The holidays are upon us, which means that in the midst of the usual Christmas craziness items I've wanted to blog about have been piling up in my news reader at an alarming rate. So in the interests of not falling further behind, my early gift to you is hours of bibliophilic browsing:First, David Hewson has an excellent series of posts detailing his experiences with the Sony Reader.And on a related note, The Kindle appears to be sold-out for the holidays, possibly in anticipation for Kindle 2.0The New Rochelle School District is cutting out a passage (LITERALLY!) of Girl Interupted:...
Book Club 2.0 : Reading Bolaño Together
Joanne Kaufman's piece in the Sunday Styles section (why the Style section and not the Book section?) of the New York Times , "Fought Over Any Good Books Lately", gives us a glimpse into the world of book clubs and the challenges they face in keeping everyone on the same page.Many of the issues she touches on are the same reasons why I haven't joined one.That is until now.Starting in January a bunch of us are going to begin reading Roberto Bolaño's highly acclaimed new book 2666. The posthumously published 900 page tome has made most of the Top Ten...
The "Titan of Typography"
Richard Hollis has a nice piece in the Guardian UK on Jan Tschichold. Though probably best known for his reworking of the design of Penguin paperbacks Tschichold was at the forefront of the new typography movement of the late 1920's.Slideshow from the Guardian articleJan Tschichold at WikipediaAlso of note: Thames & Hudson's recently published Jan Tschichold - Master Typographer: His Life, Work and Legacy
Sign of the Times : Publisher’s Sale Targets its Own Authors
click to enlargeJust how bad is it in the publishing world? Not only has this week given us Black Wednesday but now we get this piece of marketing madness from Palgrave Macmillan.Their target? Their own authors! Palgrave Macmillian send out the above to their authors offering them a "special discount" on their own books. Yes, act know and buy 25 or more copies of your own book and receive 55% off the list price.Wouldn't all this energy be better spent marketing your authors to world? And the way things are going, for many of the authors, if they wait long...
They’re Alive : Edith Kollath’s Breathing Books
Bre Pettis takes us on a short video tour of Edith Kollath's latest exhibit Property and Evidence: The Whole Story which is currently on view at Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery.Beside featuring her amazing breathing books the exhibit also recounts Kollath's experience with the TSA who detained her and confiscated the books when she tried to get through security at Newark airport to return to her home in Germany. She was on the way home to show the books in an exhibit; which she missed.Kollath recounts the experience herePress release for the exhibitThanks to Neatorama for the lead