Author E.L. Doctorow Dies at 84, Leaving Historical Fiction Legacy Behind
Posted on July 29, 2015 inAuthors, Book News
Source: Bustle
Written by: KATE WARD
The author well-known for capturing significant moments in history, E.L. Doctorow, has died, according to The New York Times. Doctorow was 84, and died following complications from lung cancer on July 21, 2015. Though he penned several pieces of work — including 12 full-length novels — he is perhaps most famous for his 1975 book Ragtime, which not only has made its way onto several best-of literature lists and won the National Books Critics Circle Award, but also was popular enough to be turned into a film and Broadway show of the same name.
Doctorow, who released his first novel in 1960, was active on the literary scene for decades. In fact, his last piece of work — Andrew’s Brain, which delves inside one unfortunate man’s mind and life story — was released in 2014. This, after Doctorow spent years releasing notable novel after notable novel, like 1971’s The Book of Daniel (also adapted for film audiences), 2005’s The March, and 2009’s Homer & Langley. And fans of the author would never ignore his work in short fiction as well — Doctorow wrote four short collections and one play, 1979’s Drinks Before Dinner.
Still, even though books like The March attracted heaps of praise from former critic John Updike and others, none of Doctorow’s books got quite the amount of attention as Ragtime, which used real historical figures like J.P. Morgan and Booker T. Washington and mixed them in with a fictional plot. Though it earned him some criticism, the novel surely attracted enough fans to balance out any historians crying foul. “I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority,” Doctorow told New York Magazine in 2008. “I thought, If they want fact, I’ll give them facts that will leave their heads spinning.”
Prior to breaking into the literary scene, Doctorow worked in several jobs. Though he even spent time in a position at LaGuardia Airport, where he worked in reservations, he burst onto the scene as an editor, honing his skills while working with fellow greats like the James Bond franchise’s Ian Fleming and The Fountainhead author Ayn Rand. And, after taking a place editing literary history, the author focused on history himself. But despite his ability to stun readers with his ability to bring the past to the page, Doctorow has said that he doesn’t like to put himself in the historical fiction category. As he told NPR in 2014:
Some people think of me as a historical novelist — I don’t agree with that. I think all novels are about the past, the near past, the far past, some of them have a wider focus and include more of society and recognizable events and people. The historical novel seems to me a misnomer, and many of my books take place in different places, in the Dakotas, or down south in Georgia or the Carolinas, so it’s just as valid to call me a geographical novelist as an historical novelist. I think of myself really as a national novelist, as an American novelist writing about my country.
And, as a novelist, he was able to continually garner more-than-stellar reviews, surprising critics and readers with new ideas (i.e. playing with different styles of narration) with each new release. As Doctorow also told NPR:
The ideas carried along by the artists who keep changing, keep looking for more, something truer, something greater. But generally speaking, the insistence on storytelling of a realistic nature has predominated and continued in the old ways. So what I’m guided by — perhaps it’s futile — is Ezra Pound’s injunction, when he was talking to the poets, he said, “make it new, make it new.
But the left-leaning author, a vocal opponent of George W. Bush, was much more than a novelist. Doctorow also spent some of his early years as an actor and even aspired to be a playwright before he gravitated towards novel-writing. It was a craft he might not have followed as faithfully in his later years, but it helped him develop a “heartbeat” in storytelling — something that readers of any of his novels would pick up on. And, just like his own Ragtime, the books Doctorow loved tended to be cinematic in nature. The author has said that his favorite books as a child were, among others, Treasure Island and Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities.
And that’s perhaps the most admirable thing about Doctorow — the love for his craft, and others who practice it. He’s passed on his knowledge everywhere from Sarah Lawrence University to University of California Irvine, and valued his favorite works just as his fans value his. As he told The New York Times in 2014, “I think of them as precious objects.”
Harper Lee's Book Ready to Publish - Read First Chapter in Wall Street Journal
Posted on July 10, 2015 inAuthors, Book News, Uncategorized
First Edition 'Hobbit' Inscribed By J.R.R. Tolkien Sets Huge New Sales Record, Because Fans Will Pay A TON For a Rare Book
Posted on June 7, 2015 inAuthors, Book Auction, Book News
Source: Bustle.com
If you think you’d shell out a lot for a rare book, I bet you wouldn’t pay this much. At a recent auction a first edition copy of The Hobbit inscribed by J.R.R. Tolkien fetched — are you ready for it? — £137,000, or about $209,000. The buyer paid an unprecedented amount for the rare book, exceeding even the already-staggering projected sale price.
Leading up to the auction, The Guardian reports that the book was expected to go for between £50,000 and £70,000. Until that point, the most a copy of The Hobbit had fetched was around £50,000, back in 2008. Although a record at the time, it looks like a steal in comparison to the latest sale. Book collectors can get seriously into it.
So, what made this particular copy so special that someone was willing to pay for it more than cost of my college education (and without the help of Sallie Mae, mind you)? Besides the fact that people love The Hobbit, it’s one of only a “handful” of inscribed presentation copies. The exclusive group to whom Tolkien gifted them includes the likes of his buddy C.S. Lewis. (I don’t think I even want to know how much that copy would sell for. Probably the equivalent of my undergrad plus a hypothetical medical degree.) This particular book was given to Katherine Kilbride. Now deceased, she was a student of the author at Leeds University back in the 1920s.
[Top]18th-century book stolen in Rome recovered in Argentina
Posted on April 25, 2015 inBook News, Uncategorized
Source: Malay Mail Online
BUENOS AIRES, April 24 — An 18th-century book on the history of Saint Peter's Basilica that was stolen last year in Rome has been recovered at a bookstore in Buenos Aires, officials said yesterday.
The 1748 book, which was lifted from a private library in the Italian capital, had been offered for sale online at a price of US$3,500 (RM12,600).
Authorities seized it after tracking it down at a bookstore in the Argentine capital's upscale Recoleta neighborhood, the attorney general's office said on its website.
The book is a history of the famous Vatican basilica's dome and the work to restore it — full title: Memorie Istoriche Della Gran Cupola Del Tempio Vaticano, E De' Danni Di Essa, E De' Restoramenti Loro Divisi In Libri Cinque. Alla Santita Di Nostro Signore Papa Benedetto XIV.
The title roughly translates to “Historical Memories of the Great Dome of the Vatican Temple, and the Damage to It, and Its Restoration, Divided in Five Books. To His Holiness of Our Lord Pope Benedict XIV.”
It was written by academic and architecture expert Giovanni Poleni and published by Stamperia del Seminario in Padua.
It was part of a stolen collection of 120 antique volumes valued at more than €1 million (RM3.89m).
The operation to recover it, carried out by the Division for the Protection of Cultural Heritage at the Argentine office of Interpol, was launched after Italian police requested international help.
The book is in Interpol custody pending a formal request from Italian authorities for its return. — AFP
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[Top]New Look for BookCollecting101
Posted on April 11, 2015 inBook News
I have updated the theme so that it will be mobile compliant. I know some of you like to use your tablets or phones for internet access so that will no longer be a problem. It is a bit plain looking right now. I will see what I can do to make it a bit more aesthetically pleasing. In the meantime keep checking back for more info.
[Top]New York City Book & Ephemera Fair Joins Rare Book Week
Posted on April 7, 2015 inBook News
Source: New York, NY (PRWEB) April 07, 2015
The New York City Book and Ephemera Fair brings more than 50 dealers of rare and contemporary volumes, manuscripts, maps, and unusual ephemera to Wallace Hall on Saturday, April 11.
The New York City Book and Ephemera Fair joins Rare Book Week with a selling exhibition slated for Saturday, April 11th. The fair takes place at Wallace Hall at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue at 84th Street. Rare Book Week is the annual spring round-up of auctions and selling exhibitions aimed at book collectors, curators and those fascinated by historical maps, vintage photographs and ephemera.
Marvin Getman, President of Impact Events Group, a New England producer of specialty antiques and book fairs since 1981, stated the event is "an affordable complement to the venerable ABAA Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory". More than 50 dealers will be present.
The fair promises items for both seasoned collectors and new audiences. Given the range of material, it could be said the New York City Rare Book and Ephemera Fair at Wallace Hall is for music lovers, art lovers, photography collectors, educators, historians and readers.
For instance, book highlights include a signed 24-volume set of Arthur Conon Doyle’s complete works; #26 of 50 copies of “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There,” with illustrations by Barry Moser, including two un-bound artist’s prints; Gertrude Stein’s “Portraits and Prayers,” with inscription; a 1932 volume of Edward Weston photographs, inscribed and signed by the photographer; a mid-century, bi-lingual printing of Rimbaud’s “Season in Hell,” with photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.
Outstanding ephemera - those bits of popular culture that were not made to last but did - include a signed Dmitri Shostakovich photograph; a 1966 Grateful Dead-Lightening Hopkins-Loading Zone poster from the Fillmore; as well as 19th and 20th century handcolored prints.
Maps and Manuscript highlights include a rare Tyler-Giles facsimile of the Declaration of Independence; and early Manhattan Sanitary and Topographical map; and one of the few remaining original manuscripts of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral march, by Army Bvt. Major General J. C. (G.) Barnard and played by the U.S. Marine Band at the Washington, DC ceremony.
Tickets to the New York City Book and Ephemera Fair are $15 or $10 if purchased online in advance at http://www.bookandpaperfairs.com The fair runs 8 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. A free shuttle bus will take collectors to the ABAA Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory.
A complete list of dealers appearing at the first New York City Rare Book and Ephemera Fair at Wallace Hall is available at http://www.bookandpaperfairs.com.
[Top]9th Annual St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book & Paper Arts Fair
Posted on April 3, 2015 inBook News, Uncategorized
ArtfixDaily.com)
Now in its ninth year, the St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book and Paper Arts Fair set for May 1 to 3, 2015, is attracting participants from around the country with its growing reputation for quality dealers, enthusiastic crowds and a wonderful setting.