May 2012
6 posts
Friends of booksellers, assemble! →
Word comes from my friends at the The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square, Chicago, that one of their booksellers, Jon Fullmer, and his wife Amelia, have lost everything after a devastating apartment fire on May 24. Their first child is due next month. Until their renters insurance kicks in, they’ve got nothing. And not to distract from the real tragedy of losing all their day-to-day...
1 tag
April 2012
5 posts
WatchDavid Rees, famous for Get Your War On, now has a sideline career as Artisanal Pencil Sharpener and author of a new book from @melvillehouse, How To Sharpen Pencils.
ENDER'S GAME BLOG: Ender's World →
OMG OMG OMG
endersgameblog:
If you think regular school is tough, try it in a rotating space station. And by the way, do you have a hall pass for hall number 0058? Because if you don’t, you could end up scrubbing the showers. When you first arrive at Battle School, all you perceive is its utility, its…
March 2012
12 posts
I'm not a "curator" →
Marco Arment on curating, links, and discoverability. Via Coudal Partners.
Yes.
This goes to the heart of a lot of discussions lately here at home about links, curating, credit and sites like Pinterest and Tumblr. Marco is so smart - he’s got to be one of the people you follow. I do.
1 tag
“I am a man without many pleasures in life, a man whose few pleasures are small,...”
– From Amanda Filipacchi’s novel, Nude Men (quoted in Shelf Awareness for Readers today) I remember reading Nude Men, but I don’t recall that quote. Love it!
February 2012
8 posts
The Stories behind Publishers’ Animal Logos (via... →
Including Candlewick Press’ charming, Helen Oxenbury-drawn bear with candle:
In 1992, beloved illustrator Helen Oxenbury created the colophon of a bear holding a candle. It is innocent and wise, childish and benevolent, as well as timeless. Initially seen in full color, the Bear has been developed into a silhouette and appears today on every book for young children from Candlewick Press.
Watch
One of the books that I’m most proud to have sold this winter - What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors - by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (and Raymond Obstfield) is just out. This clip is from his appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today.
January 2012
6 posts
Another reason to stop supporting Amazon. →
Between this and the nasty pre-Xmas “comparison shopping” boondoggle, and their current pressuring publishers for more co-op and better terms, it’s almost as though Amazon is starting to act like a monopoly! Huh.
yolaleah:
Brilliance Audio, owned by Amazon, has made the decision to stop allowing libraries to purchase and circulate their downloadable audiobooks. Gee, thanks...
December 2011
13 posts
“As the age of the physical book retreats, the cult of the physical book will...”
– Trevor Butterworth, writing in Forbes about Shakespeare & Company and the rise of the “cult of the physical book”. A welcome glimpse at the long perspective of book reading.
Mary Roach in Outside magazine: Shrunken Heads... →
This one’s for all my fellow @mary_roach fans who’ve been wondering what she’s been up to lately.
Here's one way to think about Amazon & their tough... →
Isn’t there a Grimm’s folk tale about a village where a family gets a new pet and, even though it eats up some of the other littler pets in the village, everyone still loves it because it’s just so darned good at being the best and biggest pet in the village and everyone loves to spend time with that pet? But then the village children start going missing?
There isn’t?...
Three Percent: Richard Russo, Bookstores, and this... →
This is a great post by Open Letter & Three Percent’s Chad Post about Amazon’s Predatory “Price Check” “deal” and today’s NYT article by Richard Russo from the perspective of a fellow indie press guy. Thoughtful and wonderfully lengthy. I love that he’s able to stretch out and dig into a topic.
