First Edition of the On the Road, 1957 Today is the birthday of Jack Kerouac. Best known as the father of The Beat Generation his spontaneous prose style changed the game, bringing a fresh approach to the novel. Kerouac's iconic status shows no signs of letting up. All is books are still in print and his masterpiece On the Road remains a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations. On his spontaneous writing style: Many of his books exemplified the spontaneous approach, including On the Road, Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur, and The Subterraneans. The central features of this...
It’s time for the ‘oddest book title of the year’ competition
Another year brings another shortlist of stunning book titles for Bookseller magazine's annual Diagram Prize for “oddest book title of the year.” Created in 1978, with Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice taking top honors, the Diagram Prize has become a yearly hi-spot providing guaranteed entertainment to us book folks. This years nominees are: Nature's Nether Regions by Menno Schilthuizen (published by Viking). Advanced Pavement Research: Selected, Peer Reviewed Papers from the 3rd International Conference on Concrete Pavements Design, Construction, and Rehabilitation, December 2–3, 2013, Shanghai, China edited by Bo Tian (Trans Tech). The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year...
VHS Tapes = Cultural Artifacts: Yale acquires collection of 2700 VHS tapes
From the late 1970s through much of the 1980s VHS, which stands for Video Home System, tapes were all the rage. They were the dominant form of home video entertainment and in many ways revolutionized the movie industry. It created the ability to watch movies in the home while also creating the opportunity to produce low budget films for the format. The technology is now beyond obsolete but that doesn't mean there still isn't value to be had. Yale University, the first institution to actively collect in this area, recently announced the acquisition of a collection of 2,700 VHS tapes. Mind you, this is not a collection...
Health update: Printed Books in Satisfactory Condition
artist rendering of Jeff Kinney's forthcoming bookshop Lots of good news floating around recently on the health of the printed book. Jeff Kinney, author of the wildly popular "Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series is opening a bookstore. "I feel angry that so many bookstores have gone away" Kinney told the Boston Globe. "People love books and they don’t want to see them go away. We’d like to be a part of that movement." At Digital Book World, Dana Beth Weinberg tells us Why Authors and Readers Still Want Print. Citing the important 2014 PEW study, E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps, one thing...
It’s Read Across America Day!
Talk about a good day to read. Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss and what a better way to celebrate his enduring genius than by having a nationwide reading celebration. Read Across America is a partnership between The National Education Association (NEA) and Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Its mission: to promote the joy and importance of reading and to celebrate the birthday of beloved author Dr. Seuss. Since its founding 1997 Read Across America has become the signature program of the NEA. Though today is the big day, the NEA offers year-round programming that focuses on motivating children and teens to read. There are...