All posts by trav

At the heart of it all, I’m a fan. A fan of books and bookstores. A fan of fiction and non-fiction. A fan of authors and publishers. And most of all I’m a fan of great conversations sparked by books. All that to say - I really need more bookshelves.
Authors, Book Column, Book Reviews, Book Talk

By The Book – Book Review

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Title: By The Book
Author: Pamela Paul
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co., 2014
Where I heard about this book: I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

This is such a fun read. If you enjoy books or if you enjoy authors or if you enjoy writing or any combination of those then I think you’ll think the same.

ByTheBook

By The Book features un-edited Q&A sessions with 65 very well-known writers. It’s as if you get to flit about during the epic dinner party of ALL epic dinner parties and eavesdrop on conversations. Names like Grisham, Tyson, Tartt, Chabon, Gaiman and Rowling is just as sampling of who is on the invite list.

The book is a collection of Pamela Paul’s column for The New York Times Book Review of the same title – By The Book. Throughout the pages and sidebars we learn which books inspired these authors, which writers they can’t stand and which books they think are overrated.

This is a book that every book lover will enjoy. Each profile is only 2-3 pages. So it’s great for snacking on when you have a few minutes. Each bite is full of insights into what makes these high profile wordsmiths tick and what pushes them to put pen to paper. If there were ever a book to leave on the nightstand in the guest room, this is it. It’s so much fun.

I’m recommending this book to all my friends who enjoy reading and books. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Book Column, Gifts for Book Lovers

Typographic Wallpaper

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This week’s Gifts for Book Lovers is all about the words on the wall. Check out these new typographic wallpaper from the fancy folks at Wall & Deco.

This first one is called Wordless.

TypographicWallpaper_Wordless

It’s sort of a washed out bled through bad-photocopy-paper effect and I like it. It’s just enough that the wallpaper says “book” but your guests won’t spend all evening looking over your shoulder reading. It looks like a bad Google Books scan or something.

But if you’re more of a bold font sort of person, check out this typographic wallpaper called Bronzo.

TypographicWallpaper_Bronzo

It has that old world metal letter vintage signage vibe. The colors would pop too. You’d need the right room for this though.

This last one is called Covers and is the most subtle of the bunch.

TypographicWallpaper_Covers

It’s not really a typographic wallpaper, but hey, it’s stacked books! This one would work in just about any room I would think though it’s kind of hard to tell what that linen pattern is doing.

I couldn’t find any pricing for these wallpapers, but I’m sure if you created a Wall & Deco account or shot them an email they’d be happy to chat with you. These wallpapers would be a great gift for any book lover’s home.

Which one is your favorite?

Book Column, Bookstores, News, Publishing Industry News

Barnes & Noble Stocking Fewer Books

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Barnes & Noble released some details recently showing that revenues are down almost 5% and so on. The overall decline in sales and profits has been the lede of this news so far.

But one point that jumps out at me is worth mentioning (and lamenting). And that is the fact that Barnes & Noble bookstores are carrying fewer and fewer books every year.

Publishing industry thinker-doer-sage Thad McIlory surfaced the following nugget over on his site:

“In its latest report the company states that “each Barnes & Noble store features an authoritative selection of books, ranging from 22,000 to 164,000 titles.” The number ranged from “60,000 to 200,000 titles” in 2004. The long tail at Barnes & Noble is now 18% shorter.”

I feel frustrated every time I walk into a Barnes & Noble these days and have to navigate around the monolithic Nook base up front and then travel around all of the board games, toy figures and bobble-head dolls to get to… the fiction section. It’s that way in both the B&N shops here in town.

Lots of people go to stores with a specific title in mind to buy, but how many bump into books while there? How many folks browse and stumble into a good book and buy it? This happens. I know this happens. It happens to me. But when you keep fewer and fewer books on the shelves it is going to happen less and less.

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I can only assume that on some spreadsheet somewhere it shows that the margin on toy figures is better than books. Which I’m sure it is. So the owner of that spreadsheet decrees that in the interest of chasing profits (which they do indeed need to do as B&N is hurting) they swap out books for non-book merchandise. Which probably gooses the bottom line a little.

But over time bookish folks don’t get all that excited about visiting a B&N anymore. Another two seasons like the past two and it’s going to look like the toy and magazine/book racks at Target or Wal-Mart. So folks start directing book buying elsewhere and it starts to feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I know the book industry is crazy right now and margins on books have always been razor-thin, but the more Barnes & Noble goes down this path it really feels like it’s doing more damage than good.

Am I off in my thinking? Anyone else see it differently?

Book Clubs, Book Column, Book Talk

Zuckerberg Goes Sci-Fi

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Mark Zuckerberg has tapped a science fiction book as his next Facebook book club pick. According to a post on Facebbook, Iain M. Banks’ sci-fi novel The Player of Games will be at the center of the group’s next discussion. Zuckerberg has been choosing a new book every two weeks since the beginning of the year.

PlayerofGames_facebook

This one is a little bit of a departure for the A Year of Books list as it’s not a straight up business/community improvement/social science book. The selections started with Moisés Naím’s The End of Power and Harai’s Sapiens was the latest and 12th pick (which the book discussion on Facebook looked pretty interesting).

But The Player of Games seems fitting all the same.

PlayerofGamesThis book is Book Two in Banks’ ten-book “The Culture” series which technology (thanks to aliens) is accelerated with the help of creative folks to ideally serve mankind way off in year 2083. I have not read this series yet, but am certainly familiar with them, as it was started in the late 1980’s. But from the conversations I’ve heard, the plot lines are very well thought out and you wind up having meaningful debates about what it means to be human, the pros/cons of technology on us and of course – aliens.

I’ve never participated in any of the previous A Year of Books discussions, but this one may very well be fun to follow. No doubt the talking points will be far and wide, which is great, especially when they are focused on serving others and improving things. Of course, I haven’t read the books… maybe it all crashes and burns. We’ll see.

Have you read anything from Iain M. Banks’ “The Culture” series?