Publishing Insider

coming soon...10 x 15 project!

I'm going to read the first 15 pages of my 10 favorite books of all time and see if they hold up!

pimp my book cart

Our friends at the Shelf make us smile every day. The latest:

Unshelved has wheeled in the winners of its annual Pimp My Bookcart contest, sponsored by Smith System. Among the top vote getters: a kind of Good Humor book cart, a barbecue book cart and the Low Rider book cart

Zinn special!

Do not miss Howard Zinn's TV documentary coming in December. With Matt Damon and others as the voices!! Harper and Seven Stories Press have the tie-in books.

French booksellers

Good guy Ed Nawotka has a piece about a Michelin-esque rating of French bookstores.

one of my heroes passes on

I was NUTS for Soupy Sales as a kid!!!!!!!!! I mean, he was Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Milton Berle wrapped in in one guy before I knew who those other guys were. I mean, subversive and funny as hell!!! I had the bowties, trading cards and Black Tooth and White Fang down to a t. Soupy, we miss you. Read the life story.

Miami nice

Nothing beats being there, but in lieu of that, here's some Miami Book Fair on Book Tv.

regl show future

Hope you saw my musings/rant in PW!

books make great gifts

This has been a theme I've worked on off and on for twenty years. Even had great ads done up for a nat'l campaign that never got funded. Still, some good news courtesy of "the Shelf":

Spirit of the season: a group of book bloggers has founded "buy books for the holidays," a nonprofit project whose name says it all. The group will post essays "about why and how to buy books for the people on your gift list, shopping suggestion lists, information about reading charities and spotlights of independent bookstores." Indies can sign up through the site.

Remembering a bookman

From Shelf Awareness today:

More on Robert Dike Blair, founder and longtime owner of the Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury, Vt., who died on Saturday. Steve Fischer, executive director of the New England Independent Booksellers Association, remembers:

Dike hired me at the Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, right out of college. I was hired to work down in the stock room while the regular guy worked through the holidays at a Christmas tree farm--making far more money than he would in a bookstore. Just as my stint was up, someone from the "shop floor" left and Dike asked me if I'd like to stay on. I leapt at the chance. I worked at the Middlebury store for almost two years and then ran the Waitsfield, Vt., branch for five.

The very first note of congratulations that I received upon being named the executive director of NEIBA was an e-mail from Dike. I felt like I'd come back home.

Dike was a gentleman of the first order and a great bookman.