On Books ~

"Books were what you did when it was raining; they were the entertainment, they were the escape, they were the extended family, and I read them all, even when they weren't supposed to be for children."

~ Margaret Atwood, referring to books in summer cottages, 'Why I Write,' The Toronto Star, 5 June 1993.

"A home or a people without good books is something more than waste; in short, an empty brain is the devil's workshop."

~ John Britnell, bookseller and son of the founder of Albert Britnell Book Store, Toronto..

"A good book is the best of friends, the same today & forever."

~ Martin Farquhar Tupper, English writer, poet.

Marconi's Anticipations

BIG thank you to Scott for the hours of expert service on my PC.  Everyone out there will understand when I explain that everything was wiped clean, saved in two places and now I am working in the next century ~ everything is updated.  Days later, I am trying to find files.  Prompts are still worrisome - the latest:  "Unable to resolve the server DNS address..."  Nope!  Don't know what a DNS server is.  All I know is that pictures are not available for blogging.

Most troublesome ~ my e-mail neatlittlebookshop@gmail.com  is not accessible.  THAT, I am advised is in use and I am advised to choose another address.

Not unlike the following:

"Shortly before mid-day I placed the single earphone to my ear and started listening. . . The answer came at 12:30 when I heard, faintly but distinctly, pip-pip-pip.  I handed the phone to Kemp:  'Can you hear anything?' I asked.  'Yes,' he said, 'the letter S' ~ he could hear it.  I knew then that all my anticipations had been justified."

"...Pip-pip-pip...!"    "S..."

~ Guglielmo Marconi, Italian-born inventor of wireless telegraphy, describing the reception of a signal in Morse Code.
Source:  FAMOUS LASTING WORDS, John Robert Colombo.Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. 2000.

Smile for Today ~ The Boneless Wonder

"I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit...which I most desired to see was the one described as 'The Boneless Wonder'...My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench."

~  Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

Local author, Brad Smith, released the third title in his Virgil Cain series ~ Shoot the Dog. While Cain's team of percherons are hired to appear in a movie being shot in the area, he unwittingly gets drawn into a troublesome setting.

Shoot the Dog, Simon & Shuster, 2013, available in The Neat Little Bookshop: new hardcover with dustcover: $26. tx. incl.

[Photos:  the author with fans Margaret Rose of Dunnville and Bob Allen of Toronto. Photos courtesy of Sig Rose.]

Ice Over the Grand

"I propose that we use the term "koob,"  book spelt backwards, to describe [junk reading]... I've sold a lot of koobs in my day and plan to continue to do so, but I do respect books and I think a distinction must be made."

~ Jack McClelland (1922 - 2004) President of McClelland & Stewart, interviewed in 1973, quoted by James King in Jack:  A Life with Writers, The Story of Jack McClelland (1999)

"When I started out as a scribbler, something like fifty years ago, you could fit all of Canada's quality writers into a Volkswagen and still have room to pick up a hitchhiker.  These happy days we could just about fill a bus."

~ Mordecai Richler (Jan. 27, 1931 - July 3, 2001) Canadian novelist, essayist, screenwriter, quoted in the National Post, Dec. 11, 1999.

Smile For Today ~  Peter C. Newman's description of Canadian writing in the fifties.

"...the status of Canadian writers ranked somewhere between taxidermists and rat exterminators.  Their works ~ often concerning the mating habits of beavers, the memoirs of forlorn women braving life on the frontier, or the history of the North-West Mounted Police ~ were relegated to a section labelled 'CANADIANA' at the back of the library, quite a festive word for such a dreary collection.  'CANADIANA' was located between other sluggish sections such as 'CALLIGRAPHY' and 'CANNIBALISM,' ensuring that readers seldom ventured into those nether regions.  Groping through those dark shelves, I managed to read all of Hugh MacLennan, Donald Creighton, and Bruce Hutchison, even if my sense of national identity was not yet fully developed."

~ Peter C. Newman, Canadian author, journalist. (b. May 10, 1921) Here Be Dragons/ Telling Tales of People, Passion and Power, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2004.