It took me a long time to join the planner bandwagon, but dang am I fully on that horse now.  Watch the panic ensue, should I not be able to find my Moleskine. We have a few styles in stock this year, although the pickin’s are gettin’ slim.   Pocket Daily (a page per day) [...]

oMg! i tOtEs <3 mElViLlE.           As I do every New Year housecleaning, I spotted my double novella edition of Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno by Herman Melville. I’ve had this book since I was twelve. It’s been following me around like a homework assignment I didn’t do because it is a homework assignment [...]

Here’s Richard Howorth, owner of the utterly wonderful indie store Square Books, located in downtown Oxford, Mississippi (this top-tier bookshop and cultural bastion is worth a road trip to ole Miss, believe me; I spent a couple hours browsing there one afternoon in 1987 and I’ve never forgotten it). The quote is taken from an [...]

Richard Florida’s insightful 2008 book, Who’s Your City?, links economic and cultural innovations with city living. Not a first by any means, but well written and surely with the statistics to back it up. Although he doesn’t quite challenge Thomas Friedman’s assertion that ‘The World Is Flat,’ Florida argues that in a globalized world of [...]

Tags: America, Florida, Maps, MLK

  We’re getting an ice sculpture of a pop-up book.  Should be super cool.  And since it’s going to be 41 freaking degrees tomorrow (awesome, yes, but still–it is the Ice Carnival) you’ll have to get here early to see it before it melts.  I hate that.

Note: I have not read either of the two books discussed below, but I believe (almost singularly) in osmosis. I am basing my opinion on a small and probably statistically insignificant number of books purchased, all apologies, high school math!   Asking a question like ‘Why do some books sell while others don’t?’ is like asking why [...]

Tags: Foer, Lethem, McSweeney's, prolongued adolescence, Smith

Today I’ve been asked: A., Do you carry napkins? And, B., Do you sell books there? Note to self: Have a cold frosty beer when you get home.

Many, many thanks to the good people of Graywolf Press for reissuing The Delicacy and Strength of Lace, a slim volume of letters between two great American writers: Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright. Silko and Wright met only twice (the second time at Wright’s deathbed), but they carried on a brief — 1978 to [...]