Huh?

About a week ago, the New York Times posted an article about how e-books are catching on (finally), and cited Amazon's undisclosed Kindle sales stats to support its argument. I'll likely have more to say on e-books as the year progresses, but I couldn't help but point out this incredible letter to the editor that the Times received in response to the article:

Print book lovers are not the only ones who are turning to e-books. People like me who couldn’t find time to read books for leisure are rediscovering the pleasure of reading because of the convenience of pocket-sized electronic devices that make it easy to download a variety of books, access them instantly anywhere and any time, and replace idle time with enriching, enjoyable reading time.

Dorlene Kaplan
New York, Dec. 24, 2008

Let me see if I get this straight: Dorlene wasn't reading because she didn't have the time. Thanks to e-books, now she has time. Why? Do the books read themselves? I'm led to conclude that purchasing the books - in person or online - was what took too much time. These are the sort of people who would be in favor of a "meal pill" replacing lunch. Still, her letter to the editor doesn't come close to topping this one, the Heavyweight Champion of Crazy Letters to the Editor for 2008.

Odds and Ends

Regular blogging will commence next week, including a full recap of my year in books, but for now, I found a few cool things to point out to everyone:

• David Stretfield in the New York Times on how bargain-hunting readers (particularly the online variety) are killing publishing and bookselling. I would extend this argument further and say that the entire discount culture we've settled is the root of the problem. Whatever happened to a fair price for a fair day's work? (Did that sound terribly crotchety and old-fashioned? That's how I am before my afternoon coffee. I apologize.)

• I'm a week late, but The Elegant Variation ran a terrific week of coverage on 2666, of which I'll have something to say next week (130 pages left!).

• Dana Stevens, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, has her top ten films of 2008 on Slate.

• At Kottke.org, the year in cities, 2008 (That's every city Mr. Kottke spent at least one night in in 2008). Mine would look something like this: Los Angeles, CA, Oakland, CA, Oberlin, OH, Waltham, MA, Phoenix, AZ, Kauai, HI...Hmm, I need to get out more. Next year, Rome, London, Baltimore, etc.
  

News and Notes

The store is packed with bargain hunters getting next year's Christmas and Hanukkah goods, and I'm in the office, contemplating when it's acceptable to start drinking afternoon coffee. Like for instance, do I have to wait until the afternoon? It's cold here, and that's fueling my desire for something warm. Here are some things to discuss while I brew a pot:

• Harold Pinter, playwright, anti-Iraq war activist, and Nobel laureate, has passed away.

• Eartha Kitt, signer, actress, and author, has passed away. In addition to playing Catwoman on the 1960s TV series "Batman," Kitt held the strangest book signing I've ever seen. It involved little people, a limousine, and a lot of alcohol. Publicists, sales reps, booksellers, and readers still talk about it to this day.

• All about Benjamin Button.

• Amanda Fortini at Slate.com on the new book Smogtown, a history of LA's pollution problem. We're hosting the authors of this book on Saturday, January 10.
  

Merry Christmas, Everybody

No gift ideas today. If you haven't finished shopping, well, we're open till 6:30. For the rest of you, some audio/video entertainment:



"The boys of the NYPD choir were singing 'Galway Bay,' and the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day."

Happy holidays, everyone!

Rep Picks: Laura Webb

Laura Webb is our Simon & Schuster rep. Here are her holiday picks this season:

Just After Sunset
by Stephen King
Price: $28.00
I’ve long been a fan of Stephen. I haven’t long been a fan of short stories. I like getting drawn in to a story, feel a bond with the characters and then get the daylight scared out of me! But with Stephen, it doesn’t matter if I’m reading his article in Entertainment Weekly, a major opus or his short stories, I always walk away satisfied. Just After Sunset is a fantastic collection that displays King’s phenomenally broad readership (stories published in the New Yorker, Playboy and McSweeney’s and including the 25,000 word story “Gingerbread Girl” published in Esquire)—the first collection since King guest edited the bestselling Best American Short Stories 2007.

Team of Rivals
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Price: $21.00
Team of Rivals is an oldie, but it is current enough to be carried by President Elect Barack Obama. I love Doris’ ability to make you feel like you are in the room, listening to history being made. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires. It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

Bakewise
by Shirley O. Corriher
Price: $40.00
I am not one to make you leave without dessert. If you have ever seen Shirley school Alton Brown on the why, wherefores and how tos of Baking on TV Food network, then you know she is a charmer. This book will answer all your, “but I followed the directions!” questions and offer up a tasty new bunch of recipes to test your new found skills on.

Rep's Picks: Tom Benton

Tom Benton is our Penguin sales rep. He might be the only person in America who likes David Benioff's City of Thieves more than we do (except maybe Amanda Peet). He recommends the following books:

City of Thieves
By David Benioff
Price: $24.95
If you haven’t read it already, you must read this. It is that rare novel that I can recommend to any reader and my favorite of the year. You won’t be disappointed.

The Little Book
By Selden Edwards
Price: $25.95
It is time travel to turn-of-the-century Vienna, yes, but you just have to love a good story (and a little history) to be seduced by this novel’s considerable charm.

Pictures at a Revolution
By Mark Harris
Price: $27.95
Through his examination of the five Best Picture nominees of 1967, we get a thoroughly engrossing film and cultural history of this defining moment in America. Indispensable for the film buff.

Publisher's Rep Picks: Nicole White

Nicole is our Penguin Young Readers Group Rep. She also helps out in our children's department for the holidays. Here are some of her picks for great kid's titles this year:


Brava, Strega Nona
by Tomie dePaola, paper engineered by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart
Ages 4+
$29.99
Strega Nona has been loved by generations of readers, but they’ve never seen her like this! In pop-up magnificence, she shares her wisdom for all ages.

Pete and Pickles
by Berkeley Breathed
Ages 4+
$17.99
Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed offers two new irresistible characters and a heartfelt, hilarious look at the rarity of true friendship.

Paper Towns
by John Green
Ages 14+
$17.99
Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers.

Today's Gift Idea: Well, Just Watch the Video Already

(Or go to our YouTube page to watch the video in high quality, as its director intended before those studio hacks got a hold of it and compromises were made.) And then click here to buy the stuff in the video. That's synergy in action!

Gift Idea: Pairing a Book with Some, um, Non-Book Merchandise

And by non-book merchandise, I mean liquor. Cognac, to be specific. Last New Year's my wife and I made Sidecars (cognac, cointreau, lemon juice and sugar...yum), and I really liked them. I also liked having a glass of the leftover cognac after a big meal. The trouble is I only had wine glasses from which to drink it. I don't typically have a bottle of cognac in the house, so it seemed silly to buy a snifter for something I enjoy relatively rarely.

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to get one as a gift. This one looks good, and best of all, it can be bought at local independent store The Barkeeper (located down the street from the Cheese Store of Silverlake). But a glass on its own doesn't a great gift make (unless its a wedding gift). So this is where the fun part comes in. Maybe you buy a bottle of cognac to go with the glass. That might get pricey, so a fun alternative would be a book. Maybe a guide to liquor and spirits like The Complete Book of Spirits, by Anthony Dias Blue, or a mixed drink guide, like The Joy of Mixology. Or you could go in another direction, and pick up Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking. The man knew from drinking.

Publisher's Rep Picks: Wade Lucas, Random House

Wade Lucas is our local Random House sales rep. Everybody at the store eagerly awaits his visits, as he always has a great tip on what to read next. Here are a few books he's recommending this holiday season:

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
This is the perfect book to curl up with over the holidays. All the charm and wit of a Jane Austen or Alexander McCall Smith tale set during the Nazi occupation of the Isle of Guernsey.

Annie Leibovitz At Work
by Annie Leibovitz
A picture perfect gift idea! 90 of the esteemed photographer’s most famous photographs, including her own explanation on setting up the shot, her inspiration and technical information. This is so different from her other books and a wonderful addition to any book collection.

With Strings Attached: The Art & Beauty of Vintage Guitars
by Jonathan Kellerman
Our very own bestselling mystery author and LA resident Jonathan Kellerman owns one of the world’s most exclusive guitar collections. In this lushly photographed coffee table Kellerman describes the history and stories of each guitar. Not just for music lovers, this makes a perfect gift.

Thanks, Wade. Tomorrow we'll feature some selections from Nicole White, our rep from Penguin Young Readers Group.

Great Gift Ideas: Relatively Hard to Find Books

I've blogged about Kate Christensen and Sam Lipsyte several times before, and as such, you may already know that I've been wanting some of their earlier work for a long time. Christensen's In the Drink and Jeremy Thrane and Lipsyte's Venus Drive are perfect examples of Relatively Hard to Find Books. Most bookstores don't carry all of every author's backlist, so consequently, it's the earlier titles that get the short shrift. To be clear, I'm not talking about rare books here. I don't think any of these titles is even technically out of print, they're just surprisingly hard to find in mainstream bookstores. I haven't seen either in years, I'm always looking.

Now, you might be thinking, "But if you love these authors so much, why not just hunt them down online?" My answer to this is actually pretty simple: I'm not that kind of person. It's not that I don't buy things online (I've bought several gifts over the web this year, always from independent businesses, of course), but rather that I'm not much of a sleuth. To find them on Alibris or Powells and have them shipped to you the next day just seems like cheating. I want to stumble upon these titles in some out of the way bookshop, the sort of place that carries all the books that I love. (I should probably just special order them, but what can I say, I'm lazy.)

Or I'd like to receive them as a gift. To open a gift expecting, I don't know, the latest John Le Carre book (which I'd like to read, incidentally) and discover something for which you've been searching is a thrilling feeling. It gets at the heart of what giving a great gift is all about -- knowing the person you're giving it to.

Gift Idea: An Unexpected Book

Surprise me! Is there anything better than getting a book you never knew you wanted, something, maybe that you've never even heard of? Or maybe just a book that you'd always meant to read but never got around to, something that was on your to-read list, taking up room at the bottom of the list like that fan you brought with you to college and never used. So this year, get me something I never could've guessed was coming.

Suffering from a Case of Shadenfoer?

I like to have some links right before lunch, how about you?

• The Guardian book blog has spotted the cresting wave of Shadenfoer, the envy and subsequent hatred of Jonathan Safran Foer. Gawker is also on board with the trend. I wrote about it a few months ago. Vroman's Bookstore: trendsetter.

• Via Boing Boing, the LA Times recommends 50 great homemade gifts. As much as we love the idea of a homemade gift, we politely ask you to consider giving a book as a gift this year. Adding something handmade would be a nice touch, though.

• Via Kottke, comes this really cool book cover contest: create a fake book cover using an image from Life Magazine's photo archive.

• Here's an idea I can get behind: Michael Pollan for a new cabinet position, Secretary of Food. (Spur of the moment gift idea: Change somebody's life by getting them The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Urban Homestead.)

More amazing gift ideas tomorrow!

Caramels You'll Taste in Your Sleep

Today's gift I'd like to receive are Sea Salt Caramels from the Little Flower Candy Company. I've had these babies before and let me tell you, they are delicious. I've had dreams about these candies. Normally, I'm a chocolate guy (ideally dark chocolate, even more ideally dark chocolate over caramel) but these caramels are enough to convert even the most ardent chocoholic (which is, of course, one who is addicted to chocohol). In short, they're the sort of caramels that make you say, "Lawdhepmejesus!"

The Little Flower Candy Company is a local candy shop located just down Colorado Blvd from us in nearby Eagle Rock. They make all sorts of otherworldly confections, and they've got a cute little sandwich shop as a storefront. It's a great spot to stop in for a nice lunch, just be prepared to leave with a bag of sweets, too. You can also find them around town, including at one of my favorite spots, The Cheese Store of Silverlake.

(By the way, I say "car-mel." You say "care-a-mel"? Heretic!)

It's Coming on Non-Denominational Winter Holiday, They're Cuttin' Down Trees

It's December 10, which means that I'm now allowing myself to admit that it's the holiday season (I try to wait until we're double-digits into December before diving in with both feet. Otherwise I get burned out on Phil Spector Christmas tunes). Rather than get into the gift giving spirit (others have done that better than I), I thought I'd get into the gift receiving spirit. because whoever said "t'is better to give than to receive" never got a gift from my mother-in-law. Seriously, she throws down for the holidays.

Every couple of days I'll highlight a gift that I would like to receive. Some of these gifts will be things you could get at your local independent bookstore (especially an incredible independent bookstore that recently redesigned its website and carries all kinds of cool products and not just books), and some will be things that you would have to go elsewhere to find. I suppose if you're shopping for someone like me then you could use these posts as a gift giving guide.

Today's gift is actually a gift I've already received (and given). It's the 5-Year Diary, designed by Tamara Shopsin and published by The Icehouse. My wife got me one of these recently, and I love it! Not only is it total design porn - with its cloth cover and its smoothe, creamy pages - but it's one of the most useful gifts I've received in recent years.


The concept is simple: on each page of the diary is a date - December 10, for example - and then five spaces to write something. Each space has 20__ written next to it. Enter the year, then write down what you did that day. You can be as creative as you like, but you've got to be brief, as the space on the page is limited. This is a good thing. Brevity is making a big comeback thanks to Twitter, and the 5-Year Diary fits perfectly into that meme. At the end of the five years, you can look back at what you did each day. The diary also includes a book log so you can track what you read over that time, as well as a map to mark the places you've been.


But it doesn't have to stop there. You could get a second diary and write down what you ate at each meal that day. Imagine an exact record of what you ate for five years. That has to be worth something, right? The possibilities are limitless. This gift has forced me to keep a journal (of sorts) something I've never had the discipline to do with any regularity. Who knows, maybe I'll even make a blog out of mine when it's finished, although that's already been done quite well here.

(Christmas tree photo from this site.)

Facebook Meets Jane Austen

Austenbook. (via Anne)

New Moon Rises without Twilight Director

Like that headline? It's kind of newspaper-ish, right? Or is it just Variety-esque? Either way, I found this account of why Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was not asked back to direct the sequel, New Moon. Among the more interesting tidbits was the challenge of having a series carried by a perpetually teenage cast, which I hadn't really considered before:

Unlike with "Harry Potter," whose characters aged with each book, the characters in the "Twilight" series remain young forever, so if the studio is going to rely on its newly minted stars, Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson, to carry the entire series, it has to move full speed ahead. Summit has options on its lead actors, but since they are now in demand for other films, if Summit doesn't press ahead quickly, it could lose them for months on end to other productions.

An Assortment of Greatness

My head feels as if it's suspended in a jar of jelly, so you'll forgive me if I don't have something meatier to offer this fair morning afternoon. In lieu of substance, I offer a few things that have gotten me through the day so far.

• Daily Routines catalogs the daily habits of "writers, artists, and other intersting people." How else would I know how Emily Post wrote Etiquette:

  "Post worked on “Etiquette” for nearly two years. Claridge describes her daily routine as follows: she woke at 6:30 A.M., ate breakfast in bed, and began to write. Midmorning, she took a break to give instructions to the household help; then, still in bed, she continued to write until noon." (via Jacket Copy & Kottke)
  

• Avery is running a series of gift ideas for bookish types like me. I especially liked this list of books for someone who likes to watch sports on television. I remember when I used to watch sports on TV...I would add Moneyball and The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis to that list, as well as The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, which is the best book ever written about sports, and so much more than "a stat book."

• Fellow Bill James fan Julie Klam is going to blog about her favorite people of 2008. I'm guessing Obama might be on the list, but who knows? Stay tuned.

• Speaking of Obama, The 10 Worst Predictions of 2008:

  “If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she’s going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her, then. … Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.” —William Kristol, Fox News Sunday (Of course, this prediction was made in 2006, so...) (via The Morning News)

• I got a kick out of this NY Times article about contentious book clubs, although this is a touch snide, even for me: "It was bad enough that they wanted to read 'Da Vinci Code' in the first place," Ms. Bowie said, "but then they wanted to talk about it.

Take Note

It's Friday morning, and I've just had a large coffee and a bagel/egg/sausage/cheese breakfast sandwich, so of course I have some things to tell you:

• The Inside Flap, the terrific blog of the venerable Milwaukee indie Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, has started this series of video shelf talkers. I love this idea, as it gives you a feel for what it's like to be in their store, meeting their staff. More indie bookstores should be doing more stuff like this (which basically means I should be doing more stuff like that).

• Michael Ruhlman posts today about Eric Ripert's new book On the Line. He also recommends Ripert's website aveceric. Funny thing is, we've got an event Monday afternoon: Lunch with Chef Eric Ripert (You've got about half an hour to sign up if you want to go).
  

• While further exploring tumblr, I came upon 52Books: A year long reading project. A simple concept, beautifully executed. Too bad I'm finding it at the tail end of the year.
  

• This has absolutely nothing to do with books (at least, not that I can tell) but it does have to do with greatness, and as such, I think everyone should read Unremitting Failure as soon as they have the time. On Sammy Hagar:

  People Talk a Lot About the Greatness of Sammy Hagar
  
  But seriously, of what does this much-vaunted greatness consist?
  
  One thing: Sammy can't drive 55.
  
  To which we say, so what? The speed limit has been upped to 65 mph in most places anyway. In fact, 32 states have raised speed limits to 70 mph or higher on some portion of their roadway systems. As a result, Mr. Hagar is no longer obligated to do that which he simply cannot do, mainly abide by a speed limit which everybody ignored right along with him in the first place.

• There goes the rest of the day: 50 years of Pelican paperback covers at Things Magazine. (Via the invaluable The Morning News.)
  

Links at the End of the Day

A few bits and pieces from the engine we call the Internet:

• Edan Lepucki at The Millions on what a novel needs.

• Speaking of The Millions, The Year in Reading series has begun, with posts from notables Nam Le, Benjamin Kunkel, Rosecrans Baldwin, Amanda Petrusich and Hamilton Leithauser writing about they enjoyed reading this year. What I love about The Year in Reading is that it isn't The Year in Publishing. It's timely, but it's also immune to trends. It's just what they liked, regardless of when it was published. By far, the best year end series on the web.

• Anne Truby, at Good on why publishers should "think artistically when packaging novels."

• Via The Morning News comes this list at the Village Voice of authors' favorite obscure books. Good stuff.

• Some of you may have already stumbled onto this on your own. If not: the Vroman's tumblr blog. Just because. Oh, and we changed our outfit over at the main site. We're web 2.0 compatible now, so feel free to login and comment. And free shipping in December (Continental US orders only).
  

The NY Times 10 Best Books of 2008

The New York Times has published its list of the 10 Best Books of 2008:

Fiction

• Dangerous Laughter, by Stephen Millhauser
• A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
• Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill
• 2666, by Roberto Bolano
• Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

Non-fiction

• The Dark Side, by Jane Meyer
• The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins
• Nothing to be Frightened Of, by Julian Barnes
• This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust
• The World Is What It Is, by Patrick French

There really aren't any huge surprises on these lists. I'm a little surprised that Millhauser's book made it ahead of Marilynne Robinson's Home, but otherwise, it's very much what I expected. The only real news is that Knopf/Doubleday has 9 of the 10 books on the list. A victory on an otherwise bloody day.

So, what did they miss?

Notable Children's Books

The New York Times has released its list of notable children's titles for the year. There are eight of them. Eight. Can't they do better than that?

Anyway, among the honored are:

• Little Brother, by Cory Doctrow of Boing Boing fame
• The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. This is an absolute favorite of the Vroman's staff at the moment.
• ABC3D, by Marion Bataille. Visually inventive and stylish enough for anybody to enjoy. We wrote about this book in our holiday catalog.

I still wonder at the use of the word "notable" in these lists. After all, weren't Breaking Dawn and Brisingr "notable" books for young readers this year? I think the bookselling and publishing industries would argue they were. Also, the Times needs to get with the, er, times, and start splitting this list into children's and YA. Just a suggestion.

The Big Book

James Gleik in the New York Times on November 29:

As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. Likewise, the bicycle is alive and well. It was invented in a world without automobiles, and for speed and range it was quickly surpassed by motorcycles and all kinds of powered scooters. But there is nothing quaint about bicycles. They outsell cars.

This is what I've always said, and my morning commute just reaffirmed my beliefs. I'm reading Bolano's 2666 right now, and yes, it's completing amazing. I haven't been this sucked into a book in a long time. But what I was thinking about today was how corporeal the experience of reading it is, how physical. Here's this book, this big, badass sprawling novel that took years to write. It should weigh something. It should remind you, physically, that it's there. To be blunt, it ought to be a pain in the ass to carry around.

Marc Jacobs once said that Louis Vuitton wasn't about subtlety, it was about being a little bit of a showoff. Let's face it, lugging around 2666 is kind of the same way. It's a big flag that says, "Yeah, I'm reading this." Across the aisle from me was a woman reading something on her Kindle. She might have been reading 2666, too, but for all I know, it was a romance novel. The point is, I didn't know. And where's the fun in that? It did make for an interesting picture of the current reading climate. There we were, commuting, reading, each in our own way. There was room for both of us in the train and for both of our "books" in the market.

Was this woman the trailblazer while I was the troglodyte? Possibly, except that as I looked around the train, I spotted a lot of people reading. More to the point, they were all reading big, thick novels. What were they all reading? Twilight, Eclipse, New Moon, and Breaking Dawn. Is it a coincidence that the bestselling books, the hottest books are these huge, weighty tomes? Probably, but let's, just for a second, imagine that these books represent a statement about the importance of physicality, the vitality of the printed word and the value of paper.

Price vs. Cost

I found this letter from the owner of Village Books to a customer inquiring why books cost more at an independent bookstore than at Amazon to be well-reasoned and to the point. For further reading on issues of cost and value, I will point you to this lengthy compound review I wrote of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Dana Thomas' Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster on The Millions.

(Thanks to Sarah for making me aware of this letter.)

Best Book Covers of 2008

The Book Design Review has posted it's list of the best book covers of 2008. Nothing by our man Michael Fusco made the list, but there are some very nice covers, including, I think, the wittiest cover of 2008:

What are your favorite covers of the year? Comment below.

(Incidentally, Michael Fusco has launched a new e-commerce site called M+E, where he sells exquisite prints of posters he's made, including some he's done for the band Magnetic Fields. They make great holiday gifts.)

(via kottke.org)