Basketball player, copywriter, spy, legendary chef: Julia Child would be 100 years old today, and were still indebted to her legacy of greatness. Child was a pioneer in the culinary world, making high cuisine accessible to a wide audience. Childs cookbooks continue to be popular among both cooking enthusiasts and rare book collectors alike.
In most industries, mistakes cost money--sometimes lots of money. In the world of rare books, however, mistakes can impact a book's value in a quite a different way. Called errata, mistakes made in books may include spelling errors, word omissions, or the use of a different word in place of the intended one.
On Tuesday we lost a legendary novelist, essayist, and polemicist. Gore Vidal passed away at the age of 86. Vidal was renowned as a leading author and political thinker of the modern era.
We all have our favorite--and not-so-favorite authors. The same goes for writers themselves, and through the years many bitter rivalries have sprung up between legendary authors. A look at some of the most famous:
On July 23, 1829 William Austin Burt filed for US patent No. 5581X. He called his invention the typographer, but today wed refer to it as a typewriter. While others had designed similar machines, Burts was the first of its kind in the United Statesand the first model that was actually practical for use. The device eventually changed the way authors worked, and some contemporary authors still prefer their trusty typewriters to computers.
Today is Friday the 13th, a day long help to be inauspicious. The superstition began with a fear of the number 13 and is ages old; even the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (1700 BC) omits 13 in its list of numbered laws.However, we can thank a book for the association with Friday.
