click to enlargeEach Halloween Americans spend $950 million on candy; we buy 20 million pounds of candy corn alone. Beside the dress up and the pumpkins many of our kids experience their biggest sugar rush and crash of the year. And as fun as trick or treating is Halloween night often ends ugly for them and for us! The sugar meltdowns wipe out all the fun we had getting ready for the big night.Well, there might be a better way.Since Halloween 2001 Book for Treats has given away thousands of used books each year to kids in the San Jose,...
Oakland’s New Secondhand Tax: The Used Bookshop Now a Pawnshop
The city of Oakland has implemented a new tax on sellers of used goods that, in effect, now places the used bookshop in the same realm as the pawn shop.The tax, which is based on the state's Secondhand Dealers' law; a 50-year-old law written to help police locate stolen goods, will cost bookshops at least $600 a year and force them to fingerprint employees and "keep meticulous, detailed notes of every item they buy and sell, including the private personal information of the persons involved in each transaction."Failure to comply with the law is considered a misdemeanor and carries a...
Banned Books Week Coming Soon
Banned Books Week is scheduled for September 26th- October 3rd, 2009.Every time we think that banning books in the United States is a thing of the past, we are sorely reminded that there are still many who believe that removing books from book stores and library shelves will make the social issues that the books represent go away and that the world will be a better place.The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is fighting the good fight for retailers.“The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. Founded by the American Booksellers...
Book Patrol Digest. May 2, 2009
New exhibit at the Edward Gorey House Museum. "Edward Gorey's Creatures, Real and Imagined""The exhibit shows many of Gorey's original pen and ink, watercolor, and preliminary pencil illustrations for books of his own creation, and for other noted authors. Special books such as Gorey's only pop-up book, The Dwindling Party and the three-dimensional accordion book The Tunnel Calamity are highlighted." I wish there was a more comprehensive online component for the exhibit.Review in The Barnstable Patriot, "Creature Feature"***"Reading has long been up there with card playing, movie watching and tobacco chewing as a way for baseball players to pass the...
Book Patrol Digest
C. Max Magee of the Millions is building some Literary Soundtracks at Pandora. So far he has 3 stations in the bag.George Packer on George Orwell's “Down and Out in Paris and London” via The Book Club at The New Yorker. "Excellent Book Covers and Paperbacks" at Smashing Magazine. A visual feast featuring 61 of their favorite cover designs."The Lost Books of The Stone Reader" via Omnivoracious. A look at this 2002 documentary that is a must see for us bookish types. I just watched it and loved it.Do you suffer from Library Anxiety? New book out “Library Rx: Measuring...