 has been announced:

truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

Stephen Colbert's, far too appropriate for the WH's view of the world, word gets the credit it is due.

Interesting new search site (and more)

So welcome to the world, viaLibri. It is in the manner of BookFinder and AddAll, a meta-search tool (allowing you to search multiple aggregators at once). It is still evolving, but it appears extremely well designed and to have some rather exceptional features. You can choose where you want to search (or, more importantly, where you do not wish to search), the interface is very clean and the "Rare Book - Bargain" option is, if nothing else, funny.

Personally, I loved their 552 page. Basically, this is a link field of each of the 552 years of publishing history populated with recently cached matches. It may not be especially useful...but is it was strangely additive. I also love that you can post catalogues to the site. There is also a nice "Library Search" tool that I have not seen elsewhere

You do not appear to be able to "sort" on the price field, but I wager that will be forthcoming (and/or I missed something). There is also no way to preclude paperbacks (or vice versa)...again, a favorite of mine. Most interestingly/inexplicable is that the search results are slightly strangely organized (e.g. "X found at xxxxx" appears reasonably arbitrary)...but again, this may be my brain (as I have not had the time to really dig into the site).

That said, the aesthetic and the UI is absolutely great. There are some well entrenched players in the market and I do not see an income model...but I hope they succeed.
Thanks to Hugh for this.

Blogs added to the right...

It has occurred to me that I there are several new(ish) book blogs that I have been following closely but that I may not have mentioned recently (and were not included in the sidebar). This clearly must be dealt with:

Hugh's Blog: Hugh is emerging as a book bloggin' phenom-he posts often, he writes well, he posts some outstanding "help" posts, he rarely rants and never posts video of adult toys. Highly recommended.

Bibliophile Bullpen: Dear Ms. Godsey has discovered, it appears, a means to cull more time from any given day. She posts often, she appears to run several dozen clever and creative projects and is generally a great starting place during morning coffee(s). She also has a nice list of resources. Another must read...

Book Links.info: Another project of Hugh's. The idea, when fully rolled out, is that it will be a one stop shop for any/all links for bookish sites. Not fully rolled-out, but the blog is up and running...given Hugh's track record for execution, bookmark it now.

Book Patrol: An excellent, well-written blog that has recently been eaten by the Seattle Post Intelligencer. It is, as far as I know, the first absorption of a book blog by a mainstream press vehicle. (I wager I will not suffer this fate *g*)

Biblio-Technician: Bill Guffey's excellent musings. Often as long as my rants, usually funnier and more interesting. A great read.

Tech Ramblings from the Rare Book Trade: An outstanding tech focused blog (with the occasional tacitly related post or two). He does a great job covering the bits of this and that (hardware and software) that filter into, out of and around the book world.

I am certain I am missing others. Do email me if you are profoundly offended that I missed your book blog. I certainly need *more* ways to loose time (I must remember to touch base with Godsey re her time bending methods).

MECA's Long Overdue project...

The Portland Public Library and the Maine College of Art teamed up several months ago to create the "Long Overdue: Book Renewal" project. Basically, PPL took a few hundred books that were to be de-accessioned from the library and gave them to 200 artists to be "renewed". The resulting Altered Books were then re-accessioned into the library, displayed/shelved and can now be taken out (including by inter-library loan) and can be searched in their catalogues (use the keyword "altered books").

I tend to look askance at the wanton destruction of books...but this is very much a transformation. A book is very much a work of art (admittedly, some more so than others), this project effectively morphs one art form into another. The project started in early 2005 debuted early this summer...one of many reasons I am fond of Portland.

[I must admit that this was something I meant to blog about during one of my "quiet periods" (that is, I was running about too much to carve a moment or two to blog). Thanks to my friend and far more responsible blogette for reminding me of this wonderful project.]

Holiday gifts ideas that are...er...inspired...

Mark Morford, of SF Gate fame, is at it again with his:

world-famous, wonderfully sporadic, semi-annual non-intuitive completely biased guide to gifts for the juicy and the weird and the delightful and the damned. Warning: Contains references to iPods. And sex. Sometimes in the same item.

There are some great ideas...my personal is probably "They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books" (e.g. "I am the literary event of 2007, or at the very least the most entertaining drunk on my ward. Please visit (Mon-Thurs, 5-7 p.m., bring chocolate, and gin). F, 41. Box no. 4365."). I have several copies for friends and family.

From the, "oh my god, I can't wait to see my sister and her husband open THAT in front of my parents" catagory: The iBuzz. It is the "world's first music-activated sex toy for couples". It has two headphone jacks so you and your love can share the...er...experience, as it were. See video below. I will try to get a picture that includes my sister's and both parents faces in one shot. I am the best older brother a girl could ever want.

Mark has a number of other great ideas. He gives a good plug to Think Geek, the *best* one stop shop for the geek in your life. Also, if you like giving things that grow (and eat), Carnivorous Creations Grow Dome allows you to grow a wee garden of 7 different flesh eating plants. Nothing says Happy Holidays like carnivorous plants (N.B. They have a number of other very cool plant kits...poke about).

For the bookishly inclined, I've posted a short catalogue of fine press and fine binding items that cover pretty much any interest and budget. Have fun.

The following is a promo video for the iBuzz. I'm sorry...I really am...but it is the funniest thing I have seen in years.

MS rolls out its "me too" book search tool

As most know, Google debuted a reasonably amazing plan to digitize pretty much everything out of copyright that has ever been put to print and make it searchable. This will be great, as there are a number of book reports I wrote in high school that I would love to see again. Google Book Search has been extremely interesting to watch as it evolves and grows.

Well, as imitation is the surest indicia of success/importance/covetiveness, Google should be pleased that MS is rolling out their own iteration of book search. The major difference between the two, other than the institutions playing with each, is that MS is only going to scan material out of copyright (in keeping with their rather narrow and/or draconian view of copyright) and Google is doing a whole bunch more (mostly with publisher's consent). In my not remotely humble opinion, this means Google's efforts will be far more useful...but time will tell.

Truer words have not been spoken...

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
[Lovecraft, H.P., The Call of Cthulhu]

What a great opening paragraph...what a great summary of our place in the universe. I genuinely love Lovecraft (though that he passed away barely older than I, already having left the body of work in his name leaves me feeling...well...unworthy). Remember, Cthulhu 2008, why choose the lesser evil.

Dewey Readmore Books - RIP

Dewey Readmore Books (arguably one of the all time great cat names) passed away recently at the ripe old age of 19ish (over 90 in cat years). He was the library cat at the Spencer Public Library, having arrived, so I just learned, as a kitten deposited in the book drop on a cold winter evening...strangely fitting for a book cat. He has his own page on the library's site (complete with job description) and they have a nice set of postcards so you can have a Dewey of your very own. Very pretty cat...I love that some people planned vacations around visiting Dewey. I need a cat again...it has been too long.

Another reasone why LibraryThing makes me smile...

Everyone is familiar with sites that run recognition algorithms, "if you like [insert random bit of dreck here], you'll love [insert alternative, slightly related bit of crap here]". Amazon's is arguably the most sophisticated (hell, I avoid most of the time because it is *so* good at recommending "related" titles that I "might be interested in" [read: "must own"].

The fine folk at LibraryThing have created the Unsuggester. Basically, you type in the title of a book you own/love/read and LibraryThing uses special magic to look at their 7 million and select a book (or books) that you are LEAST likely to find interesting or like. That is, they look at the collections of in their databases and identify those that would catch fire if you included whatever it is your used as a starting point. This can be fun, just as an exercise...but it could also be a an interesting way to find new material that, apparently, you would never think about reading. Strangely cool.

Back on the Amazon side of things: it is great fun, when given the opportunity, to seriously twist a family member/loved one's Amazon's algorithm profile. I recall fondly finding Amazon up on my father's machine one afternoon. Half an hour of mischief later...well, suffice it to say that he actually complained to me that "Amazon was acting really strange". He apparently found the combination of fetish photography, BDSM related material and Republican biographies very strange offerings (given his medical history and leftish leanings). Mind you, he is also the one who, when I popped the "S" and the "D" keys off his keyboard and switched them, called me REALLY excited and told me that something "must have been crossed" in his keyboard because, "when I hit "s", it makes "d"s appear and vice versa". I think he can now touchtype...oh well.

Several hours of reading conveniently in one place...

Forbes has a rather great collection of bookish articles under the guise of "Books: Special Report." Thanks to Fine Books and Philobiblos for the head's up on this...I must admit that I no longer subscribe to Forbes (though have a nearly complete run from 1930 to 1945, it was unbelievably good back then...exceptional writing and images by Bourke-White).

Dress at a bookfair, revisited

I was just reviewing my contract from the "new" Boston MARIAB book fair (Boston Antiques Weekend) . I know, I know, but while I am recovering, there is still an attorney lurking in the depths. Whilst perusing the document I ran across the following:

Dress: Business casual is required. No Jeans [sic], t-shirts, sweatshirts, or sneakers during show hours. ... Why a dress code? The Boston Antiquarian Book and Ephemera Fair is being produces in conjunction with the Boston Antiques Show. In the antiques show world, dress codes are common for better shows and since the Boston Antiques Show will be a high quality show, we must have the same standard for each of the shows.

So simple, so clear (so sad that there needs to be "Why the dress code?" section). I hope more shows begin to follow this lead. This is an issue that has been discussed ad nauseam by some here and elsewhere, and I look forward to seeing how this pans out. As I've said before, when you're asking the public to spend real money...dressing like you care is not too high a hurdle (not to mention a sign of simple respect).

Ink Drinker...

I love the Ink Drinker. It is, in short, the story of a young man who follows a spooky fellow from his father's bookstore and discovers he is a vampire. Said vampire is allergic to blood and learned to drink ink, experiencing the text as he supped. Just a great story (see review by Joyce G., Age 9). There are several other stories in the series and, I hope, more on the way. Perfect for a bookman's children *g*.