As if independent bookshop owners aren't getting run over by enough trains already, a planned light rail line may spell the end of the line for Thomas Stransky in St. Paul, Minn. 

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Well, we've had some pretty interesting responses to my open request earlier this week for movies that have had something to do with paper, the only stipulation being that they have some basis in fact. For those who need to be brought up to speed on what's going on, here's the link to my column. I will present the films in the order that they arrived.

I heard first from Pradeep Sebastian, a literary columnist in India, who offered the following dozen--count 'em, twelve--first-rate suggestions:

The Hoax (2006), a film about Clifford Irving, and the fake Howard Hughes biography; F For Fake (1974), written, directed, and starring Orson Welles, and based in part on the forgeries of Irving, and others, and available in DVD; Selling Hitler (1991) a made for TV movie based on Robert Harris' book about the faking of a Hitler diary; The Last Station (2009), about Leo Tolstoy's manuscripts and will, and recipient this week of an Academy Award nomination for Christopher Plummer for best actor. Also from Sebastian: Creation (2009), a dramatization of the life of Charles Darwin, featuring his diaries and notebooks as he developed his theory of evolution; Sylvia (2003), starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the tortured poet Sylvia Plath, seen often scribbling in notebooks, tearing up and burning pages; Naked Lunch (1991) William Burroughs, hallucinating over a clattering typewriter, with reams and reams of paper around him; Factotum (2005, based on the life of the hard-living, hard-drinking poet Charles Bukowski; Shattered Glass (2003), based on the fabrications of writer Stephen Glass, published unwittingly in The New Republic; and The Whole Wide World (1995), about pulp fiction writer Robert E.Howard, and the writing of Conan the Barbarian.

As a bonus, Sebastian offered a pair of documentaries: BookWars (2000), about New York City pavement book sellers, and Paperback Dreams (2008), profiling the struggle to survive among independent bookstores.

Arriving about a half-hour after that dazzling list came a terrific suggestion from Benjamin L. Clark in Oklahoma--he has a pretty nifty book blog of his own called exilebibliophile, which I highly recommend--to wit:

Cimarron (1931), winner of six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, based on a novel by Edna Ferber (and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1929), which was partly inspired by the life of T.B. Ferguson, a cursading Oklahoma newspaper editor, and his wife, Elva.

Next came an email from Eleni Collins, an assistant editor for the Martha's Vineyard Times, who wondered if a couple of movies based on outstanding children's books, Harriet the Spy (1996) and The Mixed Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler (1968), might not create a category in their own right. I love the idea--maybe we can do that next (think Maurice Sendak and Where the Wild Things Are)--but more on point for this particular exercise was her third suggestion, Between the Folds (2009), a television documentary about the world-wide mania for origami that aired in December on PBS, and has just been released in DVD.

A suggestion from reader Mike Gindling advised that a key scene in his favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), has Lawrence writing out an IOU to a shiek in return for help in the taking of an important city. I like that--an IOU is an example of a piece of paper whose value is only as good as the word of the person who gives it.

Just this morning, Joe Fay, manager of rare books at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, offered these beauties:

The Whole Wide World (1996) starring Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio, a biographical account of the relationship between pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard and Novalyne Price Ellis; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), based on the life of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson; The Rum Diary, to be released this year, also inspired by life and career of Thompson.

Fay mentioned a 1988 mini-series starring Stacey Keach as Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway, and cited one documentary in particular as outstanding, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown  (2008), about the science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft.

Finally, from daughter Nicole, who is weathering out the blizzard in Washington, D.C., a news flash about the release of a documentary with the improbable title of Miracle Banana, a Japanese film with English subtitles, "based on an actual project to make paper from banana trees in Haiti." To prove that this was no joke, she furnished this link.

Honestly, I am lost for words (that never happens with me).  But I do thank one and all for these fabulous films. I promise you, they will be used.

To celebrate the publication of The Folio Society's new edition of The Canterbury Tales, with illustrations by Eric Gill, the company posted a podcast that features UK stage and screen actor Simon Callow reading from the deluxe edition. Limited to 1,980 copies and bound in Nigerian goatskin, this edition is a facsimile of the The Golden Cockerel Press edition of 1929-1931 (an original is on the market at Maggs for about $10,000). Fun Friday viewing!

New York Times today has a nice profile of National Enquirer editor Barry Levin and his exceptional Ernest Hemingway collection:

Here's a blast from the past: Back when Fine Books was called O.P. (short for out of print), we did a story about Lotte Jacobi, a German expatriate photographer who made a living after the Second World War taking author photos for the publishers in New York. One day in 1950, a 31-year-old writer about to have his first book published showed up in her studio. She took about 20 shots of him and moved on to other work. One of the photos ended up on the back of the dust jacket of Catcher in the Rye, a novel that turned into the surprise literary sensation of the year. Within a few months, the author, J. D. Salinger, asked that the picture to be removed, and no author portrait has appeared on any of his books since.

Back in 2004, following a tip that all the photographs from Jacobi's Salinger photo-shoot were at the University of New Hampshire, we obtained sixteen unpublished photographs and permission to publish some of them for what we believe was the first time. We ran eight images in the March/April 2004 issue of OP. I wanted to put one on the cover, but given Salinger's notoriously litigious nature and our meager finances, I chickened out.

While Jacobi never managed to capture Salinger with more than a half-smile, the unpublished photos are much looser than the published version, though the author never looks quite comfortable. One can imagine his disaffected literary creation, Holden Caulfield, whispering in his ear, "What a phony," while Salinger tries to strike a suave 1950s pose.

Scott Brown

Perhaps given both J.D. Salinger's reclusiveness and his refusal to publish any new work for the last forty-plus years (not to mention his long life - he was 91), the announcement of his death last week seemed to me to have been greeted with more of a whimper than the bang one might expect for a writer of his stature and importance. But he'd essentially been dead to his readers since before many were even initially exposed to his writing. Indeed ironically, his death again raised questions of the publication of posthumous Salinger books, and one could detect in some of the coverage a hope that his passing might mean new Salinger works could finally be given a life of their own.

For any collectors of Booker Prize winners out there, you will soon have a new gap to fill in your collection.  Yesterday, the Booker Prize committee announced a long-list for a Lost Booker prize award.  The Lost Booker will compensate for a 1971 rule change which left a number of important 1970 publications out of the running.  Previous to 1971, the Booker prize was awarded retrospectively to a book published in the previous year.  In 1971 the rules shifted and the Booker began to be awarded to a book published in the same year.  (These rules still stand).  The rule change created a multi-month gap that left a number of 1970 publications out in the cold.

The Northeast Document Conservation Center, which has very likely handled book conservation needs for all the major rare book libraries, posted a heartening report yesterday about its role in helping preserve a mid-nineteenth-century map for a local community. The Historical Society of Charlestown, New Hampshire, had a topographical map of Sullivan County, published by Smith and Morley, that was "coated with varnish, and attached to a decaying cloth backing."

The Society applied for and received two small grants from local banks. With a little publicity on its side, the Society also pulled in a few more hundred dollars from a private foundation, thus enabling it to send the map to the NEDCC for treatment. There, conservators removed the yellow varnish using ethanol and washed the paper. "The decaying cloth backing was removed before the map was lined with Japanese paper. After being mounted on linen for additional support, the map was encapsulated in transparent polyester film (Melinex®) to protect against dirt, handling, and atmospheric pollution." World-class treatment for Sullivan County!

In this day and age of downsizing print and book coverage, Fine Books is returning to print!