The Written Nerd

Hooray for finishing projects and holiday weekends! I spent the weekend in Great Gatsby mode, drinking on the porch and the beach and the lawn with smart lovely people at a house party in Connecticut, and got to pass along two of my favorite light/smart reads of late, TOLSTOY LIED and ACTION PHILOSOPHERS , the first compilation of the comic book about yeah, famous philosophers kicking butt. I haven't been doing as much blog reading as usual of late, so the links today will be few, but there are a few major happenings to report. Aubrey's Episode Soldier is exceeding expectations, with thoughtful and well-written posts on life in Moab and love of books. Her Summer Reading Series and Wednesday Poetry posts both look very promising, and I loved her love-note to my own favorite poet Elizabeth Bishop. Speaking of bookseller blogs, I came across this great list on a blog called Using Books. It looks like Jeff Sharman, the owner, hasn't posted here in a while, but his list is an ex...

You know that project that's been taking me away from the blog occasionally? Well, it's got a drop-dead due date this week, and I'm going to have to devote every spare minute to getting it done. That means it's a week without The Written Nerd. I promise I'll be back next Monday, and I'll have lots more time to devote to all things in the book world. This seems to be a vacation week for a lot of folks anyway, so let's meet up again on July 3. In the meantime, I'd love to have everyeone comment the heck out of the Emerging Leaders Night Out posts -- we're going to have to make some decisions about what the value of this project is, where it's going, who it should involve, and what it has the potential to do, and the more input the better. One specific question: what if a publishing house were to sponsor the next ELNO? Would that compromise the spirit of the thing, or would it be a good way to collaborate? What stipulations would keep this a communi...

Just wanted to point you all to Karen Schechner's brief but wide-ranging article in Bookselling This Week, "Project Brings Emerging Leaders Together In Venues Across The Country." She covers our Tuesday ELNO, as well as outlining the origins of the Emerging Leaders Project and mentioning existent and developing local manifestations of Emerging Leaders Projects across the country. If you work in a bookstore that has an American Booksellers Association membership and password, you can even log in to the Bookweb forum and discuss the article with other booksellers. And this week's issue has other cool articles about Independents Week, children's bookselling, the Quill Awards, and the new president of ABA. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Here are some more photos from Tuesday night which I've finally figured out how to post. Scroll down to the next post for a write up of Tuesday's Emerging Leaders Night Out (which is kindly linked today by Shelf Awareness). First, my fetching McNally Robinson coworker Allison, with her partner Todd, mystery writer and mastermind behind Thuglit : Here's an illustrious crown of book folks: from left to right, sales rep Sean of Parson Weems, editor John of Shelf Awareness, bookseller Amanda of Good Yarns Bookstore, and sales rep Ben from Farrar, Straus, Giroux. And finally, the ALF gets the chance to mug with the most punk rock man in publishing, Johnny Temple of Brooklyn's own Akashic Books: I wish I had thought to take more pictures, but I was having too much fun. Next time, perhaps? In the meantime, make your thoughts on the event heard in the comments section of my previous post. Thanks again to everyone who made it -- it was great to see ya!

I'll admit I was a little nervous yesterday about the long-awaited Emerging Leaders Night Out, as I always am before a party. Then I thought "Who am I kidding? All we have to do is turn up and drink beer! If people are there and beer is drunk, we will have a success." And so we did. I'm no Gawker, so forgive my shoddy photography skills and believe me that we had a great turnout and a good time was had by all. Not everyone who sent me an RSVP managed to make it out -- it was Tuesday night, it's New York, and life interferes. The upside was that in the crowd of about 25, everyone got a chance to meet everyone. The Brazen Head , our chosen location as a Brooklyn landmark and great beer bar, came through with some drink bracelets that gave everyone in our party happy hour prices all evening long. (I got to pass out bracelets, and felt like those posh girls at the entrances of clubs... except having more fun.) The only downside to the cheap drinks was that everyone ha...

As in, "no time to say hello, goodbye..." so this will be a short one. Actually, it's also the name of the first independent bookstore I ever fell in love with: a children's bookstore in San Diego, California where Stephen Kellogg signed my copy of his latest Pinkerton book and drew a little picture. Sadly, I've been told that the White Rabbit Children's Bookstore is no more, but there are a lot more great children's stores out there carrying the banner. Check out the website of the Association of Booksellers for Children for some of the best, and a glimpse at what's happening in children's bookselling. - Bookstore of the week: Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City, OK -- thanks to "quiche" for the link. (I really am going to add all of these bookstores to my links list -- I just have to find a free hour to do the HTML cutting and pasting...) -- Paul Constant of Seattle online newspaper The Stranger had a rough time at BEA -- sounds lik...

Seems like it's been ages since the last book review around here, huh? (Though it doesn't much affect my ad-less site, there's another debate raging in blogland about blogger book reviews and commercial ethics; click here for the opening volley and some of the responses. Thanks to Max at the Millions for the link) My reading time lately has been taken up with several books I've been assigned for review, as well as some guilty pleasures in between. First, the work reading (which won't be out for several months). Review #24 ALL FOR LOVE by Dan Jacobson (Metropolitan/Holt, September 2006) It's a true story: in the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, a princess fell in love with a lower-class cavalry officer, defied her husband and her family and ran away with him. When the forces of the status quo caught up with them, he was thrown into prison and she into an insane asylum, until he won his release and staged a daring breakout of the asylum. Then they fl...