Publisher's Weekly is reporting that Amazon's previously announced acquisition of AbeBooks has been completed.A new era of online bookselling has begun.Previously on Book PatrolAbeAzon. Amazon's Acquisition of AbeBooks : The Day AfterBrendan Sherar, CEO of Biblio.com, Weighs InA Response From Brian Elliott, CEO of AlibrisAn Interview With AbeBooks CEO, Dr. Hannes Blum
Death and the Mass-Markets
The New York Times Book Review's TBR: Inside the List notes this week that they received a number of reader comments relating to their Nov. 9 best seller list for mass-market paperback fiction. Many were wondering why 40% of the list was made up of 'dead" books.The answer: Charlaine Harris7 of the 8 "dead" books come from Harris's southern vampire series featuring Sookie Stackhouse, a "telepathic Louisiana barmaid and friend to vampires, werewolves, and various other odd creatures."Here is the list:3. DEAD UNTIL DARK, by Charlaine Harris.7. LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS, by Charlaine Harris10. CLUB DEAD, by Charlaine Harris.12. DEAD...
The Way of the "Nose"
Wu Xubin, 26, a calligraphist, has been practicing the art since he was ten years old. While in college he had an epiphany; why not use my nose to "write." The rest they say is history.Thanks to swissmiss for the lead
"To See Existing Things In a New Way" : The Book-Inspired Jewelry of Janna Syvanoja
I recently found myself lost in the pages of a glorious exhibition catalog titled DESIGNED FOR DELIGHT: Alternative Aspects of Twentieth-Century Decorative Arts (Flammarion, 1997) which documents a traveling exhibition organized by the Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts. In the section "Inversion and Transformation," a beautiful and evocative photograph of a necklace by Finnish artist Janna Syvanoja entitled "Books" (1990) mesmerized me. The necklace captures the experience of viewing a row of books with gilt edges from above. There is a lyrical simplicity to it all. She isolates one aspect of our experience of the book and revels in its...
"Language of the Birds"
A new permanent installation by artists Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn was unveiled last Sunday in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood.Language of the Birds consists of "23 illuminated white polycarbonate books suspended in midair with their pages opened as if startled into flight." Etched in the concrete below, as if they fell from the pages above, are words and phrases from over 90 local authors.The installation is powered by solar panels that are mounted on top of nearby City Lights bookstore.The unveiling was accompanied by a performance art piece that included "dancers, a marching band and two nearly naked nymphs...