Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). For those unfamiliar with dictionary hierarchy, the OED is the king of dictionaries. It is the dictionary. It's a also a big dictionary. The second edition, which Shea consumed, was published in 1989 in 20 volumes. It weighs 137 pounds and is 21,730 pages long!Shea read the whole thing and recounts his experience in his book, Reading the OED One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, which was published by Perigee earlier this month.Shea will be blogging weekly for the next few months over at the...
30,000 Books Burn in House Fire
A fire destroyed the 18th century home of Barry and Peg Cavanaugh in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.Cavanaugh, a book dealer, collapsed on his front lawn as he watched his house and book collection burn to the ground. The historic Plumstead home was built around 1740 and housed Cavanaugh's huge book collection.The story in the Bucks County Courier Times notes that the 30,000 books were all rare books. Though that might be a bit of a stretch; I doubt there are many places on earth that house 30,000 truly rare books, for a book person this is still a tragedy of the...
The Evolution of Author Marketing : Readings Endangered, The Appearance Rising and Product Placement is Just Around the Corner
Author Ethan Canin, right, mingles with guests at a recent "Words & Wine" gathering in SeattleRemember the days when one of the few options an author had was to hit the road to promote their new book, crossing the country, reading at bookstores both big and small, connecting with readers in the hope that they will buy your book.Well, it's not that simple anymore. The changing publishing and bookselling landscape has forced everyone to revamp their marketing strategy to come up with new ways to sell books. Most major publishers now have an in house speakers-bureau and internet marketing department....
The Living Library is Coming to America
The Living Library was born in Copenhagen in 2000. It was started by 5 kids who, after one of them was stabbed during a night out, decided to do something "to raise awareness and use peer group education to mobilise danish youngsters against violence".There have been countless Living Library events in Europe since and in 2006 a permanent Living Library was established in Lismore, Australia, where on the first Friday of every month people can come and check out "living books".The premise:"Borrow a person you normally would think you would not like. We have a wide selection of unpopular stereotypes....
Vacations and The Kindle
Several pressing work projects and two vacations (of sorts, one was a family event) have kept me from posting here as much as I would have liked. Both the time away and the traveling, however, have allowed me some time to further evaluate my Kindle (for earlier discussions, see here, here, and here). Some thoughts:1) Traveling with the Kindle solves one of the great challenges I always face while away: What books to bring and how many can I pack without overloading my luggage? If you're like me (and if you're reading this you probably are), you read several (if...