Booklicious: Friday Bookmarks

January 29, 2010

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*To what lengths do you think a store would go to ensure it was the only one of its kind in a city? I would think it sounds like a company's dream, but apparently, it's not Barnes and Noble's. The bookseller recently closed its Laredo, Texas, store - leaving the city of 250,000 people without a single bookshop. The closest bookstore is now in San Antonio - 150 miles away.
 
*It wasn't surprising to learn that there is a world's biggest book, but it was surprising to learn that 1) this book - the Klencke Atlas - is taller than I am 2) is 350 years old and 3) has never been displayed with its pages open. The third fact is to be remedied this summer when the atlas goes on display at the British Library. Read more about it and gape at the photo here.

*An interview with Alice Herz-Sommer, the last person alive to know Kafka personally, reveals that the writer was "a slightly strange man." I had my suspicions.   

*I guess these shoppers are on Amazon's "nice" list. The internet giant is offering select customers a deal in which they get a full refund and can keep the Kindle if they decide they don't love it. 

*What's the filthiest book in libraries? According to the Menifee school district in Riverside County, Ca., it's the dictionary. A parent complained about a student coming across the definition of oral sex in the 10th edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, prompting the school district to pull all volumes from its shelves. 

*J.D. Salinger died Wednesday, aged 91. The famously reclusive author, who gave his last interview in 1980, did not publish any works after 1965, although a neighbor said Salinger had admitted to writing at least 15 additional books that he kept locked in a safe. What happens to them now - if they do indeed exist - is unknown.

1 comments

Kindl-Things said... @ January 29, 2010 at 2:46 PM

howard zinn, author of A People's History of the United States died this week too.

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