As eye weekly reports, Louis Riel author Chester Brown is looking to get in on the federal election as a Libertarian candidate. He’s currently trying to amass the 100 signatures necessary to get the party’s nomination for the Trinity-Spadina riding, though even if he does, it’s unlikely that incumbent Olivia Chow will be too worried.

As eye’s Marc Weisblott writes, The Beguiling is soliciting signatures on Brown’s behalf, with this caveat: “Please note: You can nominate Chester and then decide to vote for someone who might actually get elected.”

Weisblott also notes that Brown received a $16,000 Canada Council grant for his next graphic-novel project, “a 200-page chronicle of his experiences paying for sexual services.” Is anyone else worried that the Tories are smelling blood in the water?

Furthermore:

How is a candidate telling voters that the government should keep as much distance as rationally possible going to explain that one?

“I don’t understand why those grants are there,” says Brown. “If you can’t make money off your art then you should get a real job to support yourself.

“I also don’t think that people collecting welfare are doing anything wrong. What I’m taking a stand against are the people who do the distributing.

“And, if I didn’t take it, the money would probably go to someone less deserving than me.”

Let’s not forget that star CanLit author Thomas King – whose next project, I think we can assume, is probably not a 200-page chronicle of his experiences paying for sexual services – is also running in this election. He’s an NDP candidate in Guelph, under the presumably more voter-friendly name of Tom King.

Fans of the late Canadian novelist and ZZ Top lookalike Robertson Davies can now claim a part of the author’s history for themselves. StyleNorth reports that selected pieces of furniture and decorations belonging to the novelist and playwright, who died in 1995, are up for sale. Canadian auction house Ritchies is conducting the sale, which will be held from Sept. 16-18.

Items in the sale include an English walnut stationery box valued between $200 and $300, and a Victorian page turner with a tortoise-shell blade and a handle embossed with the image of St. George, whose shield is monogrammed with the initials RWD.

But perhaps the most desirable item on the block will be Davies’s personal writing desk, an early-20th-century leather-topped, Chippendale-style mahogony desk, valued between $1,000 and $1,500. Superstitious writers who want to bask in the reflected glory of a Canadian literary icon and possibly soak up some residual inspiration may be willing to part with a couple of thou’ for this particular item. Given Davies’ own fascination with ghosts and spirits, perhaps the buyer will wind up with more than just a jazzy piece of furniture.

Does anyone have $1,500 Quillblog could borrow?

John Meier wants to own every English-language first edition book that has ever won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. (You may remember him from a Quillblog post back in November.)

Today, Meier, 51, was profiled in the The Globe and Mail. Marsha Lederman describes the Ikea Billy bookcases where Meier houses his collection on the ground floor of his parent’s house. He uses blackout curtains to protect the books and sometimes even shelves them backwards so as not to expose colours prone to fading, such as the Day-Glo orange on his four copies of Brian Moore’s The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960).

Meier is currently trying to raise $500, 000 to display his collection at the Cultural Olympiad, which will coincide with the 2010 Winter Olympics. After the Olympics, Meier hopes to take his books on a cross-country tour of Canada. The Canada Council will not fund the project because it “constitutes privileged treatment” of the English-language Governor General winners for fiction.

Read the article here. For more on Meier read this story about the National Book-Collecting Contest published in Q&Q last month.

Some book-related links:

• Larry McMurtry’s new book about book collecting (The New York Times)
• Salman Rushdie on Midnight’s Children’s third Booker win (The Guardian)
• Booker judge thinks future winners should be determined by public (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Christian Science Monitor looks at Google Book Search (The Christian Science Monitor)
• U.K. publishing professional arrested in Dubai for nude sunbathing (The Daily Telegraph)
• U.K. publishing professional fears being made example of (The Daily Telegraph)
• U.K. publishing professional “wasn’t wild enough” for ex-boyfriend (The Daily Telegraph)

From CBC.ca:

Like Trekkies or Beatles fanatics, James Bond buffs are proud of the factoid retention that comes with their obsessive fandom. Thus, when the Fleming Collection – an art museum originally endowed by Robert Fleming, financier grandfather of Bond creator Ian Fleming – announced the launch of an exhibit celebrating the cover art of James Bond novels, the calls started pouring in.

“We’ve had to deal with the fans every step of the way,” says Selina Skipwith, curator of Bond Bound. “The responses to the literature on our website were like” — and here she affects a drippy tone to mimic a Bond fan — “‘You say Fleming was 43 when he wrote Casino Royale, but in fact he turned 44 before he handed the manuscript to the publisher, Jonathan Cape.’”

Luckily, as keeper of the Fleming Collection, Skipwith is armed with more Bond minutiae than most aficionados. In preparation for the exhibit, which opened April 22, she returned to the Fleming oeuvre, rereading dozens of novels and comparing cover artwork from dozens of countries. Skipwith is the ultimate Bond girl – at least until late June, when the exhibit closes and, in all probability, London will be Bonded out.

Only in the U.K. would the curator of a major exhibit openly mock that exhibit’s target audience.

Philip M. Parker is the (computer-aided) author of more than 200,000 books. And, thanks to the wonders of print-on-demand, he has yet to lose money on a single one. His work represents the tip of a very long tail.

From the New York Times:

Among the books published under his name are “The Official Patient’s Sourcebook on Acne Rosacea” ($24.95 and 168 pages long); “Stickler Syndrome: A Bibliography and Dictionary for Physicians, Patients and Genome Researchers” ($28.95 for 126 pages); and “The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India” ($495 for 144 pages).

But these are not conventional books, and it is perhaps more accurate to call Mr. Parker a compiler than an author. Mr. Parker, who is also the chaired professor of management science at Insead (a business school with campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore), has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject — broad or obscure — and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books in a range of genres, many of them in the range of 150 pages and printed only when a customer buys one.

If this sounds like cheating to the layman’s ear, it does not to Mr. Parker, who holds some provocative — and apparently profitable — ideas on what constitutes a book. While the most popular of his books may sell hundreds of copies, he said, many have sales in the dozens, often to medical libraries collecting nearly everything he produces. He has extended his technique to crossword puzzles, rudimentary poetry and even to scripts for animated game shows.

All we need now is a machine that reads for us, and we’ll finally be free of the oppressive shackles of literate culture.

Over the last few months, Q&Q has been collecting data for our upcoming industry salary survey, which will appear in our June issue. We’ve got a lot of facts and figures, but we’d also like to hear some more personal stories, which is where you, dear reader, come in.

If you work for a publisher, distributor, or wholesaler, and you’re willing to discuss the pros and cons of your job (relating to the work, the pay, the hours, the office conditions, or anything at all, really), please give our staff writer, Scott MacDonald, a call at 416-364-3333, ex. 3111.

Please note that we won’t print any names or identifying details without specific permission.

Library Thing, a social networking website for booklovers, is offering, for your browsing pleasure, the libraries of such luminaries as James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, and Adam Smith, mostly compiled from collections held by museums and estates.

Some libraries provide few surprises: for instance, Ernest Hemingway had about a million books on hunting, bullfighting, and the first World War. But on the other hand, there’s something very touching about picturing Tupac Shakur settling down with a nice cup of tea and The Diary of Anaïs Nin.

From CBC.ca:

When Canadian troops liberated western Holland from Nazi rule in May 1945, a 21-year-old Dutch artist named Mart Kempers was among the cheering throngs who greeted them.

Before the year was out, Mr. Kempers would create a series of visually striking images that captured the moment of liberation for a children’s book, hi ha canada, published in 1945 by Rotterdam publishing house Luctor.

Because of paper shortages due to the war, hi ha canada probably had a print run of only a few hundred copies, making it a rare find. The ever intrepid Library and Archives Canada recently acquired a copy after a long and bloody hunt, and now everyone can go and have a read:

Members of the public can look at the book in a special reading room at Library and Archives Canada if they abide by the rules, which include wearing special gloves to protect its yellowing pages from natural oils on our fingers.

Library and Archives Canada will feature hi ha canada on its website Wednesday as part of a new program to better publicize new acquisitions and treasures in its immense collection of books, maps, newspapers, portraits and music.

C. Max Magee at The Millions points us to the latest in lit fun: literary action figures.

While most kids were playing with G.I. Joes or Barbies, we at The Millions were more likely to have our nose in a book. Finally, there are molded plastic figurines for us too, though its not clear whether they are fully posable or offer kung-fu grip action. We’ll take what we can get. Who among us wouldn’t enjoy staging our own literary roundtables with the likes of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and Charles Dickens?

Magee doesn’t mention whether the figures come with a free inhaler refill and anti-wedgie kit.

For bonus wedgie points, The Millions also points us to a complete list of the Wikipedia entries updated and added to by author Nicholson Baker – a list that does not include, interestingly enough, the Wikipedia article on Baker himself.