It has been the private joke amongst booksellers for the longest
time -- a customer comes into the shop and buys hardbacks by the
yard (or metre) to decorate a room in his house. We once had two women
customers who wanted us to order several dozen copies of books by
Jane Austen which they were going to cut up and roll into beads to make
a 'literary' bead curtain. Wired Magazine reported recently: 'What
happens when product designer Philippe Starck needs 1,500 books?all
with white spines?to fill out the shelves in a posh new Miami hotel?
He calls on Thatcher Wine (that's a name, not a varietal) to curate
the collection.
Now Wine isn't a book designer, but he does design with books.'The story has it that Wine started by browsing thrift store and Ebay to fulfil special orders by customers. But this ended in him looking for books to outfit entire rooms in building. Wine, who owns Juniper Books, fills his shelves with custom of classic works and curated selections of current works.
I was shocked by the ladies who wanted to cut up the books for beads, but this I can take. Anything to sell books!
It is not uncommon for us to receive phone calls or emails from
people looking to dispose of books (both text and general) that they no longer want. On one hand, we understand their
needs. But on the other, we don't want to become a dumping ground
for old books and a 
The
next intake for the Silverfish Writing Programme will
be on 14 July 2012, and run for 10 Saturdays from 10.30am to 12.30pm, and will be opened for registration in
early June 2012. The past few programmes have been extremely popular and
we have had to turn away many late inquiries, because the maximum number of participants we can accommodate is 10(ten). So we encourage those who
are interested to register early, and avoid a last minute rush. (Please, also,
tell your friends who are interested.) The registration fee will be RM1000.00 per participant for the full ten week programme, but an early
bird discount of 10% will apply until (and including) June 30, 2012. 
Mr
Ramachandran, Executive Director of the National Book Development
Council of Singapore, announced on Monday, 28 May 2012 that Malaysia
will be the 'Country of Focus' at next year's Asian Festival of
Children's Content (AFCC). Now in its fourth year, the AFCC is held
annually in Singapore to promote Asian content for children. More than
80 sessions were organised during the Festival covering topics on
writing, illustrating, editing, translating, apps for children and
critique sessions. Book launches and author signings added to the buzz
and there was also an inaugural rights fair. An estimate of more than
700 people attended over 80 sessions held over the four days while total
attendance from the public at various events were estimated at 3000.
Sixteen countries from Asia, South Africa, UK and US were represented at
the AFCC. This year's country of focus was the Philippines which made a
strong showing with 10 speakers, a stand showcasing books from the
Philippines accompanied by musical performances. Norhayati Razali,
officer at the Kota Buku, a body set up to promote the Malaysian book
industry, said the Kota Buku is pleased to play a leading role for
Malaysia's participation at AFCC 2013 which will be held from 25-28 May
2013.
The latest news is that Apple has offered to settle
its e-book price fixing charge in Europe, but vows to fight a a
similar battle in America because the charges against it by the
Department of Justice are "simply not true". Forbes.com reports, 
