The Most Expensive Tolkien Book in the World

GTC Roadshow AG has announced the acquisition of the most expensive Tolkien book ever sold; a signed first edition of "The Lord of the Rings" dedicated to the "Queen of the Hobbits", for 104.000 USD. "It was so expensive because it is a truly unique set. In volume one Tolkien has penned "Elainen tarin Periandion ar meldenya anyaran" (to Elaine, Queen of Hobbits and my very old friend). It belonged to Elaine Griffiths, a student of Tolkien, who was instrumental in encouraging Tolkien to get the Hobbit published. It is a true rarity to find the trilogy all signed by Tolkien, even more so with his inscription in Elvish" .

2008 in lists: The five maddest celeb blog posts according to the UK Guardian

A new Web site, Filedbyauthor, has a page for every American and Canadian author (apparently there are only 1.2 million of them), which can be updated and maintained by the writers themselves, much like Facebook.

The Wired Campus (Chronicle of Higher Education) ponders whether the Internet will be a boon to humanity

Here is why:

It does not fight authority. Nicholas Carr, who wrote the recent best seller The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, used to believe the Internet would shift the bulk of power to the little people, away from big companies and governments. But "its technical and commercial working actually promote the centralization of power and control," he says. Although the overall number of Web sites has increased from 2002 through 2006, the concentration of traffic at the 10 most popular sites has grown from 31 percent to 40 percent of all page views. Further, "look at how Google continues to expand its hegemony over Web searching," Mr. Carr says. "To what end will the Web giants deploy their power? They will, of course, seek to further their own commercial or political interests."

Roberto Bolaño is the new cult Latin American author

The US Literary Press has been praising the work of Chilean author Bolaño, who died in 2003, but who's work is only just appearing in English. His latest work 2666 will not be available in Australia until mid-2009. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a long article on his "ascent".

"Studying him shatters the traditional boundaries of Latin American letters. This Chilean's Spanish is the most dazzling Mexican Spanish I've ever read. So translation is at the core of Bolaño's endeavor: not the standard rendering of sentences from one language into another, but the reimagining of a country's linguistic self. Indeed, I doubt that a novel like 2666 can be taught, for it begs to be found by readers in an accidental fashion, without instruction. Therein may lie the lesson to be learned from Bolaño: Rebellion and success do not rest easily with each other."

Printed page or Computer Screen?

Another long article, this time from the New Atlantis, examines the future of books and reading.

"The book is modernitys quintessential technology 'a means of transportation through the space of experience, at the speed of a turning page,' as the poet Joseph Brodsky put it. But now that the rustle of the books turning page competes with the flicker of the screens twitching pixel, we must consider the possibility that the book may not be around much longer. If it isnt if we choose to replace the book what will become of reading and the print culture it fostered? And what does it tell usabout ourselves that we may soon retire this most remarkable, five-hundred-year-old technology?"

eResource in Focus - Economist Historical Archive

The new Economist Historical Archive has recently been added to the National Library of Australia's eResources. This collection of almost 8 000 editions of The Economist magazine from 1843-2003 is fully digitised and keyword searchable. The digitised version contains full-colour images, exportable financial tables, and a gallery of front covers.

View this eResource.

a href= "http://tinyurl.com/7a5onr" target=new>The UK Guardian examines the best books of 2008 and the interface between the literary world and London Bookshops

"In fiction, the champion was Joseph O'Neill's remarkably fine novel Netherland, a book too good for the Booker, which scored at least 10 nominations. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga ranked much lower. Confirming the opinion of those who believe that Sebastian Barry was pipped at the post, The Secret Scripture outscored The White Tiger by five to one. Other strong contenders included The Believers by Zoë Heller, and His Illegal Self by Peter Carey. I was surprised to find almost no mention of Marilynne Robinson's new novel Home, every bit the equal of its astonishing companion volume, Gilead.

Among other notable Books of the Year, one winner was Mick Imlah, who got several mentions for his Forward Prize-winning collection of poems, The Lost Leader. Patrick French's The World Is What It Is, an outstanding life of VS Naipaul, was the discerning choice at the high end of literary biography.

Kate Summerscale scored widely for her entertaining The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, and Ferdinand Mount did well with his scintillating, opaque memoir Cold Cream. The late Simon Gray would have been the first to pass a sardonic comment on those who selected his final diary volume, Coda. These, then, were the most prominent picks from several hundred column inches devoted by the literary press to the books of 2008.