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Space Chimps As regular readers of my blog will know I like to base my short stories around real events, places and animals. The story I sent to Writer's Forum magazine (no reply as of yet) was based on the true story of how chimpanzees were used at the start of the space programme. While watching Cartoon Network with my nephew at the weekend I saw a trailer for a new feature length animation called ' Space Chimps.' My story centre's on Enos, who was the last chimp used before NASA felt confident to send their first human astronaut into orbit. 'Space Chimps' the movie centre's on the fictional Ham III grandson of the first chimp blasted into space HAM. HAM the chimp The plot line is : "Two NASA chimps are sent to a galaxy far, far away. One chimp has 'The Right Stuff,' and the other, a good natured goofball, has 'The Wrong Stuff.' The two chimps find themselves on a strange, uncharted planet, where they embark on a fantastical journey to save its inhabitants from a tyrannical leader. Space Chimps is an intergalactic comedy that highlights the antics of astronaut chimps with the "wrong stuff." Ham III (Samberg), the slacker grandson of the first chimp blasted into space before manned spaceflight, joins two other astronaut chimps for a dangerous mission through a black hole to an inhabited planet. When they're stranded there, the chimps must help the inhabitants rid themselves of a tyrannical leader, and then figure out how to get back to Earth." The animation looks fun, with a voice cast including Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Patrick Warburton, Omid Abtahi and Jeff Daniels. But the real story behind the use of chimps is a much sadder one. Vanguard Animation - which is headed by 'Shrek' producer John Williams - are currently working on another book written by William Steig, 'The Zabajaba Jungle' about a boy and his adventures through a mysterious jungle in search of his parents. They have also produced Valiant about a WWII messenger pigeon (another real event) and Happily N'ever After inspired by the Grimm Brother's fairy tales. For more information on Space Chimps the animation visit http://www.spacechimpspower.com/ and for the true story visit http://www.spacechimps.com/ * The winner of my second book giveaway is Charlotte Anne Braden who correctly answered that James Nesbitt played the dad in 'Millions.' Congratulations Charlotte.

If you don’t have kids of your own you may have missed some of the wild and whacky thing publishers have been doing to grab little kids attention. With the manufacturing of these specialty books having been sent offshore, these novelty kids books have come down in price. Here are a few recent interesting items that have crossed my path. Some of these still had stickers from major retailers on them indicating they were sold for a mere $3-$8 dollars.

These all are used books in these pictures, amazingly. These novelty books tend to be destroyed by children, so expect pristine books like this to go up in value over the years as toddlers destroy the rest of them.

Popups are pretty traditional, but with laser cutting now available, they’ve gotten really, really elaborate.

From the “The Encyclopedia Prehistoric: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters” by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart.

Not only does this have a pop up, it’s a book within a book! The square on the upper right corner is actually a very small pamphlet style book attached to the main book with photo corners. You can pull it out and read it separately.

No author listed for this, which is very typical for board books. From Publishing International, Busy Bugs Jigsaw picture book.

It’s a little hard to see in the picture, but the right hand page is actually a puzzle. Each of the right hand pages in the book is a small puzzle.

Isn’t this adorable? It combines a plush critter with a book for bedtime. Unfortunately because the fur is glued to the outside, any publication data was covered with plush monster. Its cute… but I have no idea what company made it, when it was made, who wrote it, or who illustrated it. I don’t even know what the title is! Darn is it cute though…

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Don’t miss Nora’s excellent post on Books that Nobody Wants

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Another post from William Smith of Hang Fire Books

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I’m a magazine addict. I have a perpetual 2-3 foot pile of semi-recent mags in every room. I like to let them build up and then read 5 or 6 issues at once.

Since becoming a bookseller I’ve expanded my magazine reading list quite a bit. Now I include academic, art and special interest journals that I previously couldn’t/shouldn’t afford. These periodicals have a much longer shelf life than your typical People or EW, so when I’m finished with a careful read, I resell them.

In the listings I include: titles of feature articles, books reviewed, staff writers, and anything else of note. I tend to price them at slightly more than the per-issue subscription price, but slightly less than the cover. They frequently sell to overseas regions where the magazines aren’t on the rack.

True, I don’t make much by doing this, but I do offset the cost of my addiction and I frequently discover authors, artists, personalities that I should watch for while bookscouting.

Good subject areas for this practice are: high-end architecture, pop-culture history, single author/artist studies, film journals, mags with in-depth interviews/career retrospectives and more (fiction and poetry journals…not so much). If you’re serious about making a return on your investment check back issue prices on ABE (a year or two back) before committing to a subscription.

A couple of William’s other posts: Worthless Books in your Inventory | Keeping Shipping Expenses down

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