“A few years ago, writing about the book business and how dumbed down and craven books had become—and pathetic, designed only to sell and then not selling—I wrote the line “books suck,†subjecting me to much middlebrow opprobrium.” So writes Michael Wolff in a recent […]
The New York Times recently ran this story on rare book collections that are more accessible than one might first think. I love touring libraries and rare book collections when I get the chance during a trip. Some of these locations are not far from […]
I just finished reading a wonderful “memoir” about the writer’s life. I say that in quotes because the book is not a typical memoir but rather a collection of essays written by the author and pubished as a column in The Times Supplement. The book […]
I have posted about this new technology before, but it seems like it is now ready for retail. The Espresso Insta-Book machine has made its debut in Boston. The machine is able to produce a copy of any book, on site, in a library quality […]
It may have taken more than four decades, but the world’s largest English language thesaurus has finally been completed. Work on The Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1965, and according to this story in the Times, the project has survived fire, funding […]
Isn’t it true that all book lovers want a wonderful library. Just for curiosity’s sake, I did a quick Google search to see who in fact might have the greatest personal library. One name immediately popped up: Jay Walker, founder of Walker Digital. His three-level, […]
I’ve got a new book on order, which should arrive next week. It’s called The Evolution of God, written by Robert Wright. Wright is an author who writes about science and culture whose books I’ve enjoyed very much: Nonzero and The Moral Animal in particular. […]
For those diehard readers who wonder if they can ever make the switch to e-readers, here’s one cool site that might make you think twice. It’s a collection of some wonderful book covers that have been created over the years (courtesy of Moby Lives). Some […]
I came across this story recently. Just last summer I had the chance to visit this man’s Harvard Square book stand. It seems that he has finally succumbed to the beuracracy who didn’t want him there.
At NPR, Dick Meyer weighs in on the ongoing demise of the newspaper book review section–responding to the news that the Washington Post will no longer publish its stand-alone Book World. Meyer calls the trend “a heavy symbolic blow to readers, writers and publishers. And […]