"How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books" - Walter Benjamin "Unpacking My Library. A Talk About Book Collecting"Blogging has been and will continue to be a bit light for the next week or so as I will be heading to San Francisco for a bookfair. Days to get ready, days to get there, days at the bookfair and days to get home.All days in the lucky life of a bookseller!
Mary Oliver: The Poet as Rock Star
The last time 71 year old Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver visited Seattle was 2005. She made quite a splash by selling out the 900 seat Town Hall in a relatively short amount of time. The University of Washington Bookstore sold 600 copies of her books at that event making it the second most profitable reading of the year for them.This past Monday night Oliver returned to Seattle and the community response was one for the literary record books.What happened:-it was the fastest sellout in the 20 year history of the venerable Seattle Arts & Lectures series-the demand was...
Which Book Would You Bring to the White House?
Katie Couric has a series underway at CBS called "Primary Questions: Character, Leadership, and the Candidates" where she asks the presidential candidates questions "designed to go beyond politics and show what really makes them tick."Her current question:If you were elected president, what is the one book other than the bible you would think is essential to have along?The question was asked prior to the recent thinning of the field so Giuliani and Edwards are included.Here are their books of choice:McCain: "Wealth of Nations" by Adam SmithObama: Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of Lincoln "Team of Rivals."Romney: "John Adams" by David McCullough.Huckabee:...
BookWise: Book Club or Book Cult
Last March I did a piece on a company called BookWise titled BookWise: The Book Worlds First Pyramid Scheme. Out of the 400+ Book Patrol posts in 2007 none garnered the reaction that this one did. The comments received for the post were disproportionate compared to all other posts and they were all negative. Just recently I received this comment on the post:"just by using the phrase "pyramid scheme" proves you really don't know what you are saying some people live free, others live as slaves. I've made my choice"From Wikipedia: A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that...
Book 2.0
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