The Top 10 Most Expensive Books Ever Sold

Luxatic: The Top 10 Most Expensive Books Ever Sold

Used since hundreds of years ago, books are probably the most important step in mankind’s evolution. From the papyrus scrolls used in the Ancient Egypt and the manuscripts in the monasteries of The Middle Ages, books evolved into what we know today and even appeared more and more in digital form.

While before Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1439, books had to be written and copied by hand making them expensive and rare, today the process is so automatized and so much more easier for their digital form that books have become quite cheap and accessible.

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CSN Editor: In my opinion these books are priceless.

David Bowie's Favourite 100 Books

Anyone else remember this Bowie poster from your library as a kid? pic.twitter.com/HsY8srwrwv

— Eric Smith (@ericsmithrocks) January 11, 2016

L.A. Times: Remembering David Bowie through his 100 favorite books

Although David Bowie was best known for his music, he also made countless contributions to the worlds of art, fashion and film.

But the singer, who died Sunday, was also devoted to literature. In 2013, Bowie left the world something other than his groundbreaking albums to remember him by — a list of his 100 favorite books. Bowie's favorite books list was featured in an exhibit honoring the musician at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

Bowie's list is as eclectic and surprising as he was. He paid tribute to the classics, including Homer's "Iliad," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," George Orwell's "1984" and D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

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CSN Editor: This artist was doing everything. Not many sci-fi/speculative fiction books in his list.

Publishing World Struggles To Adapt To New Lines

London Book Fair: Publishing World Struggles To Adapt To New Lines -- The Guardian

The partying goes on at Earl's Court, but new formats and self-publishing are changing the industry

The trays of free wine and boastful talk of six-figure deals struck at dinner parties might seem to some like the last days of decadence for a publishing world in denial about the digital storm clouds gathering overhead.

But in the main hall of Earl's Court, hundreds of publishers gathered for the 41st London Book Fair have been showing stands of lovely new books as editors meet agents and foreign publishers keen to buy unpublished books, sell foreign rights, and relentlessly talk up their new titles.

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My Comment: A sobering analysis that the hardcover book is the way of the dinosaur.

The Ultimate Library

Storage: Internet tycoon Brewster Kahle has spent $3million building this repository in San Francisco where he hopes to archive as many books as possible

The Ultimate Library: Online Archive Aims To Collect A Physical Copy Of Every Book In Existence -- Daily Mail

An internet tycoon turned latter-day Noah is trying to collect a physical copy of every single book in existence in case of a cataclysmic internet failure.

Brewster Kahle has spent $3million building a book repository in San Francisco, California, where he hopes to archive as many books as possible.

So far he has managed to accumulate about 500,000 volumes - ranging from American Indian Policy in the 20th Century to Temptation’s Kiss - but one day he hopes to have 10million.

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My Comment: I am sure that such a collection will be very available one day as a collector's item .... in a few centuries.

World's Most Expensive Book Up For Grabs

(Image: Sotheby's)

From New Scientist:

If you like this picture of snowy owls and have a spare £4 to £6 million floating around, you might want make a bid for Audubon's book Birds of America when it goes to auction on 7 December at Sothebys, London.

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Books Are Better Without Pages

A man browses through books at the Cecil H. Green Library on the Stanford University Campus, Dec. 17, 2004 in Stanford, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

From Global Post:

The paper book is dead. Long live the narrative.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Kindle owners buy twice as many books as non-Kindle owners. Just one of the many signs that while the paper book is dead, the narrative will live on.

If you are saying to yourself, “That sounds horrible. I hope books do not go away,” I ask you to consider the world’s poorest and most remote kids.

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My Comment: Alas .... this is true. Hardcover books will only be a novelty item in the next few decades.

Embracing Silence In A Noisy World -- A Book Review

From New York Times:

What is silence? I am profoundly deaf in my left ear (I have a cochlear implant). The ear is useless for hearing, though it makes a pleasant decorative ornament and serves as a place to display earrings and anchor glasses; no sound can penetrate it. You would think that profound deafness is as silent as it gets. And yet it is not quiet in there. I hear deep space sounds, a hollow hum that washes in and fades away, changes in pitch and volume.

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Extreme Physics At The Ends Of The Earth

From New Scientist:

When science was young, the experiments were simple and the breakthroughs came easily - or so it seems in hindsight. Think of Galileo rolling a ball down an inclined plane, or aiming a simple tube, with a lens at each end, at the night sky. Or picture Michael Faraday discovering electromagnetic induction just by tinkering with a battery, an iron ring and some coils of wire.

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How To Publish Your Own Book Online – And Make Money

The web is making self-publishing easier. Photograph: Toby Talbot/AP

From The Guardian:

There are now dozens of websites to help budding authors to publish their novels, poems and pictures and, perhaps, even make a profit from it.

If you want to realise a dream by publishing your own book, there are lots of companies willing to extract upwards of $500 from you for the privilege. At the other end of the spectrum is Amazon's digital text platform, which allows you to upload your pre-prepared files to its Kindle reader and then set your own price.

The catch? Amazon takes 65% of the income from sales. Ouch. Fortunately, there are lots of other options – of which more later – for budding authors. What you get out of them is subject only to the limits of your imagination.

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Rare Words 'Author's Fingerprint'

From The BBC:

Analyses of classic authors' works provide a way to "linguistically fingerprint" them, researchers say.

The relationship between the number of words an author uses only once and the length of a work forms an identifier for them, they argue.

Analyses of works by Herman Melville, Thomas Hardy, and DH Lawrence showed these "unique word" charts are specific to each author.

The work is published in the New Journal of Physics.

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