Kage Baker has passed away this morning after a fierce struggle with cancer. She was best known for her Company novels, including In the Garden of Iden. For months, she had fought the uterine cancer privately, but the tumor spread to her brain.
Continue Reading Add comment January 31st, 2010
Ohmygod the book is dead – yet again. Another assassin, the iPad, wings its way across the Atlantic, sowing shock and awe and bringing angels of death to mainstream everything. Those still smearing black gunge on dead trees are portrayed as Hare Krishna nutters, banging the drum for the old religion. They are so completely yesterday. Whataboy, Jobs. Buy Apple. Gimme another freebie.
Continue Reading Add comment January 30th, 2010
Please visit us at the Los Angeles ABAA Bookfair at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza between Friday, February 12, 2010 at 5:00pm and Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 5:00pm. Books Tell You Why will be in booth 419. We usually get a couple of complimentary tickets, please contact us if interested.
Continue Reading Add comment January 29th, 2010
J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose The Catcher in the Rye shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
Continue Reading Add comment January 28th, 2010
Noted author and social activist Howard Zinn died of a heart attack Wednesday while traveling, his daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn, said.
Continue Reading Add comment January 27th, 2010
Louis Auchincloss, a Wall Street lawyer from a prominent New York family who became a widely read author of dozens of books that plumbed the world of Manhattan’s old-money elite, died Tuesday night in Manhattan. He was 92.
Continue Reading Add comment January 27th, 2010
A new exhibition has filled Firestone Library’s main gallery with 100 portraits of poets, novelists and essayists, pulled from the holdings of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Continue Reading Add comment January 25th, 2010
MT. PLEASANT, SC. Unfortunately, fraudulent behaviors and practices don’t stop. This time, a Maya Angelou first edition of Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now.
Found at a Pennsylvania bookseller, Books Tell You Why inspector Christopher Koch identified this forgery: a traced signature. How is this being done? Usually, the forger (1) takes the silhouette of a signature, printed or real, and portraits it onto the target area, either with a projector on top or with a light table from underneath; (2) then, usually with a pencil first, traces the signature; (3) the pencil signature is then traced with the final pen/marker, most always a thicker marker is used to not make the signature appear “jittery”; (4) as a last step, the pencil signature is erased again.
When looking at this particular “signature” under a magnifying glass or a high-resolution scanner (1,200 dpi), a number of identifiers became apparent. Most obvious were the “thick”, non-fluid signature and the underlying impression of the pencil tracing:
The real signature of Maya Angelou looks quite different, it is fluid and elegant:
For a list of authors and signatures to assist in the authentication process of signed books, please refer to the Reference Autographs & Signatures at Books Tell You Why.
Add comment January 23rd, 2010
Larry McMurtry has enjoyed a literary career most writers can only dream about. He found success quickly. Hollywood loves him — and McMurtry has flourished as a screenwriter with 30 screenplays including “Brokeback Mountain,” which won an Oscar.
Continue Reading Add comment January 22nd, 2010
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Robert B. Parker, the blunt and beloved crime novelist who helped revive the hard-boiled genre and branded a tough guy of his own through his “Spenser” series, has died. He was 77.
Continue Reading Add comment January 19th, 2010
