Nobody knows how many whales were killed during the great age of whaling, but one estimate suggests that about 300,000 were slaughtered in the four decades or so to 1870. That may not seem an especially vast number, but then whale numbers were not vast to begin with. In any case, the hunting was enough to drive many species to the edge of extinction. As whale numbers dwindled, whaling voyages grew longer and longer – up to four years became common and five years not unknown – and whalers were driven to search the loneliest corners of the most distant seas. All this translated into greatly increased costs. By the 1850s a gallon of whale oil sold for $2.50 – half an average worker’s weekly wage – yet still the remorseless hunt continued. Many species of whale – possibly all – would have vanished for ever but for a sequence of unlikely events that began in Nova Scotia in 1846 when a man named Abraham Gesner invented what for some time would be the most valuable product on earth.

-From At Home by Bill Bryson, page 129

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Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I change the rules a little bit to suit my own purposes: I hand pick the teaser, rather than choose one randomly. I also very frequently post more than two sentences. :)

I absolutely love bookplates, and looking for them on Etsy is one of my favorite routine “Etsy-checks.”

Today, since it seems like a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon activity, I thought I’d share a few favorites I’ve found lately. I will advise you to proceed with caution though… while compiling this post I bought three different sets. Many bookplates are too cute to consider resisting.

VINTAGE: $15.00 for 30-40, at RetroNorth

HANDMADE: $15.75 for 24 bookplates, blank or personalized, at The Oddest Owl

HANDMADE: $4.00 for 8 bookplates, at adorapop

VINTAGE: $8.00 for 25 bookplates, at Vintageworks

HANDMADE: $15.00 for custom Rubber Stamp, at AsspocketProductions

HANDMADE: $6.00 for 10 bookplates, at phoebe1

VINTAGE: $19.00 for 25 bookplates, at finiHome

VINTAGE: $16.00 for 30 bookplates, at mushroom and moss vintage

VINTAGE: $3.50 for 4 bookplates, from cOveTableCuriOsitIEs

Books Purchased:

To Begin Again by M.F.K. Fisher
The Best of Frank O’Connor edited by Julian Barnes
Legendary Ireland: Journey Through Celtic Places and Myths by Eithne Massey
Questions About Angels by Billy Collins
44 Irish Short Stories edited by Devin A. Garrity
The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home by Jane Brocket
Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
Finny by Justin Kramon

Books Read:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling  (re-read)
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Pride & Prejudice (Graphic Novel) retold by Nancy Butler (library)
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden (library)
Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson (library)
Wilson by Daniel Clowes (library)

Books Purchased:

The Bible According to Mark Twain edited by Howard G. Baetzhold & Joseph B. McCullough
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Books Read:

The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald (library)
How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
The Lovers by Vendela Vida
The Summer Before by Ann M. Martin (library)
A Secret Map of Ireland by Rosita Boland
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld (library)

I’m pleased to announce that the winner of the Packing for Mars giveaway is Maria!

Congrats! I hope everyone who reads this book enjoys it as much as I did.

If you’ve noticed a severe lack of posting around these parts, it’s because I’ve been deep in preparation for my upcoming trip to Ireland. I apologize for the lack of posts here & comments on other blogs. I leave tomorrow, and I am so excited for my road trip around Ireland! I have no idea if I’ll have a chance to post photos here during the trip, but either way, you can look forward to lots of photos & videos from Ireland when I return! For updates during my trip you can follow me on twitter @chowmeyow or @emilylovesbooks.

In the meantime, remember that you can still enter my giveaway to win a signed ARC copy of Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, right here. It will be open until August 18th.

Below are some vintage postcards from Ireland, found on the Library of Congress’s Flickr page.

Sláinte!

To celebrate tomorrow’s release of Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach, I’m giving away an ARC copy of the book, signed by Mary Roach! Details of the giveaway are below the review.

I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Roach speak at an author breakfast at Book Expo this spring. She is a gifted speaker and tremendously funny. She comes across as very personable and intimate, even when speaking to a room full of hundreds of people. That style comes through in her writing as well, making an essentially scientific book come alive with warmth, humor, and personality.

The focus of Packing for Mars is not on the science of how we space travel, but the science of what happens to humans when we space travel. Topics covered include: selecting astronauts who will thrive in space, motion sickness, hygiene, eating & nutrition, bone loss, surviving malfunctions and re-entry, and (perhaps most humorously) the complications of going to the bathroom in space.

This book is a great read regardless of your level of interest in NASA, space travel, or astronauts. (Although didn’t most of us want to be astronauts at some point?) It’s fascinating to read about the effects being in zero gravity for extended periods of time have on our body and mind. Learning more about how NASA tests these effects on their equipment and astronauts is equally as interesting. And the key selling point to all this is that Mary Roach makes it extremely fun to read.

To read a Teaser Tuesday passage I posted from Packing for Mars, click here.

PACKING FOR MARS GIVEAWAY

To enter to win an review copy signed by Mary Roach, please leave a comment and share what comfort from Earth you would miss most during space travel.

For up to 2 extra chances to win, tweet and/or blog post a link to this giveaway, and leave another comment here with the link(s).

This giveaway will be open through August 18, 2010, and is open worldwide.

What kind of woman has a saffron quilt on her bed? Wears a white linen dressing gown? Keeps beside her bed a stack of gardening books? Stores all her clothes in a shabby antique wardrobe, with a mirror built into its door? Who is she when she is in this room, alone and unobserved, and in what way does that differ from the person she is when she is in a restaurant with friends or in rehearsal or engaging with members of the public? Who, in short, is Molly Fox?

From Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden, pages 8-9

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Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I change the rules a little bit to suit my own purposes: I hand pick the teaser, rather than choose one randomly. I also very frequently post more than two sentences. :)

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages readers to share the goodies that they picked up at their libraries each week!

I got many treats at the library yesterday – mainly due to their recently expanded Graphic Novels section, which made me incredibly happy to discover.

From top to bottom:

Circle of Friends DVD (Starring Chris O’Donnell and Minnie Driver) – Recommended to me by a friend, a must watch in prep/excitement for my trip to Ireland.

Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson – a graphic Travel Journal by the author of one of my favorite graphic novels, Blankets.

Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan – Impulse grab, short memoir that looks endearing and funny.

Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden – This is the only book that I actually planned on looking for and checking out. It’s included in Barnes and Noble’s summer Discover New Authors selection, and captured my interest.

The Beats: A Graphic History edited by Paul Buhle – A good find in newly expanded Graphic Novels section.

Pride & Prejudice (graphic novel) adapted by Nancy Butler – Another good find in the Graphic Novels section.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes – Spotted this and realized it didn’t make sense that I haven’t read it, given how much I enjoy Graphic Novels.

Since a lot of these are graphic novels*, and the ones that aren’t are fairly short, I’m hoping to read (and watch, in the case of the DVD) all of these before they’re due – something that is rarely possible with most of the stacks I bring home from the library.

*I think this post now holds the record for the number of times I’ve mentioned graphic novels in one blog post. I’ll add it to the tags just to be sure. :)