The Waste Land – For Babies

Do yourself a favor and check out this Kickstarter project.

Tournament of Books is Underway

The annual tournament of books begins today with a pre-tournament play-in round. Which of these Cinderalla teams will make it off the bubble tot he big dance?  Check out today’s action, and then check out the amazing brackets.

Today’s round includes three books about the Iraq war reviewed by a combat veteran.  It doesn’t play out the way you would think, but the only book of the three that I read advances to the tourney.  Huzzah!

Grim Readers

Awesome.  T-shirt available for a few more hours today at Woot.

More reading street art

Via The Street Art Tumblr

Q: How much do I love this?

Ahab by Apelad

A: Tons.

E-books and Libraries: The Infographic

Via MobyLives via Mashable via teachingdegree.org

Caldecott Medal is 75

Caldecott winner Brian Selznick created this nifty logo to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Caldecott Medal.

Manly!

McSweeney’s has a manly book coming out with a correspondingly manly ad.

Bookstores We Love: Philly

Don’t let this poorly taken Instagram photo fool you.  The Joseph Fox Booskshop in the Rittenhosue Square area of downtown Philadelphia is an outstanding indie bookstore.   (Rittenhosue Square is between the Rocky steps and the Liberty Bell – more or less.)   It’s small, but they make the most of their book space. I was chagrined to see that the David Byrne book that I lugged along to read on my trip was available in signed editions at Joseph Fox. Dammit!

I could have spent hours scanning the shelves, but the proprietor had let me in after even though I arrived after closing time.   I guess she felt sorry for me when she saw the look of disappointment on my face.   I didn’t want to push my luck.  I made a purchase and hit the road.

The store comes with two cute and very small dogs.  Be sure to visit them when you are in Phialdelphia.

Bookstores We Love: Boulder

While visiting my 90 year old grandma outside Denver, I decided to take her on a day trip to Boulder.  When my uncle told me that only weird people live there (people who don’t like cigarette smoke and like to ride bicycles) – I figured I’d feel right at home. And I did. While wheeling my grandma up the historic Pearl Street Mall in her wheelchair, we came across Boulder Bookstore, the largest independent bookstore in Boulder (and also one of Tim’s favorites).

We went right in, wheelchair and all.

This store was packed with excellent titles of used and new books, I could have spent a few hours here. We manged to pick up a couple copies of All My Friends are Still Dead  by Jory John and Avery Monsen and a brand-new-looking-previously-owned copy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins for my daughter. I also found the staff to be very helpful, and the local customers I chatted to be very friendly and memorable.

Moby-Dick Big Read

This is very cool – “The Moby-Dick Big Read: an online version of Melville’s magisterial tome: each of its 135 chapters read out aloud, by a mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, to be broadcast online in a sequence of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible.”

Bookstores we love: More in Paris

I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris in the 1980′s – back when we only had books made out of paper.  Surely you remember?  I was really hoping that in this age of “electronic everything”, I would still find the book stores along the Boulevard St. Michel with their rolling carts of books lining the sidewalk.  I wasn’t disappointed.

For the first time, I noticed all of the “Livres Anciens” (rare books) stores around the city.  Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for my family, I was only able to peer into the windows at these rare antiques.  Every store was closed as we passed, so I was only able to take a couple photos.  Next time.

Bars on the window of a book store?!

And just because it’s cool - check out the life size chess board in a park in Geneva, Switzerland! (Lucky for me, there was a similar sized checkers game nearby too.)

(See my post on Shakespeare and Co, too.)

Bookstores We Love

By now, it should be a given that Denver’s Tattered Cover is one of our favorite indie bookstores – hands down.  I’ve mentioned it here, here, and here.  Anne gave it a shoutout here.  I was happy to have a chance to visit it – repeatedly – over the last week.  When you’re in Tattered Cover, it is clear that you are book shopping in the American West.

My travels also led me to a new discovery.  Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colorado’s Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall is pretty spectacular.  It is smaller than the sprawling Tattered Cover, but they make excellent use of their space by only stocking excellent books.  We were able to visit twice during out trip, and I’ll definitely make sure to pop in next time my travels take me out that way.

Meet Laura Szumowski

Last week, we welcomed old friend Ben Tanzer to the blog to talk about his short story collection, New York Stories.   The collection comes in an amazing edition with fantastic illustrations.  Today we welcome new friend Laura Szumowski the illustrator of New York Stories to the blog.

Laura Szumowski is an illustrator and the author of a series of guidebooks about women’s health, including the forthcoming Tip of the Iceberg: A Book About the Clitoris. She is also the author of the popular travel guide We Should: A Selective Guide to Chicago. Laura currently manages ZMK Press, a nonfiction small press located in Chicago, and blogs at zoomousekey.

In New York Stories, Szumowski’s illustrations (like the one below) are clean and hip.   They are the perfect accompanyment to Tanzer’s stories.

Szumowski says:

In The New York Stories, I came up with 40 illustrations to go along with Ben Tanzer’s collection of short stories. Each of the 17 stories has an illustrated chapter head plus one additional illustration, both inspired by the content and subject matter of the story. I also added six full-color illustrations throughout the book to highlight particularly vivid images from the text, and to convey the overarching themes of the book.

When Jason, the owner of Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, approached me about the project, I loved the idea. I’ve been writing and illustrating my own books for several years, but hadn’t had the opportunity to illustrate other work. It was a wonderful experience, and I hope to do more!

Local Laureate

This is very cool.  The Library of Congress has announced that Decatur, GA resident and Emory University professor Natasha Trethewey has been named the Poet Laureate of the United States.  Wowza!  There is a celebration this evening at the gazebo in Decatur Square to toast the new Laureate and celebrate her accomplishments.  5:00-6:30 PM.

Any Questions?

Actually, if you do have any questions, read the story on this cool poster at Galleycat.

Book People Unite!

Reading is Fundamental has an excellent new music video to promote reading. The song is by The Roots with vocal support from a “We are the World”-style backing cast. Take the Book People pledge and download the full song for free. Whoo!

Mr Rogers was awesome

Chip Kidd @ Ted

Rock star book designer Chip Kidd gives a stirring TED talk about book design and the lasting thingy-ness of printed books.  This is excellent.
 

I have no idea what’s going on with his glasses.

Happy St Patrick’s Day

What says St Patrick’s like a leprechaun-eating Ulysses-reading cat?

(Photo:  Journopal, Brooklyn, NY)