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...
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...
Fabrication Rebate. It Still Pays to Fib
1,729 readers of James Frey's concoction A Million Little Pieces will receive $15.82 each to soothe the pain they encountered upon finding out that Frey's book included a bit of fabrication.As part of the settlement, Random House has also agreed to include a warning in the book that not all portions of the book may be accurate. Does this mean they can still call it a memoir?In addition to the $27,348 to settle the claims Random House will pay $783,000 to the lawyers in legal fees, $432,000 for publicizing the settlement (basically an additional marketing expense) and $180,000 to be...
The Day 300,000 Books Fell
"The top four floors of San Jose, California’s, eight-story Martin Luther King Jr. Library, which serves as the public library system’s main branch and the San Jose State University library, were temporarily closed to reshelve books after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit the city October 30."The building suffered no major damage but the building did intentionally sway back and forth to absorb the shock of the quake and as a result 300,000 books fell of the shelves!They are almost all picked up.American Library Association articleImage above of a bookstore after the Bay Area's 1989 Point Loma quake by J.K. Nakata of...
Rwanda’s Biblio Bus
Biblio BusThough traditionally an oral culture reading is increasingly on the rise in Rwanda and it is not an easy task providing access to reading material to its people. The cost of books and newspapers remain outside the reach of most Rwandans.The Biblio Bus is one of the 3B's. A project instituted by a group called Ishyo. The bus carries 4000 books in 3 different languages, Kinyarwanda, English and French, and is decorated by local artists.Currently the Biblio Bus visits schools and prisons only with the hope of eventually providing service to individuals.Students can borrow books for up to a...