Wanted: One Resourceful Book Lover

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  • Wanted: One resourceful book lover
  • Your Mission: To invent an easily removable price sticker that does not require any of the following: a razor, solvent or 20 minutes spent digging with a fingernail.
  • Requirements: Patience and excellent sales ability, as you will need every book shop in the world to use your product.
  • Your Reward: Eternal glory and the genuine thanks of millions of readers everywhere. Oh, and lots of cash, as you will doubtless become filthy rich in the
    Paradise Ruined by Another Cheap Label

    Paradise Ruined by Another Cheap Label

    process.

  • Signed: Maedez

A Year in Books/Day 48: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors

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  • Title: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Vol. II Great Britain and Ireland Part Two
  • Editor: Francis W. Halsey
  • Year Published: 1914 (Funk & Wagnalls Company)
  • Year Purchased: September, 2010
  • Source: Springfield (OH) Antique Show & Flea Market
  • About: This tiny book was one of a ten-volume compilation series culled from previously published travel essays by famous authors. On hand are pieces by Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Boswell, William Makepeace Thackeray, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and others. Even in 1914, some of the essays were decades old. Now, they all read like history as well as travel-they remain fascinating word-gems of a time long ago surpassed by the frantic rhythms of our modern world.
  • Motivation: I bought this perfectly preserved first-edition copy while shopping for vintage lovelies for my December 2010 nuptials. It was too adorable and cheap ($3.00) to pass up. History and literature is a heady mix for this girl.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 54: “It is doubtful whether the name of any lighthouse is so familiar throughout the English-speaking world as the “Eddystone.” Certainly no other “pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day,” can offer so romantic a story of dogged engineering perseverance, of heartrending disappointments, disaster, blasted hopes, and brilliant success.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7 1/2
    English: photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson

    Image via Wikipedia

     

A Year in Books/Day 47: The Girl from the Fiction Department

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  • Title: The Girl from the Fiction Department A Portrait of Sonia Orwell
  • Author: Hilary Spurling
  • Year Published: 2002/This Edition: 2003 (Counterpoint)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: My Mom
  • About: A thoughtful, even-handed biography of George Orwell’s controversial second wife (and widow). Although it was written by a later-in-life friend of Sonia’s with the stated goal of setting the record straight, it’s the real deal: well-researched, compassionate and honest.
  • Motivation: My Mother knows me well! Biography + complex woman + literary theme= winner!
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 87: “This was the Sonia who bewitched others all her life, and whose abrupt disappearance invariably came as a shock. Maurice didn’t care for the second self who replaced the first, the wary, reticent Sonia whose uncertainty made her overbearing, the Sonia who could never trust herself or anyone else, especially not someone who seemed in retrospect to have surprised her into an intimacy she feared and could not sustain.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 46: Scotch Whisky

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  • Title: Scotch Whisky A Liquid History
  • Author: Charles MacLean
  • Year Published: 2005 (Cassell Illustrated)
  • Year Purchased: 2009
  • Source: A dear friend.
  • About: The history of Scotch, covering the years 1494-1994.
  • Motivation: This book was a thank you gift from a close friend. My (now) husband and I love Scotch. In fact, my appreciation of and knowledge about the beverage helped him fall in love with me. Although this is the stuff of another story or ten, our mutual love of the drink has been a pretty constant thread in our relationship. Aw, romance!
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 37: “In 1707 Scotland was one of the poorest and most backward countries in Europe. Agriculture was at the stage it had reached centuries before; manufacturing, as we understand the term, did not exist. Even the gentry lived in relatively straitened circumstances-an average gentlewoman would possess no more than three or four fine dresses throughout her lifetime.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2

 

A Year in Books/Day 45: Haunted London

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English: Exterior of The Langham, London

Image via Wikipedia

  • Title: Haunted London
  • Author: Richard Jones
  • Year Published: 2004 (Barnes & Noble Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2005
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: A photograph-rich travel book that blends traditional history with paranormal research.
  • Motivation: I’m a history-mad Anglophile with a penchant for off-the-beaten-path adventure.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 23: “A forerunner of London’s grand hotels, the Langham Hotel was built in 1864. Its Victorian splendor was host to such famous names as Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Napoleon III of France, and the composer Dvorak -who managed to offend the sensibilities of the management when, in an attempt to save money, he requested a double room for himself and his adult daughter.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 44: Good Old Index

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  • Title: Good Old Index The Sherlock Holmes Handbook
  • Author: Thomas W. Ross
  • Year Published: 1997 (Camden House)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: Every single thing you could ever want or need to know about Sherlock Holmes, except, perhaps, which actor best embodies the timeless sleuth.
  • Motivation: Although I am not an obsessive Holmes fanatic, I am quite the ardent reader. I also love lists and encyclopedias.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover: 1/As consulting tool: countless

    Sherlock Holmes

    Image via Wikipedia

  • Random Excerpt/Page 62: “Epithets, for Holmes, hurled at him by scoffers: see busybody; cocksure; jack-in-office; theorist; clever.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 43: The Big Bam

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  • Title: The Big Bam The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
  • Author: Leigh Montville
  • Year Published: 2006 (Doubleday)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: A first-rate biography of Babe Ruth, written by a first-rate sports writer, Leigh Montville (‘Ted Williams’). A good biography is easy enough to find. If you can manage to locate one that combines in-depth research with a nuanced understanding of human psychology, all blended together with sports knowledge and the ability to tell a damn fine story, then you are likely in the presence of greatness.
  • Motivation: I grew up watching baseball with my Grandpa (the Indians, not the Yankees). It remains one of my favorite past-times, evoking fond memories whilst simultaneously creating new ones. I love a good character study and, wow, is Babe Ruth’s life perfect fodder for that!
    Babe Ruth, full-length portrait, standing, fac...

    Image via Wikipedia

     

  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 122: “The Los Angeles Times reported that this was the biggest national rumor since the famous “Fake Armistice” story of November 7, 1918, which at first sent people into the streets in celebration of the end of the world war, then resulted in a number of riots when the news turned out to be false. The Babe rumor, while it did flash through poolrooms and boardrooms everywhere in the country, had a much quieter finish as baseball officials immediately denied it.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 24th-27th January

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  • Edith Wharton was born on 1/24/1862. “Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all the deadly sins.”
  • Vicki Baum was born on 1/24/1888. Her novel, ‘Menschen im Hotel’ supplied the basis for the 1932 Hollywood film, ‘Grand Hotel’. Starring John and Lionel Barrymore, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford (along with many others), it was one of the first big budget all-star productions.
  • Robert Burns was born on 1/25/1759. “Dare to be honest and fear no labor.”
  • W. Somerset Maugham was born on 1/25/1874. “Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.”
  • Virginia Woolf was born on 1/25/1882. “A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.”
  • Ouida died on 1/25/1908. Her novel ‘Under Two Flags’ has been adapted for the screen 5 times, the 1936 version starring Ronald Colman and Claudette Colbert being the most famous.
  • Lewis Carroll was born on 1/27/1832. “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end. Then stop.”

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