Hot@Harper
Reading Group Books
From Shelf Awareness: Check out Green Apple Books's latest Book of the Month video. This hilarious "reenactment" from the San Franciscio store is for Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog, journals from the time the director made Fitzcarraldo in the Amazon.
So, yes, the Woodstock anniversary is over a month away, and no I wasn’t there, and as you know, it didn’t actually take place in Woodstock, BUT, nonetheless, here is a link to a wonderful Woodstock site with a books list PLUS some fun articles and posters from the day.
And yes, there are new books coming out, notably Taking Woodstock from Square One and The Road to Woodstock from us here at Ecco. (See more music musings at BoomerTop5.com.)
I picked up the amazing little Men of Letters & People of Substance at Odyssey Books in S. Hadley, MA as I know the author...and I was enraptured!! Roberto has used different fonts to create images of famous people, and more. It is magical, as is his earlier work with animals; check out Bembo's Zoo!
New play running in NY about a writers' colony. In fact, it's called Writers' Colony! Sounds funny!
I'll write more in a bit, but back from two 3-day swings through New England, one with an author and one for a writers' conference. Had lots of talks, food and wine with bookseller and author friends, and e-books and POD and all of it is the source of ongoing debate, which is a good thing. Again, more on this road trip, but as always, I am fascinated by the role of word-of-mouth in book sales, of course, but also in music. I got to Portland, picked up the local paper, and saw that Cracker was playing that night! I don't really know them but I'll see anyone in a small venue and support any music club. The highlight of the eve? A song they put unmarked on a cd years ago, and you could only know to look for it if a friend told you: Euro Trash Girl, a fantastic song. Here it is on youtube.
Have started a fun new blog, BoomerTop5. Going to compile over 250 eclectic top 5 lists and get feedback on what I missed!!
Many booksellers are blogging, which is great, but the visual is next. Get a Flip camera and record staff picks!! Someone in your stores can be THE next online expert in….pick the category! (Or checkout Vroman’s staff video or Green Apple’s fun videos!!)
I have a theory that people who have written or want to read a book actually read more than the average person. Whaddya think?
More than I ever wanted to know about my favorite book of all time! Dune.
Someone from SUNY Stony Brook disputes the history of the fairy tale. From Shelf Awareness: Once upon a time everyone believed that fairy tales were handed down through an oral tradition, but the Ruth B. Bottigheimer, a professor at Stony Brook University, disputes this idea.
"It has been said so often that the folk invented and disseminated fairy tales that this assumption has become an unquestioned proposition," Bottigheimer wrote in her new book, Fairy Tales: A New History. "It may therefore surprise readers that folk invention and transmission of fairy tales has no basis in verifiable fact. Literary analysis undermines it, literary history rejects it, social history repudiates it, and publishing history (whether of manuscripts or of books) contradicts it."
