Briefly

You know by now that I admire the work of book critic Laura Miller.

This month, she wrote on why men don't read books, and on bad writing and what it's good for. Check it.

Sony Reader Touch - my new toy

My Sony Reader (Model PRS 600) arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago. I was terribly excited about receiving it, but completely unprepared for the resulting love affair. I know, I know! I am a book lover! This blog is, after all, entitled 'Paper and Ink and Glue'. But I want to be honest with you, and the truth is that I adore my ereader.

IF YOU READ THIS BOOK THE WORLD WILL END

The Hypothetical Library is a blog by cover artist Charlie Orr. The project is fascinating: he asks authors to give a title and a description of a book they could write, but never will write, and then designs the covers and posts them.

When I first came across The Hypothetical Library, I thought 'That reminds me of the libary in the Dreaming, from the Sandman comics.' This library contains not just every book ever written, but also every book ever intended. It's one of my favourite things about the Sandman series. (Click on the image to see what I mean.)

As it turns out, I was right: The Hypothetical Library was actually partly inspired by the library in the Dreaming.

Now, Orr has actually designed a book for Neil Gaiman (with audio and e-book versions to come). The book is entitled If You Read this Book the World Will End. It looks as if the world actually would end, too. You can view the post here.

Would the real Sherlock Holmes please stand up?

I posted here about how the book is not always better than the film, and how I enjoyed the recent Sherlock Holmes film. I've since had several friends mention to me that they were disappointed with the film, in virtue of the characters being so different from those written by Conan Doyle. 'That's fair enough,' I thought, 'You have to draw the line somewhere. You don't get to go around claiming a film is based on a book if it doesn't even use the same story or characters.'

After all, everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes was a reserved private detective who spent his time smoking a pipe whilst sitting in a wingbacked chair, the picture of civility. It's all incredibly sedate and English. Right?

Robert Downey Jr., on the other hand, plays him as:

• a detective consulted by police
• eccentric
• energetic
• alcoholic (when without work)
• brash
• a prizefighter

Imagine my surprise when I started reading the Sherlock Holmes books and found that Holmes actually is all of these things! With one exception- in the books, Holmes has a cocaine habit when out of work. We can safely assume that the cocaine was substituted with alcohol in the film for the purposes of winning the sympathy of modern audiences (at the time, cocaine use was considered a vice, but not a terrible one).

Shouldn't the Sherlock Holmes fans be praising Guy Ritchie for presenting the rich, endearing true nature of Holmes to the world? (Not to mention for turning an English cliche into a fresh adventure story?)

Something of a filler

It occurred to me that I should alert you to the fact that posts this month are (and will be) few and mostly likely not very substantial. This is because the final two weeks of the semester are upon me. I know my priorities. =)

In the meantime, I was sneaking in some Black Books last night and noticed something of a resemblance between two of my favourite book-related people:

If you haven't seen any of Black Books and you are in possession of a sense of humour, I suggest you do yourself a favour and watch some. And by possessing a sense of humour, I mean that you have laughed at one of the following:

a.) The Princess Bride

b.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

c.) Something by Terry Pratchett and/or Douglas Adams

Edit: A friend has pointed out that I failed to note that the dashing gentleman on the left is Dylan Moran of Black Books, and the charming one on the right is Mr. Neil Gaiman.

A book for mum

Belinda Alexandra's White Gardenia is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It has everything: history, romance, drama. It follows Anya, the daughter of a Russian aristocrat, displaced from birth. She flees her home on the Chinese-Russian border and grows into womanhood amidst the glitzy world of Shanghai nightclubs, only to again be be chased away by the circumstances of history. Once again a refugee, she must find a new homeland.

Alexandra is an Australian author and her historical detail is both accurate and fascinating. From the publisher's website:

"White Gardenia sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the harshness of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960s, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia."

I highly recommend it, for yourself as well as mum.

View on fishpond: White Gardenia Books Alive Edition

Austenbook

Elizabeth Bennet became a fan of Pemberly.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is suprised and hopeful.


...You get the idea, but it doesn't really work with the formatting of my blog. Which is all the more reason to check out the Austenbook page for yourself. What a delightful way to spend ten minutes!

Links links links

Books are a passion of mine. If you've read this blog before, you know that. My passion, however, isn't just for my own reading. It extends to other people. My favourite thing about my job (I work in a bookstore) is helping customers find books they will enjoy. I love matching a person to a book, I love it when other people enjoy what they're reading, I love other people's passion for books.

To that end, I've posted a couple of pages of links on this blog. You'll see the tabs above- Where to buy books and (Actually) Useful book links. These aren't links to other book blogs or to pages that I happen to enjoy reading, they are links to websites which I find indispensible to my own literary life. I've posted them because they're useful, fantastic for anyone with an interest in books. I'd love it if you had a look.

Sex tips?

It always puzzles me somewhat when people laugh feminism off as the pointless preoccupation of bra-burners and hairy women. Sure, bras turned out to be kind of useful and some of us like our legs hairless, but that doesn't mean the ideals of feminism are beside the point. (I blogged about the continuing need for feminism here.)

Then, every so often, something comes along which reminds me of the depth of ignorance behind such callousness. This time it was a book entitled Sex Tips for Husbands and Wives from 1894. This book is part of a recent trend for republishing books which predate the 1960s (i.e. second wave feminism) and contain advice on relationships and families. The idea is that the books, with their outdated values and prudish suggestions, are supposed to be funny.

It's kind of nice, in a way, that the old-fashioned, often sexist, advice seems absurd enough to be funny. It shows we've come a long way. But this book crossed the line. It's publisher, Summersdale, advertises the book with the following excerpt:

"While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured... One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: give little, give seldom and, above all, give grudgingly… Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices."


Which might seem funny, until you remember that second wave feminism wasn't all hype. This book, when first published in 1894, was for real. Sex actually was "at best revolting and at worse rather painful" for many women, and this was considered natural.
 
Am I really supposed to find that funny?

Weird books

Oedipus in Disneyland? Really? I found these gems at Abe Books's Weird Book Room. Checkit.