Dirt, sugar and Commies

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.

*** Selling books in the USSR must have been a surreal experience, but to actually survive a period when anything, absolutely anything, could get you hauled off to Lubyanka for torture and death, that is a remarkable achievement. And to do this while selling the most dangerous thing on Earth, ideas, well, let's just say that the linked article is the story of a bookies' bookie. It's the tale of a Moscow bookstore that is celebrating its 50th anniversary. That's right, 50 years. It began operations a mere 5 years after Stalin died and when the Cold War was really beginning to heat up. I can only imagine the restrictions and surveillance that must have been in place...wow. Plus, it gets really cold in Moscow.

Surviving 50 years of Russian History while selling books

*** The printed word comes in many forms, of course, with religious texts being the oldest known subjects. In southeastern Turkey, archaeologists have discovered an intact 8th Century BC steele that states the earliest known belief that the human soul exists separately from the body. A steele, of course, is more or less a book in another form. The engraving associated with this steele is extraordinarily beautiful.

An amazing discovery in the Turkish dirt

*** I need to write mopey romances. I really do. This blog is fun and all, but the real money is in chick-lit that people buy to make into movies. Thus, Nicholas Sparks is my hero. His newest book, The Lucky One, just sold for the movies. Sigh...be still my heart. And before any of you bookies write me nasty emails claiming that I'm jealous, well, of course I'm jealous! Jeez.

Sparks sells sugary novel and gets richer