Baltimore Book

A half-century ago, the city school system came up with an ambitious idea: Recruit a group of high school students, led by history teachers, to write a textbook about how Baltimore worked. The task was divided among 12 senior high schools. Eastern did a chapter on history, Douglass delved into the ethnic and religious diversity of the community, Southern looked at how Baltimore fit into the regional geography. Poly described governance, Forest Park investigated economic resources, Patterson described occupational patterns and living standards.

Mary Morton moved away from Baltimore earlier this year but returned on Sunday for the city's annual book festival. Morton, who now lives in Hagerstown, has attended almost every Baltimore Book Festival since its inception in 1996. The festival has gotten bigger every year, she said, and more crowded. On a sunny Sunday, Morton and a friend browsed through used books in Mount Vernon and listened to presentations by authors, including broadcast journalist Amy Goodman and Baltimore-born "chick-lit" novelist Emily Giffin.

James McBride had no idea Maryland's Eastern Shore would be the setting for his next novel when he first headed there about seven years ago. In fact, he says, he was on his way to Washington to research a book on the death of Abraham Lincoln when he impulsively decided to turn left on U.S. 50 instead of right. "I wanted to visit the house where Lincoln died," says McBride, a Brooklyn native with homes in New York and Bucks County, Pa. "I started driving down that way, but then I just veered off at Annapolis and started heading in the other direction."

Want to rub shoulders with authors from this weekend's Baltimore Book Festival ? Hotel Monaco Baltimore, 2 N. Charles St., is hosting a Mix and Mingle event, Friday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the living room area of the boutique hotel. Authors include: Jennifer Armentrout (Romance), Catherine Asaro (Science Fiction), Megan Hart (Erotic Fiction), Cheryl Klam (Young Adult Romance), Sophie Perinot (Historical Fiction), Jeri Smith (Romance) and Hope Tarr (Romance).

Three blocks from the Baltimore Book Festival II, the city's literary set had little to cheer about yesterday.A demolition contractor hired by the city chose yesterday to begin tearing down the historic Peabody Book Shop and Beer Stube at 913 N. Charles St., a former speakeasy and gathering place patronized by such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald and H. L. Mencken."

From "The Baltimore Book":"Charles Center was concieved and built as a property development sceme of direct benefit to corporate and finance capital. The city as a whole recieved very little benefit from it."*"...a recent internal study suggested that Baltimore spends $17 million a year more on servicing the downtown and Inner Harbor than it gets back in tax revenues."*"(The Maryland Science Center) was designed in the wake of the 1968 riots , at a time when a substantial African-American population inhabited the close-by community.

How better to brighten up a party than with a guest famous for his utter lack of joy! Ah, but this was a party to thank supporters of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, on opening night of the Baltimore Book Festival. And the guest of honor? The Baltimore-connected writer Edgar Allan Poe, as portrayed by actor David Keltz."They don't make melancholics like they used to in the 19th century," sighed Dr. Sarah Begus, as she listened to Keltz recite Poe's "The Raven."Among those sharing the good cheer in the Literary Salon tent at the Mount Vernon book festival site were Carla Hayden, library director; Ronald Owens, president of Friends of the Enoch Pratt Free Library; Bob Hillman and Peggy Heller, library board trustees; Primus St. John, poet; Fred L. Miller and Sujata Massey, authors; and Charles Longo and Willis White, vice presidents of SlingShot Publishing Co.

THE BALTIMORE BOOK: NEW VIEWS OF LOCAL HISTORY. Edited by Elizabeth Fee, Linda Shopes and Linda Zeidman. Temple University Press. 208 pages. $29.95. FOR AN awfully long time now, Baltimoreans have felt that they had less history than other cities. History -- really Big History -- always seemed to happen someplace else. When America's founders and framers had Big Ideas to get off their chests, they went, unaccountably, to Philadelphia.Washington had presidents. New York had Wall Street. Boston had Paul Revere, Puritans and the Adams family.

Imagine a history of Baltimore with scarcely a mention of Fort McHenry, Enoch Pratt, Johns Hopkins and the Fire of 1904, but with a whole chapter on the radical seamen who worked the city's waterfront in the 1930s, and another on the canning industry in Fells Point at the turn of the century. Instead of lauding the B&O Railroad, one of the pillars of the city's and state's history, the book harshly criticizes the railroad's policies toward workers that led to the famous strike of 1877 at Camden Yards:"Safety conditions on the B&O were woefully inadequate.

Barbara S. Elliott, former owner of a Baltimore book bindery, died of heart failure Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Oak Crest Village resident was 91. Barbara Smith was born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton. After graduating from the old St. James Commercial School in East Baltimore in 1929, she went to work as a secretary at the Elliott Bookbinding Co., which had been established by her future husband in the basement of his home in 1924. In 1934, she married Charles L. Elliott Sr., who later moved the business to Rosedale Street in Walbrook.

1)   Rachel L. Swarns:   While Michelle Obama is not expected to attend the Baltimore Book Festival , author Rachel L. Swarns will be meeting fans at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Bank of America  Literary Salon, where she'll be happy to discuss her book, "American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama. " Fans can learn about the first lady's family's Baltimore roots. 2)   Emily Giffin:   Baltimore-born author Emily Giffin ("Something Borrowed")

As of 9 a.m. Friday, traffic was slow on I-95 southbound near I-395, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic on the outer loop of I-695 near I-95 in Baltimore County, McDonogh Road near Timothy Lane in Baltimore County, I-895 northbound at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel in Baltimore City, the other loop of I-695 near Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore County, Route 295 southbound near I-195 in Anne Arundel County and I-97 southbound near...

The Baltmore Book Festival, which runs Sept. 28-30, will stretch further east this year, to reach Center Stage.  Mary Carole McCauley reports in the Baltimore Sun that the shift was driven by Kwame Kwei-Armah, Center Stage 's new artistic director.  "When my family arrived in Baltimore a year ago, one of our first days out was to walk up the hill to the Book Festival. We heard any number of brilliant speakers. When I came back, I asked my staff why Center Stage wasn't part of this wonderful celebration of the word," he said at a news conference.

Marian Caldwell has it all. Kind of. At 36, she's the executive producer of a scripted TV show. She's dating the handsome CEO of her network. And she has an apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side. But Marian also has problems. Among them: The girl she gave up for adoption 18 years ago has just walked back into her life, and she has some questions - questions that will bring up secrets buried deep in Marian's past. So begins "Where We Belong," Emily Giffin's sixth novel, which debuted in late July and zoomed to the best-seller lists, just like her five previous works.

This week, Midnight Sun looked at the possible return of National Premium , and the obstacles it's got ahead. We also talked to regional promoters about the new Fillmore Silver Spring , and their concerns about having Live Nation as a competitor. We posted a preview of our list of the 100 best bars in the Baltimore area . Ponytail broke up , for good this time. Baltimore Beer Week revealed its schedule. The Baltimore Book Festival catered to music lovers.

How much is your first edition of John Barth's "The Floating Opera" worth by now? Of "Maryland Silversmiths, 1715-1830"? Of "A Branch of May: Poems"? The answers are there, in dollars, in "Collected Books: The Guide to Values," by Allen and Patricia Ahearn of Rockville. Just out (Putnam, $50), with about 15,000 entries, this is the first such U.S. compendium since "The Book Collector's Handbook of Values," by the late Van Allen Bradley, in 1982.What books rate the term "collected"? The Ahearns, veterans of the business themselves as Quill & Brush book shop, go by current market standards.

For local rare-book people, September has been the high season. Convention Center show, Washington show, Baltimore Book Co. and Richard Opfer auctions, new catalog from Marilyn Braiterman and 19th Century Shop -- it all defies the economy.In numbers, a high point occurred during BBC's 616-lot periodic sale. "History of the Indian Tribes of North America," by Thomas McKenney and James Hall (1842), with 118 color plates, from a private Maryland collection and with a $10,000 advance estimate, went for $23,000 (to an out-of-state dealer who, it is feared, will break up the books and sell the illustrations to decorators)