Here are my favourite discoveries of
the day...
According to the man himself, Allan Massie prefers not to describe
the physical appearance of his protagonists. Why? Because he's
looking through them – not at them.
In his event today, Sam Bourne talked
about an astonishing piece of research. In the '40s, '50s and '60s,
Yale and Harvard (among other Ivy League universities) systematically
took nude photographs of every new undergraduate. This was supposedly
for a study of posture, but in fact the data was being collected by
two researchers with an interest in eugenics, who were looking for a
correlation between physique and intellect. Among those that would've
been photographed were Hilary Clinton, George Bush Sr, and Meryl
Streep.
Have you heard of Edinburgh's
mysterious artist who makes sculptures from the pages of books? Of
course you have! He or she has been mystifying and delighting the
city for a year now, and today in Charlotte Square gardens a number
of delicate paper roses were discovered. There are supposedly fifty
of them (so many still to find!), each with the quote by Oscar Wilde:
“freedom, books, flowers, and the moon”.
You may recognise the Book Festival's
series “Elsewhere” from previous years. Fifty writers have been
commissioned by the Book Festival to write a short story or an essay
on the theme of elsewhere – and on the website you can read them
all, and even listen to some of them being read out by the
authors.
The printed book of all fifty of these
Elsewhere pieces was launched this very evening in a much-anticipated
event packed with enthusiasm. You can now purchase it from the
Bookshop and enjoy the very addictive result of a very satisfying
project.
