Bookmarks: inauguration edition

• Taken from Fellow Citizens: The Penguin Book of U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses, test your knowledge of the final words of former presidents’ inaugural speeches (Jacket Copy)
• Barack Obama will take the oath of office on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used, and will eat a meal modelled on some of Lincoln’s favourite dishes (including the apple-cinnamon sponge cake). For The Book Bench, Adam Gopnick and Jill Lepore recommend some Lincoln books (The New Yorker)
• Martin Levin dissects Obama’s reading list (The Globe and Mail)
• Evangelist Rick Warren (and author of The Purpose Driven Life) delivers the invocation at Obama’s inauguration (abc6.com)
• Q&A with inauguration poet Elizabeth Alexander (TIME Magazine)

Bookmarks: Forgery memoir was true, libraries need money, and past editors protest LATBR folding

Some book-related links:

• A true memoir about a fraudulent life (The New York Times)
• Alberta libraries push for cash (Calgary Herald)
• Past editors of the Los Angeles Times Book Review protest folding (Editor & Publisher)
• World’s oldest bible goes online (Vnunet.com)
• Barack Obama and John McCain in comic book form (MTV.com)
• Amazon not so good for smaller publishers – who knew? (The Guardian)
• A poet’s-eye view of the this year’s Griffin Awards (Maisonneuve)

Bookmarks: Tom Cruise, the smell of the good word, etc.

• Quebec’s hottest storyteller (CBC.ca)
• In defence of Wikipedia (The Times)
• The scratch n’ sniff Bible – note: this one’s a joke (The Spoof)
• Tom Cruise, part 1: The bio’s juicy bits (Slate)
• Tom Cruise, part 2: Why the book isn’t hitting stores in Australia (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Tom Cruise, part 3: The crazy Scientology video, deconstructed (BBC News)

Bookmarks – Paddington the Bear in jail, comic books in Kandahar, bibles in China, and more

Some book-related links:

• Paddington the Bear arrested on immigration charges on 50th anniversary (CBC.ca)
• Comic books handed out in Kandahar to teach kids about human rights (The Canadian Press)
• Speaking of human rights, China to hand out bibles – 50,ooo,ooo of them! – in make-nice gesture (Times of India)
• Making new books out of old (The Register-Guard)
• Bookselling and the gender divide (Mister Aeden Goes To Dubai)
• Who really wrote “‘Twas the Night Before Chrismas”? (Associated Press)

God goes green

The U.S. publisher Thomas Nelson will be publishing the world’s first eco-friendly Bible later this month, according to The Book Standard.

The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible will be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and production will flow from a FSC-certified forest through a paper manufacturer and printer that have FSC chain-of-custody certification. “Our team is excited to be taking some important steps forward in protecting the resources God has given us,” said Michael S. Hyatt, president and CEO of Thomas Nelson.

The story goes on to point out that the Bible is the most widely circulated book on the planet, which is true, of course, but it’s not like this is the only version of it floating around. We’re not sure who this Charles F. Stanley dude is, but he probably doesn’t have as deep market penetration as, say, King James. Still, it’s a good start.

Dude’s all like "vengeance is mine" and shit

In The New Yorker, Daniel Radosh looks at the business of Bible publishing, concentrating on the Nashville-based giant Thomas Nelson Publishers. Of particular interest to Radosh is the brand extension strategy — keeping the Bible sales up by endlessly repackaging the good word for various niche markets. One spectacular example is the “BibleZine,” aimed at teenagers.

[Thomas Nelson publisher] Wayne Hastings described a meeting in which a young editor, who had conducted numerous focus groups and online surveys, presented the idea. “She brought in a variety of teen-girl magazines and threw them out on the table,” he recalled. “And then she threw a black bonded-leather Bible on the table and said, ‘Which would you rather read if you were sixteen years old?’ ” The result was “Revolve,” a New Testament that looked indistinguishable from a glossy girls’ magazine. The 2007 edition features cover lines like “Guys Speak Their Minds” and “Do U Rush to Crush?” Inside, the Gospels are surrounded by quizzes, photos of beaming teen-agers, and sidebars offering Bible-themed beauty secrets….

In a related story, the Nashville-area weather forecast calls for 24-hour darkness and random lightning strikes.

Related links:
Click here for the New Yorker story

Un-banned

Our literature continues to come of age; the educational merit of Canadian books are being challenged at home and abroad. Bookslut’s blog has closely followed a story in which Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was the subject of a challenge and a shortlived ban by the Judson Independent School District near San Antonio, Texas. The superintendent banned it after a complaint from a parent. But in a stunning turn of events, reported masterfully by San Antonio Express-News reporter Jenny Lacoste-Caputo, the board members voted 5 to 2 to reinstate it.

A senior named Craig Gagne spoke in defense of the book and his speech drew applause. (In Other Media can only hope that it began with one brave applauder and then spread quickly through the room.) What did Gagne say? “If we do ban The Handmaid’s Tale because of sexual content, then why not ban Huckleberry Finn for racism? Why not ban The Crucible for witchcraft? Why not ban The Things They Carried for violence and why not ban the Bible and argue separation of church and state? …All the books I just mentioned are part of the 11th-grade Judson High School English curriculum. I read and appreciated all of these books and would like future classes to have the same privilege.”

The reaction from the board’s vice-president Richard LaFoille is classic. The Lacoste-Caputo story makes it sound as though LaFoille just threw up his hands in the face of freedom-lovers like Gagne, who, based on his quote, has probably watched too many courtroom dramas. Says LaFoille: “I don’t see how we can ban this book…. You kids want this book, I’m going to give it to you.”

The piece de resistance, though, is the quote from Kwon Pyo, the husband of the woman who objected to The Handmaid’s Tale on the grounds that it was sexually explicit and offensive to Christians. “I’m appalled by this trash book…. When garbage goes in, garbage comes out. This is trash and it will corrupt the American youth.”

From sea to shining sea.

Related links:
Click here for the San Antonio Express-News

To bind or not to bind

Jeanette Winterson considers the future of the book in a piece for The Times. Inspired by a visit to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to see the St John’s Bible, the first handwritten illuminated manuscript created in Britain in the last 500 years, Winterson posits a number of future scenarios for the book as we know it, including its relegation to the status of handcrafted art object. But even with all the competition from high-tech gadgets and information providers, Winterson does not forsee an end to the traditional book. What we may see happen, she speculates, is the transfer of certain book categories onto purely digital technology platforms, including the ubiquitous celebrity bio. “People who don’t really read don’t really need books,” Winterson writes, “so let them have Jordan and Beckham in lots of other ways. Audio, animated-audio, that is, audio with pictures — is just about right for most celebrity publications.”

Related links:
Read Jeanette Winterson’s piece in The Times

4 God so luvd da world…

In a bid to increase readership, The Bible Society in Australia has launched a translation of all 31,173 verses of the Bible in the modern, abbreviated language of text messages, reports The Associated Press. The new modern format follows on the heels of the Hip Hop Bible, a recorded spoken-word version of the Holy Book.

Bible Society spokesperson Michael Chant says the SMS version remains faithful to the grammar of the International Contemporary English Version of the Bible and that the spelling is the only thing that has changed. At a rate of about 150 characters per verse and one verse per message, sending the entire Bible by SMS would take more than 30,000 messages.

Related links:
Click here for the full story from CNN.com
Click here for the project’s website

Want to change the world? Write a book.

Yesterday Lord Melvyn Bragg of ITV’s The South Bank Show announced his picks for the 12 British books that changed the world. Resembling a reading list for first-year undergrads, the list spans 700 years and includes the usual suspects – The King James Bible, Shakespeare’s First Folio, Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication on the Rights of Woman – as well as a pleasant surprise or two. A run-down of the list will be aired as a four-part special to screen next April on ITV, a major commercial competitor to the BBC.

Related links:
Click here for a list of the books and commentary by Ian Burrell of The Independent