Quiddity

Vintage illustrations for Tolkien from around the world

Vintage Hobbit illustrations from around the world.

I may have already linked to this, but so what.  It's awesome.  

Abandoned Walmart transformed in America's largest 1 story library

An abandoned Walmart in McAllen, Texas has been transformed into America's largest 0ne-story library.  It even won the International Interior Design Association's 2012 Library Interior Design Competion.  We need more libraries like this.

The library even has an acoustically separated lounge for teens as well as 6 teen computer labs, 16 public meeting spaces, 14 public study rooms, 64 computer labs, 10 children’s computer labs and 2 genealogy computer labs. Other new features include self check-out units, an auditorium, an art gallery, a used bookstore and a cafe.

Link via boingboing.

Ann Rule suing Seattle Weekly for defamation

Famous true crime writer, Ann Rule, is suing Seattle Weekly for publishing a scathing article accusing her of being a liar, a sociopath, and a "sloppy storyteller."  Turns out that it was written by the fiance and future husband of the convicted murderer who was the subject of one of her books.  Oops!

Swart’s 2011 cover story in the Seattle Weekly claimed Rule’s book was rife with errors and ignored important facts about the case.

Two days after the Weekly published the article, Caleb Hannan, the editor at the time, wrote a lengthy editor’s note explaining the newspaper wasn’t aware Swart and Northon were engaged; the couple later married in prison about two months after the article was published. The Weekly also later wrote a list of corrections for the story.

Link via PCJM.

The Sandwich Book

That's one delicious looking book!

Link via colossal.

How people reacted after reading Shirley Jackson's The Lottery in 1948

Here's an interesting article about how people reacted after reading Shirley Jackson's The Lottery in The New Yorker for the first time in 1948.  It left a lot of people baffled and they wanted answers.

In an e-mail to me, Kroeber’s daughter, the novelist Ursula Le Guin, who was nineteen years old when “The Lottery” appeared, recalled her father’s reaction: “My memory is that my father was indignant at Shirley Jackson’s story because as a social anthropologist he felt that she didn’t, and couldn’t, tell us how the lottery could come to be an accepted social institution.” Since Jackson presented her fantasy “with all the trappings of contemporary realism,” Le Guin said, her father felt that she was “pulling a fast one” on the reader.

I can't believe how many people thought the story was true.  Some of them actually wanted to watch a lottery take place.

25 Vintage Photos of Librarians Being Awesome

Flavorwire has a great collection of vintage photographs featuring librarians.  I would love to know the story behind this picture.

Watch Andy Serkis read The Hobbit as Gollum on Stage

Link via DrikoLand.

Buildings vomiting books

Not really.  It's just an art insulation.  Still, it's pretty cool.

Link via neatorama.

Alex James really likes cheese

Here's a funny article about Alex James' (ex-bassist for Blur) obnoxious new memoir about how much he loves cheese.

Naturally, I need hardly ask if you realised that our hero likes cheese. James's fondness for cheese is believed to be a matter of which no one in this earthly sphere is unaware. For a time, it was assumed that there were some remote peoples still untouched by his rennet-based droning, but in that recent aerial footage of the uncontacted Amazon society, the tribe was seen to have arranged a collection of bones and earthenware shards into the words: "PLEASE STOP ALEX JAMES GOING ON ABOUT BLOODY CHEESE."

Link via linkmachinego.

Book of Poisons

17th century poison case disguised to look like a book.  Devious.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher

"Since Whicher was sure that the murderer was an inmate of the house, all his suspects were still at the scene. This was the original country-house murder mystery, a case in which the investigator had to find not a person but a person's hidden self. It was pure whodunnit, a contest of intelligence and nerve between the detective and the killer. Here were the twelve. One was the victim. Which was the traitor?" 

--from The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

Title: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

Author: Kate Summerscale

Publisher/Publisher Date: Bloomsbury

Library/Bookstore: Amazon Kindle Store

Date Borrowed/Bought/Read: January 2012

Rating: ***1/2

What It's About (Summary from Good Reads):  

The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.

In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land.

At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

Why I Chose to Read It:  I  had heard about this horrific crime on Deadly Women (LOVE this show).  It was also a Kindle daily deal!

Notes About the Book:

1. I really liked how the author talked about the evolution of the detective mystery novel throughout the book.  I'm going to have to check out The Moonstone, The Woman in White, and Bleak House sometime in the future.  Apparently, Whicher was the inspiration behind many famous literary detectives (Inspector Bucket and Sergeant Cuff). 
2. I still can't believe that the police were dumb enough to get themselves locked inside the kitchen by the main suspect during their investigation.
3. William Saville-Kent grew up to become a famous marine biologist.  He also conducted the first experiments to create cultured pearls in Australia.
4. I loved how the floorplans for the Kent house were included in the book.

Do I Recommend It?  Yes.  I thought it was really interesting, especially the trial part.  Some parts are kind of dry, but overall, I really enjoyed it.  It definitely makes me want to read more detective fiction.

Links:

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher trailer--Paddy Considine plays Mr. Whicher.