The Perfume of New Books

Just when you thought that the aroma of freshly opened new books would disappear with the advent of e-book readers... Have no fear, the solution is here! For the modest price of $28.99, you can spray on the SMELL OF BOOKS anywhere. Check it out here. 

Because there's nothing like that scent of unpacking a virgin copy of a desired novel, spreading the pages for the first time and appreciating the bouquet that wafts from the pages. 

That's because paper is made from lignin which has polymers that make it smell like vanilla. Combined with fresh ink and glue, a new book becomes irresistable.

So you can rest assured that smell which you associate with opening a book for the first time won't be a thing of the past. As Nick Bilton put it in his New York Times tech blog: "I immediately felt a sense of nostalgia that I haven't felt in a long time. The scent of physical books - the paper, the ink, the glue -can conjure up memories of a summer day spent reading on a beach, a fall afternoon in a coffee shop, or an overstuffed chair by a fireplace as rain patters on a windowsill."

HOTELS and BOOKS

Remember our literary tour in New York?

It turns out the idea of hotels and books is actually catching up in other places too (Miami, London, Ireland). I hate hotels, so those which add a library or a reading room… well, it's definitely a perk, isn't it? According to this article, "… newer literary-minded hotels are establishing places for the reader and brewer to go that, in the best cases, further an understanding of the destination".

I would love to stay at Ballyfin Hotel above, for example :)

WRITING BECOMING A BROADCAST SPECTACLE

Who would be brave enough to combine writing and a reality show? Well, the Italians, of course. Here's the idea: a show in which inspiring authors vie at literary challenges until one contestant wins a major book deal - and some level of publicity.

Don't be too eager to criticize the initiative. Let's wait and see!

More info here.

DORIS LESSING DIES

Sad news today, hearing about the death of Doris Lessing. Tributes pour in for Nobel prize-winning author of over 50 novels including The Golden Notebook. Our personal homage here:

An extract of "Fable", one of her poems:

But for a while the dance went on -
That is how it seems to me now:
Slow forms moving calm through
Pools of light like gold net on the floor.
It might have gone on, dream-like, for ever.

And a short interview:

And a Guardian article:

"After 40 years of being shortlisted, Lessing at 87 was the oldest winner of the literature prize, and only the 11th female winner in its then 104-year history. What a pity, she scolded, that Virginia Woolf wasn't number four or five. The Swedish academy (which, according to Lessing, had publicly disapproved of her in the 1970s), described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". The Golden Notebook, published 45 years before, was commended as a "pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship". Read the whole article here.

Great Book Covers Post 2

Sometimes you should judge a book by its cover.

LITERARY GRAFFITI

Check out this website where you can see 20 awesome examples of literary graffiti. Wouldn't it be awesome to have some of them in our town?

And speaking of graffiti, I love this Parisian initiative.

RUNNING AND READING

It must be that the race season is on for me, but I've been thinking a lot about Will Smith's speech on running and reading, two of my great passions in life. I know it's not too elaborate and it seems pretty simple... however I love it and it helps me build up my stamina!

“The keys to life are running and reading. When you're running, there's a little person that talks to you and says, "Oh I'm tired. My lung's about to pop. I'm so hurt. There's no way I can possibly continue." You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you're running. You will how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There's no new problem you could have--with your parents, with school, with a bully. There's no new problem that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book.”