Miaou Moonbeam

When our boys were nine and eleven, we carted them around the art museums of Europe for five months, an interesting experience for me, as at the entrance to each great gallery I asked them to choose which painting they would buy if they were unimaginably rich. Their choices were fascinating. The only predictable one was the Mona Lisa, and when I asked why, I was told it was because that was the picture advertising a certain brand of television. With constant exposure, it had become warm and familiar, apparently. I have always been interested in the art of hand bookbinding, since the day that artist showed us her entry in a competition for the binding of a rare copy of Moby-Dick. Her husband Renny was director of the Penobscot Maritime Museum in Searsport, Maine, at the time, and he and Julie invited us to their beautiful old house in Thomaston, where Julie had a studio.

From memory, six book binding artists had been given a copy each of the historic edition of Melville's immortal tale, and a certain amount of time to make and attach an appropriate cover. Julie had etched a pattern of ratlines - the ladderlike ropes the seamen used to climb the shrouds to the top of the mast - on textured leather. The result was striking and memorable.

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The recent arrest of Governor Rod Blagojevich has unexpectedly boosted the sales of an obscure political novel. Scott Simon's satirical version of Illinois politics came uncomfortably real when Blagojevich was charged with his attempt to bolster his bank account in a novel and surreal way.

Simon's novel, Windy City, is replete with corruption, greed and all that stirring stuff, but the author says he would have drawn the line at having any of his characters try to sell a Senate seat, as it would have been so hard to make it plausible. Sony, grabbing the window of opportunity in these hard times, has embarked on an intense publicity campaign for its latest version, the Reader 700. It comes equipped with a touch screen so readers can interact with the book by making notes (great for researchers, I imagine). It costs only slightly more, $400, and, in an echo of the first paperbacks, which were produced by Louis Hachette back in 1853, with the aim of selling cheap, light, readable books to travelers, it is being promoted in train stations and airports. I must confess to being a deliberate between-the-pages stuffer myself.

Originally, I was following the example of Fildes, a prominent early Wellington book collector, whose collection is now in the Beaglehole Library at Victoria University. All the books he owned have a special added interest, in that he inserted newspaper clippings (too often, alas, unsourced and undated) relating to the content, in each the book, along with bits of paper with scribbled comments about said content, sometimes quite unkind.

Chef rescue for pc. The receipt from the bookseller from whom he bought the book is often there, too, recording a fascinatingly small amount paid for a volume that is now quite valuable. So, with my own books, I started slipping in relevant newspaper cuttings (carefully sourced and dated, of course). Then I started adding relevant letters I'd received, sometimes from the author of the book, and occasionally from people who are researching the same topic. This has proved frustrating in the long run, as there are times I need to find a certain letter, and can't remember which of the books I put it in. But it is tremendous fun when I buy a secondhand book and find that the previous owner(s) did exactly the same thing.

On October 3, 1906, twenty-year-old Georgia Maria Gilkey of Searsport, Maine, was married in her graduation dress. There had been no time to make a wdding gown, for the bridegroom was a seaman. Captain Phineas Banning Blanchard had proposed to her during one of his fleeting trips home, and one week later they were married. Georgia felt no doubts about the headlong courtship. As she reminsced later, when Banning had taken her out sleighing the sled had capsized, dumping them both in the snow. And that, according to a local old wives' tale, was a sure sign they were to be wed.

So George married her captain in her gradulation gown, carrying a bouquet of pink carnations. And, after a hasty buffet luncheon, the newly weds took the train to Philadelphia, to embark on the great square-rigger Bangalore, for a honeymoon voyage around Cape Horn. Last Sunday's book section of the features an alarming story by Dave Itzkoff. The Man Group, a publicly traded investment company and hedge fund that has sponsored the Booker Prize since 2002, announced that it had about $360 million in funds linked to the rogue Wall Street executive Bernard L. Madoff (pictured).Former Nasdaq chairman Madoff was recently arrested on a charge of making off with fifty billion dollars entrusted to his companies by trusting investors, in the most high profile collapse of a hedge fund to date. Breaking news is that a New York-based money manager who may have lost $1.4 billion of client funds in Madoff investments has killed himself in his Madison Avenue office. By contrast, Madoff, who appears to have no conscience at all, is probably headed for a comfortable white collar prison.His shenanigans have sent two European banks to the edge: Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander have lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

'Madoff has single-handedly turned an already very bad year for hedge funds into a catastrophe,' said one commentator, according to. So is it a catastrophe for the Man Booker, too?Apparently not. Man Group's loss, though it appears huge to ordinary folks like you and me, wipes out only 1.5% of its assets, and the company insists that the sponsorship deal will not be changed or cancelled. The probity of the is under investigation, in high profile accusations of bribery and undue influence, according to news released by The Times.Two senior figures in the process that chose Harald zur Hausen for this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine have strong links with the London-based multi-national pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which has also recently begun sponsoring the. The company strongly denies any wrongdoing.It is not the only question mark hanging over the probity of the Stockholm-based foundation. The Swedish prosecutor yesterday opened a parallel investigation into bribery allegations after several members of Nobel committees admitted enjoying expenses-paid trips to China to tell officials how candidates are selected for prizes.Other members of the Nobel Foundation are said to be gravely concerned that the reputation of an organisation that honours the highest achievements in human endeavour is under threat from companies and nations hungry for Nobel glory.So far, the literature prize has not been implicated, thankfully, but ramifications could lurk in the wings.

Horace Engdahl Resigns After Ten Years as Secretary of the Swedish AcademyHorace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize-distributing Swedish Academy, has just announced that he will leave his post in June. A couple of months ago, I posted a report that Engdahl had dismissed American literature in a couple of impolite sentences: 'The U.S. Is too isolated, too insular.

They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature.' Have the chickens come home to roost? BRITON SAVAGED FOR BOOK ON SEEDY SIDE OF GREAT WRITERCRITICS IN TURN ACCUSED OF 'CONSPIRACY OF CENSORSHIP'Thus run the sub-headers in a story written by Kate Connolly which was published in on Friday, August 15, this year. Old news, but new to me. Apparently, it is hotly debated in the blogosphere (to which I return after being stranded for days with very limited internet connection.

Don't, whatever you do, download a program called 'iTunes,' as it monsters your internet usage without you knowing it, and you can end up with an enormous bill.)Well, it seems that a collection of pornography owned by Franz was recently discovered at the Bodleian Library (Oxford University) and the British Library, by Kafka authority James Hawes. Hawes revealed some of this erotic material in his recently published book Excavating Kafka. According to the story, this stash was concealed by scholars in an attempt to preserve the writer's image, and the content is definitely sensational, in an upmarket sort of way. 'These are not naughty postcards from the beach,' Mr.

Hawes is quoted as saying. 'Some of it is quite dark. It's quite unpleasant.' Understandably, German academia is outraged.'

Hawes has given us a look through the keyhole of a Kafka with his trousers down,' wrote Kafka researcher Anjana Shrivastava, going on to colorfully scoff that to call those 'illustrated magazines. Hardcore porn is like comparing a poem by Heinrich Heine with an advertising slogan for McDonald's.' Kafka critic Klaus Wagerbach called Hawes an ignorant idiot. Kafka biographer Rainer Stach said the furore was an 'unbelievable marketing ploy.' So, does the pornographic collection exist? No one has ever claimed that Kafka was pure and chaste (though I am surprised that anyone so subject to utter gloom, who so tragically starved to death while those who cared for him stood helplessly by, should be so interested in sex, the source of life).

However, says Stach, the 'pornographic' pictures are quite innocent, really, being 'playful representations, some styled like caricatures.' Hawes, an Oxford graduate who teaches creative writing, has hit back at his critics, accusing them of 'a conspiracy of censorship.' Why, he demanded, have Kafka scholars deliberatedly ignored this aspect of their idol?Who knows? The debate continues. Nine-year-old Alec Greven hand-wrote a book, called it How to Talk to Girls, and sold it at a school fair for $3. Apparently it went like hot cakes, as it was a dating guide for kids, replete with hints about how to talk with the opposite sex.

HarperCollins picked it up and turned it into a hardback, and the movie rights were sold to Fox, all within a week.As GalleyCat comments, it is surely worth a disbelieving shake of the head that 'during these topsy-turvy days for publishing, a 9-year-old kid struck gold.' Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reckons bookstores are the 'temple of the soul,' according to a story by John Elder in.And, sure enough, the eminent politician was surprised by a reporter from The Sunday Age while ferreting around in Readings bookshop in a Melbourne suburb, Carlton, where Mr Rudd bought a copy of Nuns Having Fun, although he tried to pass off his purchase as a 'bit of Christmas shopping.' Having delivered that prevarication, he headed for the new releases table at the front of the store, and became elaborately immersed in Edward Duyker's A Dictionary of Sea Quotations in an effort to avoid this unseemly interruption by the press.The public foiled him, however, by demanding that he pose for photos with them, occasionally with babies in tow. The babies, he liked, but the inspection of his choice of reading matter was evidently unsettling. By the time he got to the cashier, Mr Rudd was also carrying Tom Holland's Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom and Simon Schama's The American Future: A History. The famous Auckland Writers and Readers Festival will truly glitter on its tenth birthday next May. While the program is always exciting, next year the winners of the 23rd Commonwealth Writer's Prize will be announced in a scintillating ceremony.All eight regional winners - who will be announced in March 2009 - will take part in the activities, and visit schools and literary bodies while they are in the country.

This Festival is always a big boost for the cultural scene in Auckland, with famous writers, critics, and journalists flitting here and there in the crowd. Next year, obviously, be bigger, brighter, and better than ever, with visitors arriving from all over the world.While the first deadline for entry has passed, publishers are urged to make late entries. They can do this as long as they notify the relevant, and get the books in by December 31, 2008. At Viacom and NBC Universal more than a thousand jobs are being shed before Christmas, according to the.Sumner M. Redstone has announced that Viacom would shave seven percent of its workforce, and freeze salaries for top managers, in an effort to save about $200 million next year. NBC Universal, likewise, is going to lay off five hundred staff, including some veteran correspondents.At Universal Studios, a memo from chairman Marc Shmuger announces that staff numbers will be cut by three percent, and the studios will be 'scaling back on travel, overtime, consultants, premiers, conferences, newspaper marketing and general administrative costs.' 'This kind of message is never easy,' said Jeffrey A.

Zucker, CEO of Universal (which is owned by the General Electric Company). Executives at the Walt Disney Company, the News Corporation and CBS are preparing themselves to issue that 'kind of message,' too, as sales and advertising revenue dry up.Employees who have lost their jobs at Viacom, including those at Paramount Studios, will be paid until December 31, and then get some kind of severance payment. 'Saying goodbye to friends and colleagues is always difficult,' say the president, Philippe P. Dauman, and Thomas E. Dooley, the chief financial officer. It must be hard for them to feel their pain, though - their salaries might be frozen, but they will still receive an end-of-year bonus for navigating the firm in rocky financial waters.

Last year, Mr. Dauman's bonus was $7 million, and apparently the target this this year's sterling work is to be $9.5 million. Last year, Mr. Dooley's bonus was $5.6 million, and this year it is slated to be $7.6 million.

Intrigued by the rush of adverts. For 'Black Friday' which have crammed the online US new papers the last couple of days, I wondered why the term was used. Cute cat cut rope around face. I have always believed that Black Friday fell on the 13th day of the month. My mother used to warn me to beware of accidents and mishaps on that day, and I wore clean underwear in case I had to go to hospital. She didn't suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia (obsessive fear of the number thirteen), thank God, or I would not have been allowed out at all.Friday has been considered unlucky since time (written time, that is) began.

Chaucer mentioned it in The Canterbury Tales. Seamen refused to sail from port on a Friday, and their captains agreed with them, though the owners of the ships might have griped. Thirteen is equally unlucky, so the combination is particularly dire.And 'black' is the color of mourning., was certainly a day for mourning on Wall Street. A bunch of hotshot financiers tried to corner the gold market, and their abject failure led to a total collapse of the stock market, followed by a depression. The Panic of 1873 also began on a Friday, but apparently it was the 1869 debacle that added the word 'black' to the economic lexicon of misfortune. From there, it was just a step to 'Black Friday 13.' So why all these ads.

For 'Black Friday,' when it isn't even Friday-the-thirteenth this week, Friday's date being November 28? And why advertise something that is supposed to be unlucky?Apparently, in the shopping lexicon, Black Friday is the shopping day after Turkey Day. Everyone who is currently employed is off work, there are no games on TV, so everyone goes out shopping.

BIGGEST SHOPPING DAY OF THE YEAR, the adverts. It's a lucky day for the owners of the stores, because that their account books finally get into the black, and an unlucky day for the staff behind the counters, because those hungover crowds are grumpy.

And, according to the entry for 'Black Friday' on it isn't really the biggest shopping day, as people go to see the bargains before they start thinking about Christmas.Happy Window Shopping. A new digital library launched by the European Union has crashed within hours of opening - forcing its closure - according to a.The website was attracting more than 10 million hits an hour - more than double the anticipated number.The site includes paintings, photos, films, books, maps and manuscripts from 1,000 museums, national libraries and archives across Europe.

It is expected to reopen in December after technological improvements. Users currently find a message saying the site is'temporarily not accessible due to overwhelming interest after its launch'. It adds: 'We're doing our utmost to reopen Europeana in a more robust version as soon as possible. We'll be back by mid-December.'

'Thousands of users were searching for the words 'Mona Lisa' at the same time', explained a spokesman for the European Commission.' It confirms it's worth doing, European culture is more popular than we had anticipated in our wildest dreams,' he said. After a massive surge just before Europeana's launch, the system's creators doubled the number of servers from three to six and got it working again for a short time.

However they will now perform more tests to ensure the digital library can stay open at peak times.On Thursday, most hits came from Germany, followed by France and Spain. Four per cent of online requests about Europe's cultural heritage came from the United States. 'I can't predict what's going to happen a day from now, much less four years from now,' she said, according to excerpts released by her friend (and who needs enemies when they have friends like this), Fox News.

'You know, I have - faith is a very big part of my life. I'm like, OK God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Even if it is cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plough right on this that and maybe prematurely plough through it, but don't let me miss an open door.' The challenge reminds me of a page-turner I picked up by mistake and couldn't put down - a book called Ghost by the chronicler of the Roman Empire, Robert Harris, who suddenly abandoned the caesars to. The mystery was great, but what chiefly intrigued and enthralled me was the main character, who was a ghost writer for written-word-challenged public figures.

Until I read it, I had never thought about the immensity and intensity of the tact, diplomacy, and sheer self-control necessary to get the job done. And, in the course of this, I have come across what may be a strange animal.

Well, it could be an artifact, but it is included in a list of shipboard livestock. Wrote Wallis on July 8, 1767, ' Employed as before.

Served Pork & fruit to the ship's company, gave the Old Man a Goose & Gander, a Turkey Cock & Hen & Three Galleances, an Iron Pot many sorts of Garden Seeds & shewd him how to Plant them, sot in different places Plumb, Peach Cherry Apples, Mellon and Pumpkin, Lime, Lemon & Orange Seeds. ―I was taken very ill again ―'Galleances were new to me - what are (or were) they? I thought of hens and roosters, but Tahiti had plenty of hen and roosters already. (Wallis called them 'fowles.' ) Then again, he could have been playing with a Latin word.

Galliformes, I found, are game birds, terrestrial, grain-eating, and ground-nesting. They include the common fowl - also pheasants, partridges, grouses (grice?), turkeys, guinea fowl, and peacocks. I love the idea! Well, those callivances were new to me, too, but obviously there were lots of those small white kidney beans, while there were only three Guinea hens, exactly the same number as the mysterious galleances - so could they be one and the same? It's possible, because Hawkesworth took liberties with his material, and it would have sounded a lot more important if the 'queen' had been given all those fancy presents, instead of a helpful but ordinary old man - who probably had to pass them on to Purea, anyway, for she was a chief, and chiefs tended to appropriate such things.

President-Elect Barack Obama keynoted the opening general session at the American Libraries Association Annual Conference in Chicago, June 23-29, 2005. The following August his speech - which drew record crowds, and a standing ovation - was keynoted itself, being adapted for the cover story of the August 2005 issue of American Libraries.The message, headlined, Bound to the Word, is inspirational.It begins: 'If you open up Scripture, the Gospel according to John, it starts: 'in the beginning was the Word.' Although this has a very particular meaning in Scripture, more broadly what it speaks to is the critical importance of language, of writing, of reading, of communication, of books as a means of transmitting culture and binding us together as a people.'

Read it all on. A strange juxtaposition, but both stories are absolutely fascinating. Mary Lacy, at the age of 19, ran away from her nursemaid's job and signed up as the boy servant of the carpenter of the 90-gun ship of the line Sandwich, under the alias, William Chandler. The following year she moved to the guardship Royal Sovereign, then decided to serve an apprenticeship as a shipwright, which she managed despite hard work and awful difficulties, with the help of her multitude of friends (many of whom were girlfriends, with whom she had lighthearted and probably lesbian relationships).

I sketched out Mary Lacy's career in my own She Captains, and there is a more detailed study in Suzanne J. Stark's Female Tars. In the harbinger of what promises to be remarkably successful venture, book distributor of Nevada has just announced that one of their clients, Stone Pine Press, has sold the Russian rights to a young adult book about female scientists.This is Women Astronomers: Reaching for the Stars, by the rather aptly named Mabel Armstrong. The first in a planned Women in Science series, Women Astronomers describes the fascinating women who strived for the stars, from Hypatia of Alexandria through Maria Mitchell of Nantucket to astronaut Sally Ride. Though Caucasian, very successfully brought two Navajo detectives vividly to life, complete with their inner thoughts and private problems.

Ovet the years, Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, sterling members of the Navajo Tribal police in the gaunt, arid, stunning setting of New Mexico, have almost become members of the family. They were certainly part of the inspiration for Wiki Coffin, the half-Maori detective of my mystery series.

And, while the color schemes of the distinctive Hillerman book jackets may not have been as spectacular as the desert the two native American policemen roamed, I have always enjoyed the use of stylized American-Indian figures. My last post elicited a very interesting comment from bookseller Amber Thody. Fascinated by the idea of jackets selling books, she confided that she found the cover of the Fall catalogue she had received from Canadian publisher quite enchanting.So I asked her to send along an image of the cover that had fascinated her so - which she very kindly agreed to do, adding:I don't know if you can really see the pic clearly - it is a misty mystery of sepia forest growing up into typewriter keys. The arm things that fly back and forth to the ribbon when you bang the keys. Do they have a name?

Stampy arm-banging things. Anyway this is the one I want to hug and kiss and stroke every day.The other one is 's latest, and I included it because this is what southwestern Ontario looks like right now and it's beautiful. My route to work involves a lot of countryside and I go past immense fields of pumpkins. They are hidden to me in the dark mornings, but burst forth in the startling sparkly blue afternoons every day.I would be interested to know what others think of these two catalogue covers.

I love the one with the pumpkins. They jump out of the image, and make a statement - because of perspective, atmosphere, and color. This feeling is confirmed by a conversation I had yesterday with one of Wellington's most wellknown sons, bookseller, publisher, and bibliophile. When I asked him which jackets sold best, he instantly said, 'The warm colors - red, maroon, orange.

Blues and greens are cool and uninviting,' he added.