Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

Who knows that Sir Henry Morton Stanley, coiner of the famous phrase above, had women in his party when he crossed Africa in 1877? Or that one of his bearers, Uledi, was a strong swimmer who saved many lives?

Such interesting and little-known facts abound in a new exhibition, Hidden Histories of Exploration, staged by the Royal Geographical Society, which is accompanied by a handsomely illustrated catalogue.

If you can't make the actual venue in London, trawling the associated website is a treat. (The link takes you directly to one of the many fascinating pages.) Paintings by unknown explorers as well as more famous names illustrate the informative text, including an amazing portfolio of Easter Island scenes.

Historical thesaurus outdated already, but never mind, think positive

Just to show how quickly a dictionary can be (ever so slightly) outdated, a new word has arrived already.

It is OBAMU
And the Japanese coined it.

According to Bill Sakovich on his blog, Ampontan, he read on a mailing list for those interested in the intricacies of Japanese-English translation that the new verb, "to Obama," is becoming increasingly popular on the Kyoto University campus.

The contributor to that mailing list wrote, "It means something along the lines of to ignore anything that makes you likely to fail and surge on regardless, preferably chanting 'Yes we can, yes we can.'"

According to the Japanese University Teachers network in Kitakyushu, it means: "To ignore inexpedient and inconvenient facts or realities, think, 'Yes we can, yes we can,' and proceed with optimism."

In a nutshell, it means, "Think positive."

An interesting research experience

Over August and September, Ron and I completed a lot of primary research at the British Library in London, a new building with many new and interesting features.

 

It is like a huge concourse, with winding stairs and mezzanine floors. (Actually, rather appropriate, considering that the Library is sited between two major railroad stations.) The foyer is huge, and has a visual impact that forces the visitor to look up, and up.

Everywhere people perch with their laptops, on steps, on benches, or at the many little tables scattered around. Many of them have paper coffee cups and portable lunches. They sit in silent groups, hunched over their keyboards.

Why? It takes a few moments to realize that the whole building has free Wi-Fi, as they call wireless internet access. To all appearances, the people are catching up on their email. The library perhaps hopes that they are scanning the much-touted digital library, instead.

Apart from a central glass column (surrounded by an empty moat, apparently) which is walled from within with shelves of large books, spines outward (how do the librarians inside the column know which book is which, I wonder?), the only books in sight are in the library shop.

It is a relief to an oldfashioned researcher to successfully apply for a library card, and go 'way upstairs to one of the unobtrusive reading rooms, progress through security, apply for reading material, and get down to some oldfashioned research.

Getting hold of documentary material is interesting, though. It is vital to know the shelfmark (having found it out by consulting many books on the subject until one is found that cites the shelfmark in a footnote), as the massive catalogue still needs work in that respect.

Documents and charts, I found, have just a 70-minute waiting time for delivery. Most books take forty-eight hours to arrive. Why? Because space is so limited, most have to be stored offsite. Images of that huge concourse do tend to haunt one while waiting ...

One also wonders if this is where the National Library of New Zealand is heading, the stated direction being digital, except that the plan includes providing expensive-to-maintain, taxpayer funded computers, so clients won't need to bring along their laptops.

Jim Traue, dogged campaigner for the retention of facilities for good oldfashioned research, has published a booklet of his various opinion pieces on the topic, A Library for the Nation or another Wellington tourist attraction? It is obtainable from the author at 16B Hadfield Terrace, Kelburn, Wellington 6012, price $5, p&p free.

So now we know how much she got

Sarah Palin discloses $1.25 million from Harpercollins.



In a disclosure form required under Alaska law, former governor Sarah Palin listed as income $1.25 million received from HarperCollins as a "retainer for book."

The report does not give the date she received the advance, but the disclosure (which includes a lot of other interesting details) covers the final seven months of her term as governor, from January 1, 2009, to July 26.

And the advance is exactly that, just a down payment on what is going to be a much more significant sum. Due, no doubt, to widespread curiosity about what this flamboyant woman is going to say next, Going Rogue is a bestseller already, though it doesn't hit the bookstores until November 17.

Vast historical thesaurus unveiled after 40 years in the making

A forty-year project in the making, the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is the first thesaurus to include the English vocabulary from the era of Old English to the present. Unsurprisingly, it has been hailed with applause, as a masterpiece worth waiting for.

Compiled the Department of English Language of the University of Glasgow, and edited by Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Irene Wotherspoon and Michael Samuels, the dictionary helps you find synonyms of words no one might have heard or read for centuries.

* At 4448 pages and close to a million words, it is the largest thesaurus in the world

* It is the very first historical thesaurus, anywhere, ever

* Not only does it give the synonym, it also supplies the date of first recorded use -- and of the last recorded use if the word has become obsolete

* It provides a background for obscure Old English words

* A comprehensive index allows for cross-referencing

* It also includes a fold-out color chart, which shows you how the classification system works

World's first phonebook brings $170K at auction

The world's first phone book has made history for the second time, having fetched $170,000 at auction. The twenty-page directory was published in November 1878, just two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. It listed 391 subscribers in New Haven, Connecticut.

'Should you wish to speak to another subscriber you should commence the conversation by saying, "Hulloa!",' it instructed the novice chatter. To make it easier to be heard, the speaker should be sure to leave the "lower lip and jaw free." In a ruling I wish was adopted by cellphone companies with subscribers who think long train or bus journeys are a chance to catch up (loudly) with all their mates, the user was commanded never to "use the wire more than three minutes at a time, or more than twice an hour," without first "obtaining permission from the main office."

To see the lively bidding, watch this.

It's never too late to return a library book

Conscience struck after 70 years, and a book has been returned to the Cubitt Town Library, Tower Hamlets, East London.

The BBC reports that Iris Chadwick (pictured with the book), who used to live on the Isle of Dogs, before moving to her current residence in Dorset, found the book while clearing out her house.

She borrowed the score of the musical Rose Marie from the library in 1939, on the eve of war, when she was just thirteen. Over the next 70 years, as the story poetically relates, "communism rose and fell, England won the football World Cup and man set foot on the moon."

And all that time the book was sitting on (or in) or piano stool, until Mrs. Chadwick found it. "It was part of my childhood," she said. Her first thought was to take it to a charity shop, but then she bit the bullet, set thoughts of library fines firmly aside, and made the trip to Tower Hamlets.

At 10p a day, the fine would have topped a hefty two-and-a-half thousand quid, but to Mrs. Chadwick's vast relief, the council agreed to waive it.

Encouraged by this evidence that it is never too late to return a library book, they have introduced a three-month amnesty for late library books.

On Martha's Vineyard rivals combine to sell books

Can you imagine Borders and B&N having a I-help-you-you-help-me relationship? Even when the aim is to serve the reading public better?

It's being done on Martha's Vineyard. As Megan Dooley of the Martha's Vineyard Gazette reports, the two reigning bookstores have "tapped into some old Vineyard magic: a sense of cooperation, community and support."

At the suggestion of a Random House rep, Dawn Braasch (left) of Bunch of Grapes and Susan Mercier of Edgartown Books teamed up to create a big enough crowd to entice Richard Russo to visit the island, appearing Friday at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

They also work together to serve their customers. Braasch notes, "It's great to be able to say to a customer, if we don't have [a book], 'Let me call Edgartown Books.' My goal is if we don't have it, they will or vice versa. We can't all carry everybody's book, and sometimes you make a judgment call for your store, is it going to sell or not. I think we have different clientele, certainly, in the way that Edgartown is different from Vineyard Haven."

BOUNTY for sale

Yes, the legendary HMS Bounty, scene of the most famous mutiny in British history, and the star of stirring nonfiction books, novels, and film adaptations, is up for sale.

The mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, who seized the breadfruit-laden Bounty after leaving Tahiti in April 1789, and set the captain, William Bligh, adrift in a boat, ranks up there with the Titanic as one of the iconic stories of the sea. The combination of sadism, violent confrontation, a sexy Polynesian paradise, and an epic small boat voyage has an enduringly irresistible appeal.

Ever since March 1790, when Bligh arrived in London to report what he called a "close-planned act of villainy", thousands of words have been written, and miles of film made. To be exact, five films have been made, one―the 1935 Oscar-winner―managing to convince the world that Bligh was a brute who looked just like Charles Laughton, and Christian, portrayed by Clark Gable, was a romantic hero.

Marlon Brando, who played an equally dashing Christian in a 1962 version, was so seduced by the story he married his Boraboran co-star, and bought his own Polynesian islet, which is one of the many coconut palm-studded motu that lie on the reef that almost completely encircles the dramatic peaks and chasms of Bora Bora. The mutiny now has several websites.

The Bounty that provided the romatic and dashing setting for the Brando film (technically known as "Bounty 2") is the one up for sale. Built by MGM studios for Mutiny on the Bounty, the replica sailing ship was due to be scrapped when filming was finished, but Brando had fallen in love with the vessel. Presumably he had spent all his spare dosh on his islet, because instead of purchasing it himself, he persuaded the moguls to spare the vessel for sale to someone else.

The ship has had three owners, including Ted Turner. The current owner is a reluctant seller, but apparently personal circumstances give him no choice.

More on Covers of Color

Spymouse reminds me that the jacket for Andrea Levy's Small Island showed two young women, well-dressed in the style of the late 40s/ early 50s, passing each other in the street, one white, one black. The novel itself has sold brilliantly, transcending all possible boundaries. Indeed, a two-part TV dramatisation is scheduled for September (starring Naomie Harris - she was in White Teeth a couple of years ago), and sales will probably take off all over again as a result.

Andrea's fifth novel The Long Song is scheduled to come out early next year. It's based on the life of her great- (or possibly great-great) grandmother, who was a slave in the West Indies. No prizes for guessing what ought to be on the jacket!