TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| TBR: Inside the List Hulk Hogan’s memoir enters the hardcover nonfiction list at No. 12. Another former grappler, John Irving, hits the fiction list at No. 4. Do I smell a matchup? feeds.nytimes.com |
Linklog: James Wood on Paul Auster, Jason Bourne on life support, and more "At the end of the story, the hints that have been scattered like mouse droppings lead us to the postmodern hole in the book where the rodent got in": James Wood, as you might have guessed, is really not terribly keen on Paul Auster.• How Jason Bourne survived his author, only to be horribly tortured.• On books as an investment (broadly: you never can tell).• A forensic artist does "literary criminals" (meaning fictional ones, not bad writers).• Why limit sarcastic literary awards to Bad Sex?• Manga at the British Museum.Peter Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The first of the megabooksellers James Lackington's Dome of the Muses set the template for a great bookshop two centuries agoNow that the holly is finally decked out, many of you will doubtless be hustling to your favourite bookstores to pick up the latest books of the year. While some will make a point of patronising local independents – those charming ones with the unrivalled personal service – more of us will, with perhaps a twinge of guilt, leg our way through the crowded aisles of Waterstone's ...There was, of course, a time when these big, high street shops weren't around – at least not where I live, in Canada. I well remember the day the first one came to Ottawa. They gutted an old Woolworths downtown, several blocks away from the Peace Tower, and when the Chapter's store finally opened it wowed all who entered: deep, pillowy armchairs, gleaming hardwood floors, the scent and sound of Starbucks percolating up and down in the sleek adjoining coffee shop … and furlongs of multidimensional, multi-topical books lining the walls. It was a kind of mod-library where you could hang out, buy what you read, and make an afternoon of it. Despite the collateral damage of some small publishers being screwed over, a narrowed selection of titles, and the eventual rationing of stuffed seats, this place, and others like it, revolutionised the book buying experience – mostly for the better. Nothing like it ever existed before, at least over here. In London, however, this kind of emporium is yesterday's news. Late 18th-century news, to be precise. In Shadows of the Old Booksellers (published in 1865), Charles Knight tells us of a bookshop in Finsbury Square, Moorgate, named The Dome of the Muses belonging to bookseller James Lackington: "A dome rises from the centre, on top of which a flag is flying…Over the principal entrance is inscribed 'Cheapest Booksellers in the World' … We enter the vast area, whose dimensions are to be measured by the assertion that a coach and six might be driven round it. In the centre is an enormous circular counter … We ascend a broad staircase, which leads to 'The Lounging Rooms', and to the first of a series of circular galleries, lighted from the lantern of the dome, which also lights the ground floor. Hundreds, even thousands of volumes are displayed on shelves running round their walls. As we mount higher and higher, we find commoner books, in shabbier bindings; but there is still the same order preserved, each book being numbered according to a printed catalogue."Lackington was no slacker. His memoirs reveal a poverty-stricken youth who showed a genius for selling bakers' pies and almanacs (so successful was he that competitors threatened bodily harm). After devouring a volume of Epictetus that a friend bought for him, he chose to live on bread and tea only in order to save money for more books. Apprenticing as a shoemaker, then marrying his sweetheart, a dairy maid with whom he lived in happy poverty for several early years, he moved to London in August, 1774.An inheritance of £10 from his grandfather provided them with furniture, plus a little extra to spend at the second-hand bookstores he had begun to frequent. Like all bona fide bibliophiles he dealt with temptation in the way Oscar Wilde advised, by giving in to it; he bought almost all the books he wanted most. One Christmas eve, when tasked with buying dinner, he instead came home carrying a copy of Young's Night Thoughts. Ironically, though, it was this love of books that put turkey on the table for the rest of his life. After renting a shop from which to sell the shoes he'd made, he thought to use the spare room to sell the growing number of books in his possession. Starting with a stock of 50 volumes he spent all his leathery profit on more; soon he was into a new, larger space, and enjoying life as a successful bookseller. Business boomed largely because he knew how to buy and sell. His genius was to mark every book at the lowest price he could possibly afford. In fact the words inscribed on his carriage doors exclaimed: 'Small profits do great things.' He bought big and bold, sometimes dropping tens of thousands of pounds at single auctions. He wasn't greedy, he was generous, sticking, it seems, all of his life to the dictates of this little ode by Samuel Wesley: "No glory I covet, no riches I want,Ambition is nothing to me;The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grantIs a mind independent and free."A pretty good motto it seems, particularly at this busy book buying time of the year.BooksellersNigel Bealeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Norval White, of AIA Guide, Dies at 83 With the AIA Guide, Mr. White tapped into and fostered a growing national awareness that America had an architectural past worth preserving. feeds.nytimes.com |
TBR: Inside the List Anne Tyler’s 18th novel, “Noah’s Compass,” enters the list at No. 3. feeds.nytimes.com |