Reading in Reykjavík

Charles Dickens, Ghost Buster: Charles Dickens Was A Real Life Ghost Buster And Member Of The World's Oldest Paranormal Research Group . Arthur Conan Doyle was also a member. I wonder if Q was involved in this? MIT Invented a Camera That Can Read Closed Books . The value of reading truly bad books: The good side of bad books . Funny. The bad books discussion continued by a blogger and various commenters:  The good side of bad books , linked and expanded on. This is funnier. And occasionally nasty. Fun with medieval manuscripts: Some staff members of the Getty Museum would post a picture from a manuscript once a week and ask people to caption them, and then they would explain what was really going on in the pictures. I unfortunately only discovered this when they were winding it down, but here are all the entries for your perusal .

Bi- and multilingualism is good for you: The amazing benefits of being bilingual . Interesting. Invisible Library: 10 Books That Don’t Exist, But Should . Inside the world of book publishing: 10 People (Besides The Author) Who Bring A Book Into the World . They forgot to mention all the people who print and put the books together (or control the machinery that does).   What reader wouldn't like to live in a library? The New York Public Library Has Secret Apartments — ThoughYou Might Not Want To Live In Them . Well, maybe not those exact apartments. Book list: 37 Books With Plot Twists That Will Blow Your Mind . I have only read 4 of these books, so I have something to look forward to... Dear reader, if you have come across an interesting link dealing with books, libraries, bookshops, reading, writing, language or translation, why not let me know? Just leave the link in a comment and I'll take a look at it.

Today there are some extra links, but they don't count (one's a citation, the other is for information. You don't have to click on them). Punctuation: The Strange Life of Punctuation! Periods denote anger?? Why didn't anyone inform me?!!   Is nothing sacred?   Parody Of ‘Little Golden Books’ From Your Childhood Is Hilariously Twisted .  Never mind. I would actually love to read some of these.   "Write what you know" is a piece of advice given to many a young writer, and Agatha Christie certainly did :  Agatha Christie: From Pharmacist’s Apprentice to PoisonExper t. (An excerpt from A Is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup).  Did you know that poison is used or mentioned in 41 of Christie's detective novels ?   Gorgeous drawings of bookstores with notes:   Drawing the World’s Greatest Bookstores . Book list:   Dallying With The Gods: 16 Books About Gods And Mythology .  I have only...

Don't read this if you have an obsessive need to keep your books pristine: We Need To Talk About Beating Up Your Books . I am a spine-cracker. What do you do to your books?   Glorious bindings : 365 Bindings . This bookbinder set out on a challenge to make 365 books.   Humorous "scientific" article about National Geographic magazine:   National Geographic, the Doomsday Machine (in The Journal of Irreproducible Results). Not just an article, in fact, but a rebuttal and commentary as well. Reader are more empathetic, according to science: Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who StillRead Fiction .  That title needs some work, I think, but the studies discussed are interesting.   Book list:   10 Fascinating Books About Living In A Foreign Country . I've only read two of these, so I have something to look forward to.

Verbed nouns: Why ‘medalling’ and ‘summering’ are so annoying .   People have been turning nouns into verbs for centuries – so why does it grate so much? Brandon Ambrosino takes a look. On trashy novels : In Defense of Trash . Why Pleasures Should Never Be Guilty, From Valley of the Dolls to Bonkbusters.   Book list: 11 Books Inspired by Shakespeare . I have only read one of these ( The Daughter of Time ), but The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and A Thousand Acres are on my "read when I have the time" list. The art of illustrating your own books: The Lost Art of Custom-Illustrating Your Favorite Books . On Grangerizing, the 19th-Century DIY Craze.   And, finally, a video:  8 Writers on Facing the Blank Page from Louisiana Channel on Vimeo .  

Hidden libraries: The Secret Libraries of History . About four historically important collection of written texts that have been secret or hidden. The world's oldest books : 10 of the Oldest Books in the World and Where to See Them . Photographer Charles Roux recreates and photographs meals from novels: Fictitious Feasts . Gorgeous, mouth-watering photography. A review that made me want to read the book: Fom Childhood to Chefhood in Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks . Sounds yummy! Book list: The 30 Best Fantasy Book Series of All Time according to Paste . I have read one or more book from the Dragonriders of Pern series (I still own all the books that are more fantasy than science-fiction), Temeraire and Discworld (I have 2 of the novels left to read and most of the map books, picture books and extra material). I have read every book in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials and Harry Potter (the novels). I have the rest to lo...

Here are 5 more links from various directions: Reading-related motion sickness explained : Reading Makes You Carsick Because Your Brain Thinks It’s Being Poisoned . I found out long ago how to avoid this problem: I put on headphones and played music while I read and somehow that enabled me to not get car-sick. These days I don't seem to get motion sickness while reading, even without headphone and music.   On the unexpected benefits of reading romances: Scholarly Lessons I’ve Learned From Trashy Romance Novels .  Yup, been there. I know all sorts of strange and unusual words from reading romances, including a number of colourful cant and slang terms gleaned from the meticulously researched historical novels of Georgette Heyer (which are decidedly not trashy).   A review that made me want to read the book:   Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo,Venice and London by Lauen Elkin . Sounds like an interesting book.   Recommend...

I had a bit of a groan when I saw this can of worms opened yet again: Mills & Boon romances are actually feminist texts,academic says .   And the reply was quick in the coming: Mills & Boon: zero shades of feminism . I'm not passing any judgements either way, but the truth is probably somewhere in-between the two extremes. And the rest of the links: Advice for writers: Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year . Always think positive and learn from your rejections.   Book recommendations:   40 Trashy Novels You Must Read Before You Die . I have plans for reading Peyton Place,  Valley of the Dolls and Flowers in the Attic (which isn't on the list, but is, by all accounts, thoroughly readable trash), and I might just pick up some more titles from this list and review them here.   List of useful links for bloggers: The Ultimate List of Websites Every Blogger Should Bookmark .

The links are piling up! Here's the next batch - not all of them brand new, but hey, I just discovered them so they're new to me:   Fictional bookshops we love: 10 Fictional Bookstores We Wish We Could Shop In, Because Flourish And Blott's Is Too Magical To Not Exist . I'm chuffed they included Parnassus on Wheels . BTW, he book's copyright has expired and it is available from Project Gutenberg .   Insight into the mind of a writer: When Your Research Starts to Terrify You . An interesting insight into the writerly mind, although the thought occurs that maybe she should be writing about something else if the subject frightens her that much.   A heart-warming news story about a young reader: Utah boy reading junk mail gets thousands of books aftermailman's plea goes viral . Awww!   A cook-book suitable for reading in bed: The 100 best nonfiction books: No 30 – A Book ofMediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (1950). I have an omnibus edition of thi...

I come across a number of links to articles, blog entries and news items about books and reading when I'm web-browsing in my free time and occasionally also when I'm doing web searches at work. I have decided to post the interesting ones about reading and books for others to enjoy. ( Here are some of the other links ). Whenever I have gathered five links I want to recommend, I'll post them. Here is the first batch: Frivolous post, but true sentiments: 14 Thoughts You Have When Someone Tries To Talk To You WhileYou're Reading . This is .gif heavy, but I have had some of these thoughts when interrupted while reading. I'll add the one that they didn't post: "I'll fucking deck you if you interrupt me again!" (she didn't just interrupt me, she did it by tickling me). Interesting: The working titles of famous novels from Pride and Prejudice to 1984 .   Trimalchio in West Egg just doesn't have the same ring as The Great Gats...