Bookmobile in Birmingham

Posted by trav in Birmingham, Events      1 comment

Oct
30

The Parnasus on Wheels of the new millinium is making a stop in Birmingham today, Thursday, October 30th. The big Digital Bookmobile truck will be open from 10am-4pm at the downtown Central branch. The 18-wheeler will have demonstration stations and computers set-up to allow browsers the chance to learn about e-books, mobile books, digital audio books, etc.

None of these products are new to the internet crowd. But the part that’s really cool is that the event is designed to highlight and introduce many of our local library’s own digital download and media services. I plan on swinging by to see what’s new!

ED: Thanks to shadowhelm for catching my scheduling snafu. The Bookmobile is in town Thursday, October 30th. Sorry for the confusion.

Publisher Sending Free Books… only to Bloggers

Posted by trav in Book Talk, Media, Publishers      1 comment

Oct
29

Religious publisher Thomas Nelson has amassed a list of select titles and will send review copies to bloggerswho agree to post a 200-word review on their blog and and 200-word review on Amazon. The company’s CEO has been an active blogger and tweeter for some time. So he seems to really get the power of the medium and the tools that his marketing department can use.I know a lot of publishers are active in social media, but do you know of any other houses that have an official program like this in place? Obviously, they can’t fill every request, but it’s a neat idea. Kind of like LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program, but they just don’t have to go through LT. 

Book Review: The Whiskey Rebels

Posted by trav in Book Reviews      2 comments

Oct
28

If you like to read historical fiction, check out David Liss’ new one The Whiskey Rebels. I have posted my review over on LibraryThing.

ED: I forgot to mention that I was sent this book as part of LT’s Early Reviewers program. So there is a grain of salt to consider while reading my thoughts on the book.

Bookish Types who Twitter

Posted by trav in Book Talk, On the Web, Site News      4 comments

Oct
27

I discovered Twitter some time ago and have been hooked ever since. So I am maintaining a list of all the “bookish types” who, I follow, on Twitter. The list isn’t very organized, yet. But it’s brimming with publishers,book designers, book media folks, publicists, bookshops and peppered with an author here and there. If you know of anybody else, in the publishing/book world, that I should be following, please let me know. Also, please let me know of any other online rosters of this type. I haven’t found one, which is the impetus in developing my own.

I’ve had some great conversations online because of it and am looking for more. Some of the tweeters do a great job of using the medium. Others, like myself, are still a bit newbie and it shows. But we’re learning and following!

Judge A Book By It’s Cover

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Talk, On the Web      1 comment

Oct
22

Here’s a neat little time killer. JudgeBy.com displays cover images from Amazon and you have to guess what their 5-star rating is. I played for 20 covers and never got one right. I think it’d be more fun to play with just fiction covers or some sub-set, because once you get to a cover like

You really just can’t tell if all of the home schooling folks’ reviews were good or bad about this book. In reality, there isn’t much of a relation between “best-seller” and “good cover design”. You just have to look at the Best Sellers Lists in all the papers to see that, which is a shame. But this is a fun little time water built on the Amazon API though. Can you pick a best-seller simply by looking at the cover?

Library Lending Laptops

Posted by trav in Birmingham, News      No comments

Oct
22

I just saw over on the the Birmingham Central Library blog that you can now check out laptops while visiting that branch! How cool is that!? The only downside is that now there will be 20 more people crowding my favorite wi-fi spot!

It looks like that the other libraries in the system all have one laptop each to lend out, but Central has 20. You can click over to get all the details.

Book Review: Dream Lucky

Posted by trav in Book Reviews      No comments

Oct
21

Earlier this year, I was given a copy of Roxane Orgill’s Dream Lucky: When FDR was in the White House, Count Basie… and I finally got around to posting a short review over on LibraryThing. Maybe short isn’t the word… punchy… yeah, that’s what we’ll call it. Not short, but punchy.

Batman in Japan

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Design, Upcoming Titles      No comments

Oct
20

The Book Design Review Blog has a good post on Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga!, which features Batman as he’s been portrayed in Japan since the 60′s. The post also has videos as well as shots of the covers. I don’t speak Japanese, but I love the way that the characters in the Bat-symbol have the cowl points on them. Very cool stuff!

Only Hardcore Font Geeks Need Apply

Posted by trav in Type      2 comments

Oct
16

I ran across a new Flickr group the other day. It’s only nine members strong, but folks in the “My Favourite Letters” group are submitting as image of their favorite letter/font. Could be fun if more people start submitting.

DIY Author Expo

Posted by trav in Book Talk, On the Web      2 comments

Oct
15

Ann, over at Books on the Nightstand, has produced a post that capitalizes on what I think is one of the coolest ideas floating around right now… build your own virtual book conference. Basically, she came up with a theme (books she likes right now) and she put together a collection of online videos with the authors, readings and other notes. So now you can click your way through her conference, titled Pixelated, at your own pace.

I want to do this. This could be really fun and you could tie in all kinds of content from various social media. All I need is a theme and some free time… hmmmm.