Reading for the Weekend

To go with your hot toddy, a few interesting articles and items of note.

• This was pointed out earlier today on Twitter by @sarahw, but take a look at the New York Times Paperback Bestsellers list. The number one book is a fifty year-old novel (and a good one, at that).
  

• I'm not sure how everyone felt about Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, but the text is here. It will be available at Vroman's, via the excellent Graywolf Press, on February 3.

• Tomorrow night at 7 p.m., the National Book Critics Circle will announce the finalists for its annual awards. They'll be live-blogging the event. I'll be guessing the winners in various categories again. I did okay last year. Or rather, I got the fiction one right.

• And finally, if ever there was a book cover that made me want to read a book, this is it (via You'll Eat it and You'll Like it):

Oh Man, These Are Good Links

Seriously, I don't know what's gotten into the internet today, but it's brimming with pleasure-inducing goodies. Here are a few:

• My friend Steve has alerted me to this informative review of The Secret on the world's most insidious retailer. Since there are a million comments already, I'm guessing you might have heard of this.
  

• The Book Cover Archive is a new website devoted to, yes, book covers. It's beautiful to look at. Do so now. (Via Kottke)

• Speaking of great cover design, I love the look of the new edition of Avery Anthology. Of course, I'm kind of biased, since this issue features a story by Vroman's Ed teacher and Millions blogger (and wife) Edan Lepucki.

• If there's a bookseller in the world not reading Ann Kingman's Booksellers Blog...what are you waiting for? It's indispensable, and right now, the blog I most look forward to reading each morning.
  

• Next time you get a book from the library, be sure to check for bacon.
  

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!

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).
  

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)

Friday Already?

This week seemed to fly by for me. Some bookish things happened. A brief breakdown follows:

• Michael Crichton passed away this week. He's remembered here and here.

• Tony Hillerman passed away last week. He was among my father's favorite authors. He's remembered here.
  

• Following in the grand tradition of Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac have a new book out.

• Not at all related to books but utterly, utterly cool. Via Kottke.org.

• My Twitter feed is finally paying dividends, as Sarah Rettger tipped me off to the utter insanity that is the cover of Stephen King's new book, Just After Sunset:
  

I feel like I'm spinning when I look at that cover. Not good. Have a good weekend everybody. I'll be spending my Sunday with Martha Stewart!

Cover Art: The Contest

Creativity Magazine & Penguin have launched a contest to find the next great book cover. They asked designers, photographers, and other artistic types to design a cover for Sam Taylor's new book The Island at the End of the World, about a near-future where much of the world is covered in water as the result of catastrophic flooding. The 25 finalists have been posted here. It's a pretty fascinating grouping, and it shows the many different directions that one concept can push people. There are covers that are quite literal (one has a tiny island atop big blue globe) while others make prominent use of text. There's one that - for whatever reason - reminds me of the paperback cover of Arthur Bradford's story collection Dogwalker.

My favorite is #17, which was designed by Matt Taylor.


He chose to go in a very different direction, and I enjoyed reading his explanation of how he got to this design. The cover seems to me to have the effect of funneling the browser's attention down to the title, providing a sense of chaos, energy, and movement, as well as suggesting the internal tensions of the book. Which is your favorite? (Via Galleycat, who always turns up great stuff.)

More Close-Up Covers

After yesterday's post, Nikki in the book department pointed out the new Lolita cover. It's lip-licious:

And then, of course, there's the cover of Stephenie Meyer's The Host, which is indeed an ECU (as they say in the biz), but it somehow lacks the sensual realism of the other covers:

Fiction Ready for Its (Extreme) Close-Up

Three covers makes a trend, right? This one is better than the women's legs and men's shoes trends that overwhelmed contemporary fiction five years ago. Let's just hope they don't start showing close-ups of men. Nobody needs that...because men are ugly.

Self-Help in Iran and at Vroman's

The Secret is a big hit in Iran, thanks to a growing "self-help" movement that's very popular with Iran's young and largely unemployed populace:

In other Middle East countries with similar demographics, like Egypt and Turkey, young people are increasingly turning back to their Muslim identity for solace. But Iran's mostly well-educated youth are more likely to seek other remedies -- such as self-help seminars, New Age theories, meditation and yoga.

Apropos of the "self-help" theme, I was looking at Po Bronson's book What Should I Do With My Life? when I noticed that it looked pretty much exactly like the cover of a certain edition of Lorrie Moore's collection of short stories, Self-Help. This particular edition of Moore's was published in 1995, while the Bronson's opus didn't appear until 2002, with the paperback pictured at left coming in 2003. Is this a case of the real self-help book imitating fiction or are both covers evoking an earlier, seminal self-help book? I did a bit of preliminary legwork, and I don't see a cover of either The Power of Positive Thinking, How to Win Friends and Influence People, or I'm OK, You're OK that looks remotely similar. What gives?

The crappy JPEGs really don't adequately show just how similar these two covers are. Anybody have any thoughts? Maybe I should send this to Lawrence Weschler as a convergence.