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Thursday, April 20, 2017

The Writer's Life 4/20 - Making Book

Here are fun facts about books I found at interestingliterature.com. I whittled the list down from 30: Isaac Asimov is the only author to have published a book in nine out of the ten Dewey library categories... Hugh Lofting, author of Dr Doolittle, thought books should have a "senile" category to complement the "juvenile" section... Charles Dickens’s house had a secret door in the form of a fake bookcase. The faux titles included The Life of a Cat in nine volumes... Playwright Joe Orton went to prison in 1962 for defacing library books. One of the cartoons he drew was of an elderly tattooed man in trunks... The first book bought on Amazon was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas R. Hofstadter... The first woman Ray Bradbury asked out was a book store clerk; they married in 1947 and were together until her death in 2003... The Japanese word tsundoku translates as "buying a load of books and then not getting round to reading them." (A lot of people have begged off purchases at the floating book shop for this very reason.)... Only 2% of the 1.2 million books that sold in the USA in 2004 sold more than 5,000 copies... The earliest known written instance of the word "book" is in one by Alfred the Great, who ruled England from 871-899... "Bibliosmia" is the enjoyment of the smell of old books. (One of my fondest memories at the floating book shop is a lovely young woman pressing her nose to an old book she'd just bought and inhaling deeply.)... In 2007 Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal when he started signing books during an unannounced visit to a shop in Australia... The most expensive printed book in the world is the 1640 Bay Psalm from America. It sold in November 2013 for $14.2 million... A "bouquinist" is a dealer in second-hand books of little value. (I plead the fifth on that one.)

I wonder how many of those protesting Bill O'Reilly's alleged sexual harassment looked the other way when Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and David Letterman were accused. Expect the attacks against Fox News to pick up steam now that it has caved on this issue. According to radio talk show host Mark Simone, Fox won't change its philosophy much while Rupert Murdoch is alive. Once he's gone and his sons assume control, the tilt left will begin. One is an ardent liberal, the other a moderate, and their wives are both extreme leftists. Fox is sort of like Israel, surrounded on all sides by the enemy. The only other significant conservative media voice, as far as I know, is Breitbart.

Florida officials in two cities are investigating complaints about brown spots on cars, boats, air conditioning units and other objects. In one instance spots went through the clear top coat on the hood of a new SUV, and wouldn't come off. So far no one has reported health issues. It sounds like the basis of a new Stephen King novel.

It was a quiet day at the floating book shop. My thanks to the gentleman who bought five DVD's, and to the one who purchased The Lives of the Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg. I've received my stipend for the one day I served jury duty - $40. I'd forgotten about it and am surprised it's more than $25. I've also had good news regarding my portfolio. Years ago I bought shares of AOL - too late. Fortunately, it was saved when acquired by Time Warner. I've had an order to sell my 81 shares if it reached $100. It did today. I more than doubled my original stake. Tip money for big traders and the likes of the great Classie Freddie Blassie, but a nice shot in the arm for yours truly. That's one less stock to worry about should the market finally come back to reality.
Vic's Sixth novel: http://tinyurl.com/zpuhucj 
Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

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