The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo...and the Clothing Line

H&M launched one.

From a story in the Guardian...

Lisbeth Salander is many things. A heroine, a techno-whizz, a hard nut with a soft centre, and, yes, the fictional character at the centre of Stieg Larsson's hugely successful Millennium Trilogy. But fashionista? Considering Larsson went out of his way to portray Salander as a goth-punk styled sartorial rebel, we're surprised to see H&M have produced an entire clothing line in her honour.

"Salander's look is very real and very lived in, with pieces that her character has worn for a long time," said Trish Summerville, costume designer on the latest version of The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo and the designer behind H&M's new range. "I wanted the collection to have the essence and strength of Salander, with a fashion edge, and I'm pleased with the result! My goal is for women to find pieces in it that they love and then mix them with their own wardrobe to create their own personal style."

Do You Want to Have a Dictionary Wall?

Of course you do.

The Books They Gave Me

It's a site that highlights specific books given to people by their lovers.

For instance...

He, lovelorn literary loser, just like me—but better at even that than I was, for I was a mere apprentice—gave me a hardcover edition of the complete poems of William Blake.

I’d brought him to the legendary Hyde Park, Chicago Powell’s, and the Blake edition was on my shopping list. I was back in school at 34, newly divorced, to finish the BA in English Literature I should have taken the first time around.

Starry-eyed, in love with the man and the poems, I found the book, but sadly noted its $70 price tag. I slid it back onto the shelf and pulled down another copy, a shop-worn softcover that was only $15. He took it from me, put it back, and took down the pristine hardcover, clasping it to his chest like the treasure it is.

“Will you let me buy it for you?” he asked, his eyes shining. I did.

This Book Belongs To...

Forbes revels in bookplates.

From the piece...

The bookplate first appeared in the late 15th century, when books were still rare and highly valuable (for example, only about 180 copies of Gutenberg’s Bible were printed when it was first published in 1455). Rich book owners — almost always nobles — began commissioning artists to design and make woodcuts with their coat of arms to signify ownership. It wasn’t until the 19th century that bookplates reached their full artistic expression, when a new middle class began commissioning them. Without a coat of arms, these individuals — academics, museum officials, doctors, artists, lawyers, architects and other members of the bourgeoisie — asked for bookplates that would highlight their own achievements and interests, rather than their lineage.

Many of these bookplates included images of libraries, books and owls (conveying knowledge and wisdom — something that surely flattered those who commissioned them). One particularly ego-stoking one for the medical doctor George Burckhard portrays a heroic St. George slaying a dragon, no doubt equating Burckhard’s profession with the saint’s brave, noble act. Many of the bookplates are clever — one for a neurologist depicts a mermaid, a creature that was supposed to teach humans cures for diseases.

And several said something not only about the owner, but about the artist as well.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe's Wardrobe

Care to see the real wardrobe? You're in luck.

Literary Pumpkins

Enjoy!

The Keaton Music Typewriter

Cool.

That Old Book Smell

There's a reason for it.

A Dictionary Print Clutch

Cool, eh?

A Moby-Dick Cake

Cool, eh?

A Brief Encounter with an Elusive Author

Thomas Pynchon hasn’t given an interview or appeared publicly in years, but one New Yorker encountered him twice in a month and is left puzzled.

From a piece on the Daily Beast...

Trying to understand readers’ mania for meeting authors, Gaddis once asked, “What is there left when he’s done with his work, what’s any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around?”

Once intermission began, I grabbed my fiancée’s hand. “Let’s go,” I said, “you’ve got to introduce me.” Whatever the wisdom of Gaddis, I was thrilled to be so close to the shambles of Pynchon. We climbed a flight of stairs and suddenly I heard myself being introduced.

As we shook hands, the abstraction of a Great American Author quickly resolved into the details of a particular individual. He was about six feet tall with curly white hair and a nervous habit of swaying slightly as he spoke. He seemed, in fact, to be almost as nervous as I was. I stammered something about admiring his work and the conversation somehow lurched into motion. We talked about books (he’d been re-reading Borges’s short stories) and music (he went to a lot of the jazz concerts at Carnegie). The whole time we spoke I was searching for some Pynchonian essence, some sign that this was the same mind that produced Gravity’s Rainbow and V. But before anything revelatory could emerge, I heard my fiancée telling his wife how it had been great to run into them again and to enjoy the second half of the concert. She told me later that maybe five minutes had passed. It seemed much shorter.

Buy a Book, Help a Penguin

For reals!

Hans Christian Andersen Statue to Be Buried

The Guardian has an odd story about a sculpture in Denmark.

From the piece...

Now the artist is intending to bury the 10-foot statue in Odense harbor on 8 October, leaving its head still visible from the pier."At one point the culture department talked about placing the sculpture by Odense harbour in order to attract tourists to the area. Now that the project is definitively suspended, I think I will comply with their wish – maybe not in the way that they had expected but on the other hand, it won't cost them anything," he said. "I think it is a very suitable ending to put The Storyteller's Fountain to rest by creating a new story."

The drowning, where "grieving locals" will be served "funeral beer", will not be the end of the statue's story, however: Galschiot is hoping to resurrect the author's likeness on his birthday, 2 April, next year, and for the burial and resurrection of Andersen to become an annual tradition in the city. "We can drive him to the city centre where he can gaze upon the city for a week or so, and then he will probably be reburied," he said.

The Water Calligraphy Device

Weird and cool.

Men of the Stacks

A sexy librarian calendar? Yes.

Dante's Inferno...as a Sand Castle

Enjoy!

Statues of Famous Authors All Over the World

The gallery, care of Flavorwire.

The World's Rudest Hand Gestures

The Atlantic takes note of a new book - Rude Hand Gestures of the World.

Can you guess what the gesture above signifies?

A Scratch and Sniff Guide to New York City?

Indeed!

From an article in the Guardian...

Featuring both the good (strawberry, pizza, hot dogs, churros) and the bad (garbage, sewer steam, horse manure) smells which sum up the city, New York, PHEW York was dreamed up by hotel concierge Amber Jones. "I work in Times Square and one day while I was walking to the train I got a delicious whiff of pizza. As I was was looking in the window at the pizza, deciding if I should buy a slice, I didn't realise I was steeping in horse manure," said Jones. "I went to the corner to make sure I didn't get any on my shoe and was engulfed by shish kebab smoke from a food cart. It's then I thought 'there should be a scratch-n-sniff guide of New York'. Wha-la! The idea was born."

What's It Like to Work in an Amazon Warehouse?

Terrible.

From a piece in the Morning Call...

He got light-headed, he said, and his legs cramped, symptoms he never experienced in previous warehouse jobs. One hot day, Goris said, he saw a co-worker pass out at the water fountain. On other hot days, he saw paramedics bring people out of the warehouse in wheelchairs and on stretchers.

"I never felt like passing out in a warehouse and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one," Goris said. "They can do that because there aren't any jobs in the area."

Goris' complaints are not unique.

Over the past two months, The Morning Call interviewed 20 current and former warehouse workers who showed pay stubs, tax forms or other proof of employment. They offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it's like to work in the Amazon warehouse, where temperatures soar on hot summer days, production rates are difficult to achieve and the permanent jobs sought by many temporary workers hired by an outside agency are tough to get.

Only one of the employees interviewed described it as a good place to work.

Amazon.com responds, here.