M.J. Rose

Could this possibly be the best hotel for introverts and book lovers? The Literary Man hotel in Óbidos, Portugal has a massive reading lounge with over 50,000 books…

From HuffPost,
This Hotel With 50,000 Books Is A Literary Lover’s Dream Come True
Oh, and there’s a gin bar too.

by Suzy Strutner

“If you tend to spend your vacations reading, then this is the spot for you.
The Literary Man hotel in Óbidos, Portugal is home to about 50,000 books and counting, a manager told The Huffington Post. Some titles are available for purchase, and others are reserved for reading only in the historic hotel’s massive lounge, which is pretty much the book lover’s equivalent of a Caribbean island:

The Literary Man is nestled just outside the walls of the historic center of Óbidos, a charming medieval town that’s recently started embracing bookishness with the addition of new bookshops and a literary festival.

Guests at the hotel can savor their reads–which range from vintage titles to best-selling fiction to cookbooks–at the in-house gin bar, in the cellar during a massage or in a variety of cozy, simple hotel rooms. Prices start at about $90 per night, but we have a feeling we wouldn’t sleep a wink here…”

For glorious pictures of the hotel’s bookish interior, click here.

So many elements of a great crime novel here!

• A criminal mastermind known as “The Astronomer
• Scotland Yard

• Drilling holes in a skylight and then rappelling down to avoid motion detectors

A magical discovery! (This is definitely something that could inspire a novel..)

From Ancient Origins,

“It’s the song that ensured the stele would truly be an everlasting memorial because he didn’t just have the lyrics engraved, but rather also included the melody in ancient Greek musical notation.”

Song of Seikilos: Oldest Known Musical Composition Lay Hidden on a Flower Stand in Turkish Garden

“The Song of Seikilos is the oldest complete surviving music composition in the world engraved in a marble stele that served as a flower stand. The beautiful composition, also known as the ‘Seikilos epitaph’, dates from around the first or second century AD, and was inconspicuously being kept in the garden of a Turkish woman prior to its current placement in the National Museum of Denmark.

The Song of Seikilos was discovered carved on a marble column-shaped stele in Tralleis, near Ephesus in Turkey, in 1883. Although short in length, this piece of the past has remarkable historical value in its rarity as an artifact. It is not the oldest song in the world, which is attributed to a Sumerian hymn, but it is unique as the sole composition which has remained complete throughout history.

The song of Seikilos was originally engraved on a tombstone, a stele, accompanying the message ‘from Seikilos to Euterpe“, together with a poem. Most researchers seem to agree that the song was a dedication by a man, named Seikilos, to his wife, possibly named Euterpe, who had passed away.

There are two different translations of the poem but the message remains the same: enjoy life to the fullest because death will come for all of us. The first translated version of the poems reads as follows:…”

For the lyrics, more pictures, and even a resurrection of the song itself, click here.