The Written Nerd

* The Guardian notes various methods of organizing your bookshelves . (The ALP and I tend toward the author's own methodology, "according to where I can jam them.") (via Bookninja , who always leads me to the cool Guardian articles) * Literature In the Internet Age category, #1: I'd normally be skeptical of a trailer for a short story -- but the story is by Jim Shepard, the publisher is the very intriguing new multi-format literary journal Electric Literature , and the video itself is somewhat breathtaking. Watch. * Literature in the Internet Age category, #2: our Brooklyn visionary of the literary future, Richard Nash, writes in Publishers Weekly about Cursor , the new print/digital, publisher/community hybrid creature he's working on creating. I'm still wrapping my head around it, but it seems to come down to the fact that writers are readers and vice versa, and thus offering tools for refining and publishing one's writing while also selling the wr...

I was at a NAIBA board meeting most of today, discussing exciting plans for the fall trade show in Baltimore (hope to give you the full report later this week). So it's rather late, but here's some Monday linkage I've been collecting. (I'm hoping to be a more regular blogger now that I'm officially self-employed -- cross your fingers for me.) * A delicious irony in the Brave New World of e-books: Amazon sneaks into your Kindle and takes back your 1984. (via @beverlyqueery on Twitter, aka sweet pea of King's Books .) * And, since we're feeling rather 1950s paranoid, a fantastically propagandistic video about the environmental effects of shopping local from the fine folks at Regulator Bookshop (via Bookselling This Week ): * I love the long-running feature on the music/culture blog Largehearted Boy in which "authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book." The most recent entry is by Joan...

Today is my last day at McNally Jackson Books. Tomorrow I will be the full-time proprietor of Greenlight Bookstore. It feels weirdly like the last day of high school. Remember that? If you were like me, you knew exactly where you were headed, and you were excited to be going there, stomach full of butterflies for the unknown adventure ahead. But there was also an almost unbearable nostalgia-in-the-making for all you were about to leave behind: the place, the people, the quirks, the routine. There's so much you learned here, both practical and philosophical, and so much you loved. It makes for a pretty intense set of emotions. (Which run the risk of sounding incredibly sappy when articulated.) There's something about working in an indie bookstore which makes for a much more emotionally heightened workplace atmosphere than, say, working in an office. Some of us call it the "Empire Records phenomenon" (which is the best silly '90s movie about indie retail life ever -...

It is far too beautiful outside for blogging. I'm making chicken salad sandwiches for a picnic in the park. If you are inside in New York City, I suggest you get outside as soon as possible. Happy Friday!

On Monday, I was part of an amazing panel discussion as part of NYU's Summer Publishing Institute. It was inspiring and thought provoking, and I plan to write up some notes and thoughts that came out of that soon. But not today. Today I would like to point out two things that made me laugh out loud in my bathrobe, and caused the ALP to shake his head at the wonder and ridiculousness of it all. They involve two of the things I love the most: books and Brooklyn. First, Shelf Awareness linked to the Green Apple Core , the blog of the amazing Green Apple Books in San Francisco. It seems Green Apple has a fantastic program wherein they recommend one book a month, guaranteed good or your money back. And every month, they shoot a two-minute video promo for the book -- every one of which is freaking hilarious. This month's book is Werner Herzog's Conquest of the Useless , but my favorite video (I watched them all) is for Little Bee . This cracks me up. What's most awesom...