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Showing posts with the label links

Link-Mad Monday: Catchup!

After a deliciously long Fourth of July weekend (barbecue with friends, watching fireworks from a rooftop, spending a long Sunday shopping, browsing and drinking in Brooklyn), it's back to the working week. I'm way behind on link posting, so here's a sampling of the best I've come across from the last month or so -- pretty unrelated. - Thanks to the ALP for pointing out the Salon article on the books that have influenced Barack Obama, from fiction to philosophy to politics. Fascinating stuff. Key quotes: "If Obama is elected, he'll be one of the most literary presidents in recent memory." "All presidential candidates would like to be seen as resembling Lincoln -- even those who aren't gangly master orators from Illinois." "Obama the reader and writer has already shown an affinity for pragmatism, whether it's the Cabinet-level maneuverings of Lincoln or the "Let's make a deal" activism of Alinsky or the "a man...

Sorry

I'm sorry no posting this week. I'm up to my neck -- no, over my head -- with managing book sales for PEN World Voices Festival events, and keeping up with events in the bookstore. And I've gotten myself sick, something creeping from my head to my chest and making me even less capable of keeping on top of things. But here's a bit. The Literary Saloon has some nice reports on PEN Festival events. Amazon.com is suing New York State. Publishers Weekly reports on the backlash from the successful efforts by the ABA and others to enforce sales tax on online retailers with "nexus" in the state. The Wall Street Journal also has an opinionated take on the issue. Want some literary entertainment this evening? I don't know what to recommend -- you've got the Jonathan Lethem & DJ Spooky Show at McNally Robinson, or the Thomas Pynchon birthday party at the revitalized Freebird in Brooklyn. We've got audio-visual; they've got food and a fax-a...

Books on the Nightstand, Book Nerd on Epiphanies

I'm deeply immersed in a fact-finding mission this morning -- gathering contact names and emails for every bookstore in the five boroughs, in hopes of getting a critical mass of us together to talk about forming some sort of alliance/association/co-op/cabal/something. I'm working with the awesome Kelly Amabile at Book Culture and our respective bosses -- more details to come. (And if you're an NYC bookseller and you want in, you could email me to make it easier...) So for the sake of quickness, let me just put up two links that should give you plenty of reading today. Random House sales reps extraordinaire Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman have created a blog called Books On The Nightstand -- but it's not a Random House blog. Instead, Michael and Ann have created a space to talk about all the books they love, from any publisher, both in written and podcasted form. The powers-that-be at RH have okay'ed the project, but this is all Michael and Ann, as true a pa...

Link-Mad Monday: Anthologies for Good (Brooklyn) Causes

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Naturally, I've had my eye on Brooklyn Was Mine , an anthology of essays by Brooklyn writers on the borough of dreams. I'd planned to ask for a reading copy, as usual, but actually, I think I'll buy it. I hadn't realized that proceeds from the book are going to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn , the non-profit that's fighting the crazy, terrible, eminent-domain Ratner development of the Atlantic Yards (thanks to GalleyCat for the heads up). The Fort Greene Courier has more about the book, and about several readings with contributors happening in the next week or two to raise money and awareness. (Just for the record and because I'm even more steamed about it now, I tried hard to set up a reading at my bookstore for the anthology, but by the time the publicists at Penguin responded to my multiple queries, it was way too late to set a date.) Coincidentally, I'm currently working through another anthology that benefits a Brooklyn nonprofit. The Book ...

Friday Odds & Ends

I love that people send me articles about books, bookstores, book technology, and other stuff they know I might be interested in for the blog. My friend Steve sends me the best of the gazillion articles he reads about ebooks. The ALP sends me articles about comics . And sometimes my mom sends me articles about bookstores . Thanks, guys -- I read them all, though I don't always have time to talk about them. Speaking of time, if you've got any this Saturday and Sunday, check out the Indie & Small Press Book Fair at the New York Center for Independent Publishing . As the Times notes , the sessions include musicians as well as authors and publishers, and the conversations should be as wide-ranging as the books on offer. And speaking of a wide range of great books, check out the new project of the National Book Critics Circle: a monthly Best Recommended list , compiled from the favorites of lots of great authors and critics. It's sure to be an extremely well-curated...

Link-Mad Wednesday

On Friday I'll be gearing up for NAIBA Con this weekend, and I'll give you the rundown on my schedule and what there is to look forward too. (Amazingly, registration is still open, so if there's any way you can make it to Baltimore Sunday or Monday -- come, come, come!) In the meantime, here are some links that just won't wait. - Today was the first time I've ever seen a book-related blog first thing when I logged in to my Blogger account, and it makes perfect sense: it's Robert Warren's amazing PostSecret blog . The latest book, A Lifetime of Secrets , just came out, and there's a pretty well-done YouTube video about it (except for that tagline at the end -- a tad cheesy.) - Backlash is an inevitable result of prominence, I guess. Melvin Charles Bukiet has a Brooklyn-hating article in The American Scholar , in which he accuses J.S. Foer, Myla Goldberg, and Nicole Krauss, as well as Dave Eggers and Alice Sebold (who don't actually live in Broo...

Double-Duty Wednesday: Links & Bookstore Visits

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Link Madness (late edition) I guess I was overcome by Labor Day laziness and forgot to blog on Monday, so here are some late and rather eclectic links. * Author Alex Kuczynski has a somewhat smirky article in the NY Times about the contemporary book party , describing the "colossal blowouts" for books by Tina Brown, Holly Peterson, and Patricia Marx, as opposed to the warm-wine-and-skimpy-brie affairs of yesteryear. Her contention is that today's parties are hosted not by publishers, but by wealthy authors and friends of authors; hence the extravagance in hopes of garnering publicity. (Thanks to Ron at Galleycat for the link, and I'll second his notion that if it's media mentions you want, invite a blogger or two along with the glitterati!) I'm not sure I agree with Kuczynski; we've hosted some pretty swanky publisher-sponsored digs at the bookstore, and sold books offsite at several more, though there are still plenty of author-sponsored cheap wine ...

Wednesday Stuff: Book Talk

I've got books to review, too, but I'm behind on my links, so let's try to keep up! - In big book world/blog world news, the National Book Critics Circle led by John Freeman has launched a campaign to save the newspaper book section -- specifically, to keep the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from firing its book review editor and eliminating the section. The campaign has sparked interest everywhere, including this article in the New York Times positing that reviews may be moving from mainstream print media to blogs (and everyone's got an opinion on that one). The Times article mentions a bunch of my fellow Litblog Co-Op members -- major congrats, guys! I think many folks ultimately agree that newspaper book review sections and amateur literary blogs both are (or can be) vital parts of the nation's literary culture and conversation -- it's not an either/or thing. There's something to be said both for the professional editorial "filtered" atmosph...