Look for Conrad Anker as he tours the country in support of The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest — including screenings of the new documentary distributed by National Geographic Films.  REI is now a major promotional partner in the movie release and you can catch Conrad at REI stores all over the country (see appearance schedule below).

See the trailer for the film, movies clips and photo galleries at: http://thewildestdreammovie.com

BiblioLife is proud to be releasing the Essential History of Exploration & Mountaineering - Everest Series with Conrad featuring the two historical Everest books he had at base camp during filming. These are the original texts digitized in their original form and including Conrad’s trip journal and a foreword on the significance the two books play in the story of George Mallory.  Conrad will have preview copies available on his promotional tour and the book will be available in Print and eBook in early August.

jimihatt is hitting the road this summer — signing copies of the first release in his “Old School” cooking series - Old Cookery Books & Ancient Cuisine and bringing a little joy into your lives. You seriously need to hit one of these events.

We did a great event with Guerrilla Cuisine back at the Charleston Library Conference in November where we cooked up some delicacies from this medieval cookbook and compendium of food history. Including the sweetbreads (yes, those sweetbreads).

With a great foreword by Matt Bolus, one of Charleston’s finest, it is a must read. And believe me the signings are more than a boring guy at a card table.

Buy the book here: http://www.bibliolife.com/cookbooks

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Here is the signing schedule:

June 15 = Spice and Tea
http://www.spiceandtea.com/
170 Church Street
Charleston, SC 29401-3141
(843) 965-8300
6pm-8pm

We are pretty happy about making these classics of mountaineering available for Kindle. Extending the zero-waste publishing process of POD to e-books as well.

We also have sent Everest series to press and are expecting proofs back early next week. The books include Conrad’s trip journal and other insights into the mystery that is Mt. Everest and the explores the connections between Conrad and Sir George Mallory.  Keep an eye out for a national tour this summer with REI, The North Face, and National Geographic - promoting the Wildest Dream movie being released this August. Should be great times if you can make an event. And pick up some books while you are there.

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Great write up on jimihatt and Matt Bolus’s first Old School cooking series release. Read the whole article.
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“The underground supper club that is Guerrilla Cuisine capitalizes on several things. One is an interest in all things food. Two is a desire to discover new experiences. And three is trust in Jimihatt, the host who coordinates and curates the event itself, providing his guests with great food, cool art, and a night to remember.

The Old School Cooking Series, says Jimihatt, is all about staying close to home. “Food preparation and farming are the most ancient traditions we have. And everything started out local,” he writes in his introduction to Hazlitt’s Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine. The book provides a fascinating look into the ancient kitchens of Britain, when royal tables featured extravagant meals with whole porpoises, beer made from hops, and omelets with bacon, while the poor subsisted mainly on bread, butter, and cheese.”

Get the book @ www.bibliolife.com/cookbooks/

We have been working on some pretty nice projects with the folks at College of Charleston. In September we finalized details and chose a recipient for the BiblioLife Scholarship. This four year full scholarship was constructed with Chris Starr, head of the Computer Science department. As part of our cooperation with CofC we are also developing a research lab for pattern recognition and semantic meta-data creation which will kick off sometime this year.

On the publishing side, we will release a very cool 1883 tourist guide to Charleston with the CofC library in the next couple of weeks (cover below) and an early 19th century hand-written travel journal before the end of the year.

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We are excited to be working with the nice ladies at Your Backyard Farmer to bring back to life some of the important books of Urban Gardening published before 1923. Pioneered in 2006, YBF is an innovative approach to community supported agriculture through urban backyard farming. They create small sustainable organic method farms at the backdoor & provide fresh, in-season produce from the farm to your fork.

Our first release, The Backyard Farmer, originally published in 1917 by John Willard Bolte, will launch at the American Library Association conference in Denver later this month. It offers some unique perspectives and relevant wisdom to the “green” movement.

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From the introduction:
“Organic gardening is a name that is used currently to represent things that were done before the separation of conventional and organic (a mid to late 20th century phenomenon) gardening. When this book was written, there was limited access to synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. So growing organically was the only choice!”

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A $700 Billion Dollar bail out was just too much for the American people, so it did not pass the House in in it’s original 126 page form. An unprecedented moment of main street telling Wall Street where to stick it! Oh the drama!So instead, they passed a $850 billion dollar bill a few days later at 454 pages!  Sweet!

Browse and buy the “full version” on Amazon.com and read it all in it’s original glory.

or if you pine for the good older days of the shorter (and cheaper) version, here is the one that just was too much for the American people to stomach.

From a review on Amazon.com (this is really great, please go to Amazon and read the whole thing):

“All I can say is - WOW! It just leaps off the page. The author has an amazing ability to put you right at the heart of the story. You can almost close your eyes and just see it all happening.

The books starts off ominously - with the first section called “TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM” which sets up the story perfectly. Part 2, “BUDGET-RELATED PROVISIONS” I found a bit slow. I think further editing on this section could really have helped. But then HR brings it back with the third section “TAX PROVISIONS” - incredible. Amazing literary control that combines characteristics of Dickens, Vonnegut, and Dostoevsky.

I think it would also be very interesting for kids given the approachable nature of the book - they even provide line numbers on the left-hand side of every page to help you remember what line you were reading. Handy!

All in all, I found it to be a breathtaking example of fiction writing at its very best.”

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-POSTED BY THE BOOKHOUND

Everyone has a story about how they got to where they are. Most just haven’t taken the time to ponder it, much less write it down.

I want to take a moment to give you a bit of insight into a Roman Catholic child’s life…

(I would love to see comments on how many of you remember these sentiments…)

Feigning sickness or death each Sunday morning- I would sit in bed and wait to either smell my mother’s perfume (you’re going to church, move it!), or bacon (get down here for breakfast, move it!), or both (why doesn’t dad have to go to church with us???). More often than not, the smell of some musty alcohol-laced floral would waft up the stairs and alert me that the next scents to greet me would be incense and old people.

On more than a few occasions, I tried to explain to my mother that times were changing, and that watching mass on the television would not only keep my attention, but we could all eat breakfast (thereby maintaining good nutrition), and spend the day together as the good Lord had intended. Apparently, the Lord worked through my mother in mysterious ways, and although I still can not imagine any loving God telling my mom to pass on the message to ‘get my damn clothes on and be quiet’; I’m sure it must have been something like ‘thou must hasten thy speed, dress in grandest robe, and silence; lest ye not hear the blessed voice of your Lord’. Or whatever.

On to mass. Let it be said that before entering the church, the ladies of the congregation begin in what equates to a combination bazaar/tribal dance/talent competition-thing. Naturally, the children lag behind the parents, desperately trying to hold on to that last shred of coolness with the equivalent of a piece of dental floss. The moms huddle. They gather. They smoke that last pre-game cigarette before ushering their broods into the lanes of ultra-uncomfortable seating.

Let’s just stop at that for a moment. What sort of a sadist came up with the pew? Seriously- is it not torment enough that the service for a Roman Catholic compares to a Richard Simmons workout? Is it not enough that one is not even allowed to wear the appropriate sweat-suit to attend? Nope. You see- Mom’s God does not want you to be comfortable. It delights this deity to see you in full on starched poly, sneezing uncontrollably from the church-scent ‘dinge’, and topped of by having your only rest for the hour and a half be a couple of pieces of plywood stuck together. These seats made those padded knee rests seem comfortable…

Anyhow- apparently G.K. Chesterton also felt the irresistible nag to ’skip out’ on church whilst penning ‘Heretics’

Given the tenor of the book, one can only assume that Chesterton is in ‘growth’ phase. We can confirm this, seeing as how his follow up book, ‘Orthodoxy’, finds Chesterton doing an about-face.

It’s refreshing to read an author who was so willing to dig deep into himself to find faith. To be the sort of humble we just don’t see anymore. Check out this report to see that we just don’t have the religious ’sticktoitiveness’ that we used to.

What with all that’s been made available to the masses since his time; it’s no wonder people just aren’t as compelled to spend any amount of time on religious introspection.

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Bookhound asks:

How many of you have had a similar experience to mine?

Who amongst you have actually changed sides, as we’ll say, like G.K. Chesterton?

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-POSTED BY THE BOOKHOUND

Today’s title is brought to you by the classic Bob Dylan song ‘Rainy Day Women, 12 & 35′…

I know that this’ll be a difficult pill to swallow (pun intended), but apparently the government believes that drugs are bad. In the event that you are not prepared to believe this, I have provided a recent government report of said topic.

Let me preface what I’m about to say with the subtle disclaimer: BOOKHOUND IS NOT CONDONING THE USE OF DRUGS.

That said, I want to engage you all in convivial discussion about the possibility (I believe, probability), that artistically, much good has come from the ‘assistance’ of various mediums.

Take for instance:

Baudelaire, Burroughs, Carrol

Clinton (whatever- he still smoked it)

Dali, Doyle, Edison, Freud, Gates (as in, William. He too, had some college days), Hoffman, Huxley

I still have quite a bit of alphabet to go- but you see the point. (here is the full list). So I present to you William James. His works in general ask much of the reader insofar as to insist that the very logic that is utilized by the majority of us, is in fact- wrong. A bold move for anyone. Certainly, this wasn’t a man who was out to placate the populous.

They say that alcohol is the truth serum, something to loosen one up, make it easier to ‘mingle’. Imagine then, the boldness that must come from copious amounts of nitrous oxide- one of many ‘tools’ that James was know to employ. For anyone who has ever questioned the nature of things- this is your book. James didn’t just want to check out the grass on the other side of the fence- he wanted to tear the thing down.

Varieties of Religious Experience

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POSTED BY THE BOOKHOUND

What I wanted was Steak. What I got was Tilapia. Although not as spectacularly colored next to the haricot vert (a green string bean with French attitude) that would accompany it; the price was too good to pass up. So this led me to wonder- are rising food costs changing the way we eat? I don’t remember eating Tilapia as a child, yet to be sure, it graces the plates of my family often enough to be mentioned.

Fish might just be the new steak, (you know- like flying monkeys are the new dog…), so I’ve done a little internet ‘fishing’ myself, and have found a modicum of proof, so read up on Tilapia’s role in our current dietary culture on SeafoodSource.com.

In honor of our delicious (and affordable) friends- the BookHound offers you ‘How to Cook Fish‘, by Myrtle Reed. Fish- it’s what’s for dinner. And what has been for dinner since this beauty was published back in the late 19th century!

Chock full of little yummies, this’ll give you a fab retort when everyone is standing around whining, ‘what’s for dinner?’ In a snap, you can tell them that they can choose one of TWENTY FIVE different ways to have their whitefish. Seriously.

Fan of eel? Lucky- you have forty-five recipes at your disposal!

Pretty soon- you’ll forget all about that filet mignon, and head straight for your local fishmonger.

You know what they say…’Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”…give a man ‘How to Cook Fish’, and he’ll soon have a party in his mouth.

We have rescued this culinary classic and re-published it in both large or small print. Or you can read it for free online at Gutenberg.org.

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