Canada snags rare children’s book

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.

G.I. Poe

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.

Stairway to book heaven?

A British architecture firm, Levitate Architects, has come up with a novel way for apartment-dwellers to accommodate their too-large book collections. In a genius stroke, they have created a combo bookshelf/staircase, which you can see for yourself here.

How is it that no one has thought to do this before? And where can we get one made?

Announcing the 2008 Q&Q salary survey

Quill & Quire is now collecting responses for our 2008 salary survey. If you work in the publishing or distribution sector, we want to know about your work experience and educational background, your job satisfaction, your salaries, your benefits, and your outlook on the future of the business.

The survey is completely anonymous and should take only 10 minutes or so to fill out. The results will be published in an upcoming issue of Q&Q. (Our 2005 workplace survey story can be found here.)

Click here for our salary survey page.

There’s book collecting, and then there’s book collecting…

Author Timothy Taylor has a story in the December issue of The Walrus about John Meier, a B.C. man who has collected, amongst many other things, every single Governor General’s Award English fiction winner since the prize’s inception in 1936. As the article points out, not even the Governor General has all of them. Former GG Adrienne Clarkson even made a special trip to the man’s home in 2004 to see the collection.

The governor general, with her high-profile schedule, had precisely one hour for John Meier, he had been informed by security. Clarkson — sipping tea, asking questions, and leafing through this history of Canadian letters — stayed for two and a half. Meier told her collecting stories, anecdotes about the authors. He also spoke about his latest project, writing and publishing a descriptive bibliography of the collection covering the first seventy years of the prize. For those unfamiliar with these most bookish of books, these catalogues of minute publishing information, that undertaking is best understood as near-Sisyphean. Meier had set out to find all the publishing information for each title, scattered as that data would be through library and publishers’ archives across the English-speaking world.

GG winners aren’t all Meier has, of course. He’s also got:

Galley proofs of The Color Purple. An advance review copy of A Confederacy of Dunces. A first edition of Geek Love, signed by Katherine Dunn to her editor. Advance review copies of both Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. I recall Meier considering the long shelf devoted to Irving for a moment — Meier loved John Irving — before pulling out a mint-condition copy of The Hotel New Hampshire, an unusual early-state shot from the manuscript. Inside was a slip of paper from the publisher indicating that the book had been given to Robertson Davies. A moment later, I was holding Tom Robbins’s Another Roadside Attraction, the original Doubleday & Company file copy. Meier had a galley of that one, too — an ultra-rare Cerlox-bound version, the very first setting of the type.

Given that level of obsessiveness, is it shocking to learn that Meier is also an inventor and that his father was a scientific adviser to Howard Hughes?

A stamp of disapproval for M&S

Every publisher gets a little bad press now and then; it’s part of the game. But rarely does it come from the stamp-collecting media.

McClelland & Stewart, though, has gotten some unflattering attention from Canadian Stamp News. The publisher launched a new postage stamp last year to commemorate its 100th anniversary, and it seems the design was not a hit with the philately journal’s readers. In a mail-in poll of 6,000 collectors, the M&S stamp placed first … in the Least Favourite Stamp category.

Plans for the Q&Q stamp have gone back to the drawing board.

Previewing our newest print issue

The April 2007 issue of Quill & Quire will appear in stores and in subscribers’ mailboxes over the next week or so. It includes a profile of Toronto novelist Cordelia Strube, a Special Report on Book Design, the Kids’ Announcements (listing all Canadian children’s books to be published this spring), and more. Plus our feature on Simon & Schuster Canada‘s plans to boost their presence in the Canadian market.

Learn more about the issue after the jump, and go here for subscription information.

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Trading cards for the literary mind

Want to have a little fun with theory? A website run by David Gauntlett, a professor at the University of Westminster, introduces theories and theorists in a more approachable manner via trading cards. Students and coffee shop debaters may gather round and exchange the ideas and cards of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Edward Said, and Deleuze & Guattari.

The cards include a photo, a brief description of the theorist’s work, and a list of strengths, weaknesses, and special skills. Gauntlett also developed a card game where players defend their theorist, collecting the weaker theorist cards to win. An official set of 21 cards is available for purchase while the unofficial collection may be printed from the website. Neither set includes gum.

Update: ban-tastic library revokes heinous policy

Earlier this week, In Other Media linked to the story of an Indiana library’s new restrictions on homeless shelter residents’ lending privileges and their cutting shelter children off from borrowing entirely.

The Post-Tribune reports today that a packed house at the Porter County Public Library board of directors’ monthly meeting yesterday saw “the directors unanimously agreed to nix the policy in order to reach an amicable agreement with the county’s shelter directors.”

While they admitted that their decision to limit borrowing privileges to the folks at homeless shelters was “premature,” they didn’t go so far as to say that they pulled the policy because, hey, telling children — homeless children — that they can’t take out library books looks pretty damn bad.

At least library assistant director James Cline had the decency to admit that “library officials probably should have received input from shelter directors prior to implementing the policy.” You think? But he apologized, at least, and Spring Valley Shelter executive director Tom Isakson was rather gracious about the whole thing, saying, “I’m not surprised that in the end those serving Porter County wanted to work collaboratively.”

But the most touching part of the whole thing? The tale of the Knoblock children, who “spent much of the morning and afternoon Wednesday … collecting books and videotapes from neighbors to donate to [the shelter]. Eleven-year-old Taylor led the charge, taking his [siblings] and a wagon with him,” according to the article. “‘I read in the paper that the public library wouldn’t let kids from the homeless shelter check out books anymore,’ Taylor said. ‘I didn’t like that idea, so I started to collect books for Spring Valley to have their own library.’”

Related links:
Check out the Post-Tribune story here