Catching up on Charlie Rose's week, I was struck by one of A.O. Scott's comment about "The Reader". He had quite a few reticenses about the movie but a particular one was that the movie "mystifies" reading and literature. To paraphrase him,  A.O. Scott does not believe that books are as transformative as they are often portrayed to be. (In "The Reader", he actually thought the point was almost assumed but not proven in any way, since the viewers are never made prevvy in any way to if or how the Kate Winslet's character may have been truly changed by her readings.)

What is truer and truer however is that media are cross-pollinating. More and more, people watch movie versions of books, then go buy the book; people listen to books on their ipods; people write books on the web; people write stories in group etc. In today's New York Times there is even a story about a a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn, Patrick Shea,  whose been writing one song for each of the 136 chapters in “Moby-Dick.”  Talk about mixing it all!

In "Les Bibliotheques Francaises sous l'Occupation," Marine Poulain describes how the Nazis stole about 10 million books over four years from both French public and private libraries.

I can't help but think that had Google been around in 1939, this would not have happened. And thanks to them, it will never happen again.

For all that we are debating about the good and bad of digitizing books, or how technology will affect the way we read, manipulate ideas or simply create them, one can only rejoice at the fact that "out-of-print" can be deleted from the dictionary and that robbing a people's cultural patrimony is forever dead.  

Everything is being studied, analyzed, examined. So does anybody know if there is a magical number when it comes to chapters or pages? What would sell better? 7 chapters, 150 pages. 32 chapters, 322 pages?

In Americanae Avventurose, Italian writer, Cristina Campo draws the portrait of 20 "Adventurous American", women whose behaviors or ideas make them stand apart. Those portraits includes that of Mae West, Hilda Doolittle, Josephine Nivison, and Kay Swift.

In Le Premier Homme de Ma Vie, French journalist Olivia Benhamou, interviews 11 (eleven) daughers about their relationship with their fathers. Among the interviews: writer, Camille Laurens; artist, Mâkhi Xenakis; and former porn star, Brigitte Lahaie.

Yet another literary program on French TV? Not really. Comes September, "Bateau Livre" (Boat Book) a program shot on a boat is only being replaced by "Mr. Book" -- 'a Pivot seed' -- former host of "Les Livres de la 8", Editor of the magazine "Lire" (Read) Francois Busnel is described as "a man capable of moving easily from Amelie Nothomb to Orhan Pamuk with contagious enthusiasm". Can't wait!

This article in the New York Times about Scientific Treasures soon to be auctioned at Christie's -- on June 17, including a copy of Nicolaus Copernicus's book "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" ("On th Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres") and the first telephone directory, just led me to visit the Christie's website.

Turns out it is a wonderful place to wander through collections and history.

It just happens that tonight there was an auction of "Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts Including Americana."