Free Kindle For Tweeters

To promote the release of her new book, Perseverance: True Voices of Cancer Survivors, author Carolyn Rubenstein and publisher Forge Books, a division of Macmillan, are giving away a Kindle wireless ebook reading device on Twitter each day from August 18 through August 21 to four lucky tweeters.This will be an interesting exercise in marketing books, using an ebook reader to promote the sale of an actual book and whether the strategy will cannibalize sales of physical copies of the book. Ms. Rubenbstein’s website page for the promotion has a link to Amazon which is offering both the hardcover and...

Continue Reading →

"Have Books Destroyed Your Life, Too?"

(The following originally appeared in Fine Books & Collections magazine on March 20, 2009. I reprint it here at Book Patrol for your enjoyment, and to set up a sequel featuring more from the English-speaking world's lovelorn book lovers).We book folk are often socially inept or, if ept, we'd rather be reading: excepting the occasional clunker, a close relationship with books is very satisfying to the single/divorced and persnickety printslut.But even the most cerebrally occupied must bow to the will of the flesh and the desire for human company. Thus the appearance of personal ads in the New York Review...

Continue Reading →

Dinner Is Served: New Book Provides Entrée to Cannibalism

‘I sautéed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce” Fresh on the, ahem, heels of Julia & Julie, the new movie by Nora Ephron about Julia Child and her worshipful acolyte-blogger, Julie Powell, comes a new book about the cuisine that dare not speak its name. Master this sort of cooking and the only thing you’ll actually be serving is a prison sentence.Those who enjoy Bernd Steak well done will salivate over An Intellectual History of Cannibalism by political scientist at the University of...

Continue Reading →

Kindle in a Book

"Love your Kindle but miss the feel of holding a real book?"BustedTypewriter has the perfect solution. An altered book that holds your Kindle. Mind you, it's not just any book but a copy of “Buying In:The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are” by Rob Walker. A perfect fit. For the more sensitive among us; also available is a copy of “Compassion and Self-Hate” by Theodore Isaac Rubin M.D.These Kindleized books, along with other altered books to carry your various technologies, are available here. Kindle not included.Thanks to Design Observer for the lead.

Continue Reading →