Matt Taylor won the Penguin cover design competition we mentioned last week, for Sam Taylor’s The Island at the End of the World. Congratulations to him! It is, no doubt, one of the cleanest and well executed designs submitted, with some very complex imagery…

It’s almost too much. The synopsis just seemed to call for a […]

The folks over at GOOD Magazine are spinning a little Radiohead retail. That is you pay them whatever you want for a year’s subscription (starting at a dollar). Think they have too many charts and the traditionally $20/yr. rate was too high? Pay $10. You keep up with paper and gas prices and realize these […]

They are calling it the inaugural  GreencupBooks Book, Zine, and Music Fair and it’s on the calendar for November 14 and 15. GreencupBooks and Bare Hands Gallery are neighbors over on 21st Ave South and they’re teaming up with the local literary zine phenom  The2ndHand to throw a two day bash celebrating “local and regional […]

I’ve tried dozens of notebooks. All shapes, sizes and prices… but I always come back to my simple pocket sized no-ruled Moleskines. I just haven’t found a better notebook that fits my needs. Which is why I entered this year’s 2008 Moleskinerie Fall Giveaway as fast as I could. It seems pretty painless, just send […]

Penguin has shared the top 25 designs (out of 300+ submissions) for Sam Taylor’s The Island at the End of the World. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I clicked through, but these are some GREAT designs.
Though I liked #6 & #7 (I’m a sucker for die cut), my favorite is […]

I’m dusting off my notebooks and “back to school” attitude and plan on soaking up all of the knowledge flowing around the Virginia Samford Theater, next weekend (Sept. 27-28).
That’s the site of the first annual Wordcamp Birmingham! It’s going to be a couple of days to talk all about Wordpress, the platform this site is […]

This political season, Amazon is tracking all of the “red books” and “blue books” sold. It’s been fun watching the trends as they move through the country, but I’m having a tough time making sense of any of it. Usually, all the traditionally more liberal states are buying the “blue books, while the more traditionally […]

Here’s this year’s list and I haven’t read any of them. Not sure why I feel guilty about that… I think it’s just that I’d enjoy this more if I had a horse to pull for in this race.
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger  (Atlantic)
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber)                        
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies (John Murray) […]

It’s only been around since January 2003, but the United Nations System has put a great amount of effort in building this annual observance. I might have to go over to the Alabama Literacy Council Used Book Shop to buy that Iain Pears book I should have bought Friday night during ArtWalk… you know, just […]

I haven’t tried it yet… but Penguin is now offering (what they call) ‘ebook tasters’. These are files are from upcoming or newly released books, in a digital download form. It seems they are only available in ePub format which means you’ll need an ereader or Adobe Digital Editions installed on your computer. I’m sure […]