“Awful Library Books.”

To wit:

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Those of you with long memories may recall the Monkeyfishing hoax of 2001 in Slate. This was a piece by Jay Forman which revealed the existence of a illicit sport on an island of former medical research monkeys in the Florida Keys, where locals went… well, Monkeyfishing: …more

One unexpected Wayback Machine trip produced by Google Books: it appears that all of New York magazine is available in full text, something that produces such charming finds as this pre-Starbucks cover story from June 27, 1977: …more

Galley Cat notes speculation on a patent filed by Amazon for a small building design. (The patent’s here…) The Street weighs in with that claim that “If, indeed, Amazon were to embark on retail locations, analysts think it would only spell disaster. ”

Well, maybe it depends on what you mean by a “retail location.” It’s true that you’d have to be bonkers to build a bricks and mortar bookstore these days. That means that either Amazon is bonkers, or… It’s not a bricks and mortar bookstore.

Along with some good guesses at TechFlash (including a reprise/hangover of Amazon Fresh), I’ll venture one that hasn’t been raised yet: that this is not an outdoors structure at all, but rather a kiosk for rail stations and airport concourses. Specifically, it’s for renting out Kindles. …more

Amazon, last seen on Slate not answering questions about corporate philanthropy, now has a new web page up—complete with an application form for “nonprofit author and publisher groups that share our obsession with fostering the creation, discussion, publication, and dissemination of books.”

Len Deighton’s Action Cook Book—the long-lost 1965 gem by (yes) the airport-novel writer, which I pressed upon the public a few years ago in the Village Voice and on NPR —has been reissued!

Well, reissued in Britain, but still. Pay airmail and make yourself a terrine: …more

New Scientist turns up a new patent for rapid infrared scanning over at Google Books:

…Bindings cause pages to arch up either side of the spine – bending text and making it hard to interpret. However, last week Google was granted a patent (US 7508978) on an answer to this problem. Its trick is to project an infrared pattern onto the open page spread. This lets a pair of infrared cameras map the three-dimensional shape of the pages by detecting distortion to the pattern. This in turn allows the distortion of the text to be determined – and therefore the degree of correction needed to read it accurately.

Meanwhile, the patent for the infrared Flashing Earring Heartbeat Monitor goes tragically unused: …more

I’ve long been convinced—see my Village Voice piece from a few years back—that the eventual maturing of in-store Print on Demand technology could spell the end for chain stores in their current form. Chains rely on an insane system of return credits to wallpaper their stores on everyone else’s nickel; take away the need for returns or for massive retail spaces with huge physical inventories, and you pretty much take away the chain’s reason to exist.

Although it hasn’t been covered nearly as much as the new Kindle, the unveiling of the Espresso 2.0 Book Machine at the London Book Fair sounds like a big step. The bugs haven’t been worked out, but an account in the Times of London this weekend sounds intriguing: …more

Sunday’s Guardian reports a pretty nifty find at the Bodleian: the first known dust jacket. …more

Once again a journalist turns up at J.D. Salinger’s house, and once again gets turned away.

In Japan — not being in easy driving distance of Cornish, NH — they must turn to Blankey Jet City’s song “Salinger,” with its chorus: “Mister J.D. Salinger / Tell me why / Tell me why / Tell me why, Salinger…”

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From the Times (London) archive blog, this 1967 delight on offshore pirate rock stations: …more

A neat find on eBay: someone’s in the last day of an auction on a Harry Stephen Keeler book with a letter from ol’ Harry himself tucked in. Keeler notes one of the more unusual uses for a bookstore that I’ve heard of: he found one of his own books (X Jones of Scotland Yard) in a second hand Chicago bookstore… “which was a front for an elaborate bookie joint!”

“Maintaining the American spirit of up-to-dateness, which is said to attain its most perfect flower in New York, the Black Hand has now added the automobile to its working machinery…. Gus Marino, who has a prosperous junk business at 2045 First Avenue, between 107th and 108th Streets, has been receiving Black Hand letters for two months, demanding all the way from $5000 to $5. He did not honor even the lowest demands.

“… Marino stepped out of his store to get a cigar at the corner of 108th Street, [when] the machine came racing up to him. It swerved to the curb. One of the three men jumped out, yelled, “Hurrah for the Black Hand,” or words that effect, and shot three bullets at Gus Marino.”

New York Times 2/13/1909

Doing well: shoe repair shops and, according to the Telegraph of London, used bookstores: …more

I have a piece in Friday’s Slate about Amazon.com’s seemingly nonexistent corporate philanthropy — and more importantly, whether that should matter. But I hid the real barb in the tail of the piece: …more

The February Rolling Stone has a fun piece by David Browne on a 2,200 LP album library hidden in the White House: …more

…maybe not so great for you.

I’m in this week’s New Scientist with a piece on the Cornell-Liberty Mutual Survival Car, and the tremendous resistance safety reforms faced from Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s: …more

The best travel writing usually begins with an absurd proposition, so how could I not pick up an attic-sale book subtitled How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day? …more