Vintage/Anchor Books recently tweeted this photo of a “Most Stolen Books” shelf from an unidentified bookstore. I’m not too surprised by the “popularity” of Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, or Henry Miller, but who risks getting arrested to steal a book by Bret Easton Ellis? And why isn’t anyone stealing books written by women?
Each June since 2010, the waterways in the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch —aka Den Bosch—have been the venue for one of the Netherland’s most surreal and wonderful events. Inspired by the macabre work of local painter Hieronymus Bosch, local creatives from various disciplines—music, art, dance, theater, architecture—along with hundreds of volunteers build delightfully weird floats that are paraded through the city.
Beginning tonight, and again on Saturday and Sunday, the water-borne parade with thrill the crowds of spectators lining the River Dommel. Since Den Bosch is celebrating the 500th anniversary of Hieronymus Bosch’s death all this year, the parade is expected to be a lollapalooza. Here are some photos and a video from last year’s parade. The Bosch Parade website should have images and videos up by Sunday.
Any Given Book is an exciting book art project which has brought together sculptors, street artists, photographers, cartoonists, and painters. Rome’s White Noise Gallery has curated the unusual show of book art. The participating artists have each brought an idiosyncratic take on book art. You can learn more about the exhibition, which runs through July 31, 2016, at the White Noise Gallery website.
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Check our cartoonist Peter Chiykowski’s blog Rock Paper Cynic for more like this.
OK, I admit it, I shop at IKEA. In fact, half of my house is furnished by the Swedish furniture giant. My office is lined by the famous Billy bookcases, my file cabinets are all IKEA, even the desk that I’m writing this post on is from IKEA. My kitchen is filled with IKEA cabinets, which are packed with IKEA utensils, mugs, glasses and bowls. Even my den is furnished with IKEA sofa, chair, bookcases, and entertainment unit. So, it’s no surprise that the next time that I’m in Sweden I’ll be heading for the new IKEA Museum.
Located in Älmhult, the brand new museum is situated in the very first IKEA retail store from 1958. The original building has been renovated and now houses a collection of 20,000 plus items sold by the chain over the years. Every piece on display is an original. When the company could not find items, they sourced them from customers. I’m not surprised, I still own an IKEA chair that I bought 30 years ago.
The museum, which actually opens to the public on June 30th, has recreated period rooms, temporary exhibitions, and of course a restaurant where vsitors can get their fix of meatballs and apple cake.
Many thanks to Lucy from Jonkers Rare Books in lovely Henley-on-Thames for this wonderful infographic. If you can’t get to the UK, you can still visit the terrific bookshop via their website.
Singapore bookstore BooksActually has launched the first two of a new series of book vending machines. The machines are located at the Singapore Visitors Centre and the National Museum of Singapore. The book vendors will be rotated every three months to new locations. Each holds about 150 books, with titles from local authors. Subject matter ranges from novels and short stories to poetry and graphic novels. According to BooksActually manager Renee Ting, the inspiration for the vending machines goes back to the 1937 Penguin Books Penguincubator.
These wonderful graphic representations of air travel routes were based on 600,000 flight routes from 3,200 airports around the world. Swiss programmer Martin Grandjean utilized data from OpenFlights.org to create the graphics. Check out his fascinating website to learn more.
Here in the New World we tend to forget that we too have a history. Montreal, one of my all time favorite North American cities, was founded in 1642. In the run-up to next year’s 375th anniversary celebrations, Montreal tourism folks have created a marvelous project to remind visitors and citizens alike of the city’s great history. The Montréal en Histoires activities include the stunning Cité Mémoire installations, which includes dozens of projections of historical figures throughout Old Montreal every night beginning at dusk. There’s also a neat multilingual app which allows visitors to use augmented reality to learn more about Montreal’s history and culture.
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