Monday 24 February 2014

The Top Ten books

The Sydney Morning Herald headline trumpets “Library book borrowers stay true to their favourite authors, survey reveals”

The survey comes from Public Lending Right and Education Lending Rights scheme, which make payments to authors and publishers based on the estimated numbers of books held in the collection of lending libraries.
The figures show Matthew Reilly's The Five Greatest Warriors was the most in-demand home-grown title held by Australian public libraries in the past three years - one of three Reilly titles that made the top 10 - with more copies of the Indiana Jones-style series on library shelves than any other books.


John Marsden's dystopian Tomorrow, When the War Began and Li Cunxin's autobiography Mao's Last Dancer followed.
In school libraries, it was Mem Fox's evergreen Possum Magic that dominated bookshelves in 2012-13, followed by Emily Rodda's Rowan of Rin and Marcia Vaughan's Wombat Stew.
The tables are created by the Public Lending Right and Education Lending Rights scheme, which aims to compensate for the creators' loss of potential sales from loans in libraries. In the old horror days library staff had to spend days pouring over lists and card catalogues gathering the data, but thanks to leaps in technology, now a machine can do it in a fraction of the time.
Almost $20 million was distributed for the last financial year. To be eligible, libraries must stock a minimum of 50 copies of the same title and payments based on copies held. The charts suggest the enduring value of Australian children's literature as new generations continuing to rediscover old favourites.
Borrowers preferred popular fiction over literary titles and, once they discovered an author they liked, they kept returning to the backlist over and over again.
Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap was the most widely held work of Australian literary fiction over the past three years along with Tim Winton's Breath, just ahead of Di Morrissey's The Silent Country.
Morrissey had three books in the top 30. The late Bryce Courtenay had four titles in the top 30 while Geraldine Brooks had two.
It is interesting to compare the Australian list with the British list (above) – I think we have a better selection Come on Aussie.

Saturday 15 February 2014

Out on a limb

Yes, I was one of the 8 million...
Vitaliy on the crane boom
Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov have gained a lot of notoriety with their video this week (posted yesterday on Twisted Sifter).
The video, released on Wednesday February 12, 2014, has already been viewed over 8 million times, in just 2 days. 
The ethereal glow on the low cloud
Vitaliy on the 100th floor
The Two Towers - JinMao Tower (421m) & Shanghai Financial Centre (490m)
The GoPro video shows the duo (who together are OnTheRoofs), climbing the still under-construction Shanghai Tower. Upon its completion in 2014, it will stand approximately 632 metres (2,073 ft) high and will have 121 storeys. Following its topping out on 3 August 2013, it became the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world, surpassed only by the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates.
Vitaliy's feet adding a sense of perceptive
Vadim photographing 'The Bottle Opener' the Shanghai Financial Centre
Looking down the core of the Shanghai Tower

Raskalov says the pair had planned to start their ascent on January 31st, which not coincidentally was the first day of China’s Lunar New Year, a major holiday in China, while the workers were celebrating at home, and the security was less watchful. 

It took them about two hours to get to the 120th floor by foot. At midnight they arrived above the clouds at the roof-top crane. They spent an additional 18 hours on top of the building sleeping and waiting for the cloud to clear. 

From the crane jib
Cloud beginning to wrap round the towers
Vadim on the tip of the crane
While the video documents their ascent, both are keen photographers and took the time to capture some amazing shots of the bustling metropolis below. 

To see the rest, visit their blogs Vadim's and Vitaliy's (the text is in Russian & English).

Needless to say what they did was illegal and dangerous. Even though they said there was little wind, you could still hear it whistling across the camera mic.

Personally I am content to just enjoy the photographs & video - maybe not with my heart in my mouth, but it might be scaling up my throat!

Friday 14 February 2014

500 not out

The image says it all -

this is Bibliophile's 500th post.

From the first tentative entry in October 2007, we've been all over the planet, gone back in time, and seen this blog morph into an eclectic collection of posts.
  • The most popular story over this time is 'Shipwrecks & sea disasters' with 10,177 views (and counting)
  • Americans (the U.S.) are the most interested audience at 29,302 beating the Australians at 13,193
  • The most used Label belongs to my 'Diary' posts (113), followed by 'Abandoned' (91) occurrences
To all those viewers out there - Thanks for the memories and keep on visiting.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Diving the depths of a great cathedral

Just like a Dan Brown thriller only true! The vast, splendid Hagia Sophia (which has featured in a couple of Dan’s novels), which is now a museum, sits atop an ancient series of underground tunnels said to connect the cathedral with the Basilica Cistern Princes’ Islands and the Topkapi Palace. Director Göksel Gülensoy has enjoyed a long-standing love of the Hagia Sophia, and decided to embark on a scuba diving expedition under the building to unlock some of her ancient secrets.
The vast interior of Hagia Sophia
His 50-minute film, “In the Depths of Hagia Sophia” (Link to film trailers) shows a side of the historic structure that has never before been explored in depth, let alone filmed. Along with two divers and four spelunkers, he delved into the mysterious depths to see what, exactly, Hagia Sophia was hiding.
Squeezing into the bowels of the cistern
The team began by opening the reservoir doors in the main hall; the two doors had both been shut for quite some time, and never before had a diver been allowed into the reservoir. After studying the small first chamber, the team moved on to the larger second reservoir. There they found flasks thought to have been left behind by British soldiers in 1917, a chain which may have contained a prisoner at one time, and various other bits and pieces of the cathedral. They then moved into the two passageways beneath the huge cathedral, finding sealed passages, a graveyard full of children’s bones, and the burial chamber of Hagia Sophia’s first priest. They found that the passages long thought to lead to the Basilica Cistern and Princes’ Islands were non-existent. Every person who dove beneath Hagia Sophia that day underwent a full-body X-ray to prove that no artifacts had been removed from the site.
Hagia Sophia in Istanbul
This would be a great premise for a new Matthew Reilly Scarecrow or Ascham adventure.