As much as the reading habits of the members of society speak volumes about what kind of society it is, what books one wants to dispose of can leave us a few clues as well.Here is the top ten list of books donated to The Book Thing of Baltimore according to its founder Russell Wattenberg. The list appeared in a 2002 article in the Chicago Tribune.The Book Thing is a bookstore where all the books are free for the taking, sort of a Goodwill without the commerce or a stationary, less interactive Book Crossing.The Top Ten are:1. Iacocca by Lee...
Radiohead: Band of the Year
I'm not sure I've ever heard one of their songs but in my world these guys are the band of the year. They just released their latest album without the help of a record company and all they asked was for their fans to pay what they want for it, no strings attached. Start at free and go from there. Here are the early results: How this applies to the book world? Clearly the publishing industry has not experienced the upheaval taking place in the music industry but it's coming. Remember we have been printing books alot longer than we...
What the Rockers Read and the Writers Listen To
Looks like Amazon and the New York Times have crossed wires in the blogosphere.Over at the new Amazon blog, Omnivoracious, they have a "new series asking musicians about the books they're into--new, old, and influential."while at Paper Cuts the blog of Dwight Garner, senior editor of the NYT Book Review we have their weekly feature "Living With Music" a series presenting a "playlist of songs from a writer or some other kind of book-world personage."Both have a little global touch this week with Omnivoracious asking members of the Australian rock band The Church whats on their bookshelfand Paper Cuts asks...
Pull the Plug on Book TV
or at least let's change the name. How about Books and History; Books and Washington; Non-Fiction for the Masses.Book TV has as little to do with the diverse culture and life of books as the Bush administration has to do with democracy.Before you throw the book at me for this one head over to the Guardian to read Daniel Kalder's piece Literary TV to put you off reading forever.He amusingly reminds us how downright ridiculous much of Book TV is and how extended viewing can be seen as a low grade form of torture guaranteed to ruin your weekend.Book TV...
Review: The Little Red Fish by Tae-Eun Yoo
"JeJe's grandfather was a librarian at an old library in the middle of the forest" is how Tae-Eun Yoo's stunning debut begins. From here Yoo takes us on a magnificent illustrated journey with JeJe as he explores the library with his little red fish at his side. Soon JeJe falls asleep and when he wakes he finds that his comrade has disappeared into the biblio-ether of the library. To find his fish JeJe must dive head first into a book, entering a magical new world in pursuit of his little friend.The soft elegance of the sepia-toned illustrations carry us along,...