Photo: Nigel Beale.

Check ‘em out:

1. Friday, April 16, 4:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. & Saturday, April 17, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Over 10,000 adult & children’s books and movies at great prices!  Delicious baked goods!  Kars Public School, 6692 Rideau Valley Drive, South, Kars.  A portion of the proceeds to “Help Lesotho”.
2. Saturday, April 17, 2010 9 AM – 2 PM Robert Bateman Public School 1250 Blohm Drive
3. Saturday April 17, 9 am-12 pm Bayview Public School, 185 Owl Drive, South Ottawa
4. Saturday, April 17th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, April 18th from  10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Mammoth Used Book Sale, held by the Friends of Ottawa Public Library Association, will take place on  at the Nepean Sportsplex, 1701 Woodroffe Avenue, Hall F.  More than twenty thousand books of all types are available at bargain prices.  Admission and parking are free.  For more information call 613-580-2424 x.41060.
5. April 17 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and on Sunday, April 18 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm Signets Vanier Bookmarks, Vanier Branch, Ottawa Public Library, 310 Pères Blancs Avenue
6. Saturday April 17, 9 am-12 pm, Bayview Public School Garage and Book Sale Bayview School, 185 Owl Drive, South Ottawa

Here’s what I love about hunting books in the age of the Internet: went into a favourite thrift store this evening. On the door – a "Books 50% off" sign…so I’m already happy. After scouring one side of the room I move across the floor to the last shelf. I notice a few Standard Edition Elizabeth Bowen titles. Then a First of The Shelbourne Hotel (Knopf, 1951). In it, on the ffep, is written: "To Joyce and Hume with Love Elizabeth, October 1951."  I’d noticed several other books with ‘Joyce and Hume Wrong’ written in them. Back home with the book, and a google search which turns this up from the Canadian Encyclopedia:

Wrong doubtless knew Canadian diplomat Charles Ritchie who, as it turns out, was romantically connected to….Elizabeth Bowen. Just ask Victoria Glendinning.

Photo: Gaspereau Press.

"Good reviewing," writes Carmine Starnino in the not-to-be-missed introduction to his A Lover’s Quarrel Essays and Reviews, "- reviewing that believes in literary failure – is invaluable because by calling one poem good and another less good, and adducing clear reasons for those claims, it offers one writerly interpretation of a particular achievement, and invites the reader to sypathetically tag along; his or her senses momentarily borrowing the reviewer’s responses."

We met recently in a somewhat echoey corner of the National Gallery in Ottawa to hold Starnino’s most recent collection of poetry, This Way Out, up to scrutiny, naming names. Which of his poems are good, which bad; who are the best and worst contemporary Canadian poets. Listen here as we walk the walk of A Lover’s Quarrel:

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So like

I’m driving along and I see this amazing Floridian sky. So I hurriedly

grab my camera

in order to

capture

and share it all with you.

Durham Cathedral by Albert Goodwin

"In fine, since all men naturally desire to know, and since by means of books we can attain the knowledge of the ancients, which is to be desired beyond all riches, what man living according to nature would not feel the desire of books?  And although we know that swine trample pearls under foot, the wise man will not therefore be deterred from gathering the pearls that lie before him. A library of wisdom, then is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desireable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, aye, even ot the faith, must needs become a lover of books." 

from The Philobiblon.

Born in the mid 1280s Richard de Bury studied philosophy and theology at Oxford, became a Benedictine monk at Durham Cathedral, tutored and inspired a love of books in the future King Edward lll – whom he would later serve as high chancellor and treasurer of England -  and was made Bishop of Durham in 1333.  The Philobiblon was completed on de Bury’s 58th birthday, January 24th, in 1345 and first printed at Cologne in 1473. The first ‘true’ ( according to the Preface of the King’s Classic 1907 edition I have) English translation is by Ernest C. Thomas, published by Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co. in 1888.

This from Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis Booksellers:

"The show opened quite busy and never really stopped. I doubt more than 5 minutes at any given time that we did not have people in the booth. The people were asking good questions, genuinely interested and, best, buying books. It really seemed like there was a palpable difference in the “feel” of the room…more energy, more interest, more excitement…even more booksellers smiling. I look forward to hearing feedback from other booksellers to see if others agree. I hope so…it is great to see such things."

"Cargo Ships on the Sands of the Elbe" by Johann Martin Gensler

During our visit together in Philadelphia Frank Wilson brought this great poem (written in 1903) to my attention:  "Cargoes" by the English Poet-laureate John Masefield (1878-1967) :

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds
Emeralds, amethests,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin toys.

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"In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books."

Richard de Bury in The Love of Books.

R.I.P.