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.
Book Column, Gifts for Book Lovers, Typography

Typography Scarf

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Baby, it’s cold outside! While this typography scarf isn’t the most insulating, it’s certainly a gift a book lover would appreciate. The entire scarf is made up of uppercase letters and assembled in a jumble.

Typography Scarf

It looks pretty nifty. It looks to be only available overseas (but they do ship to the U.S.). And it also goes out of stock very very fast. So if this typographic scarf is something you want, check back often and be ready to pounce. They also have a place to enter your email to be notified when it’s back in stock.

The Uppercase Scarf retails for  £48.00 which is around $80. Not bad for a truly unique gift for the book lover in your life.

Book Talk

The Strain on Fox

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Wait!? What!? How could I miss this? The Strain, one of my favorite sci-fi trilogy series, from a couple of years ago, is being made into a TV-mini-series by the author himself Guillermo Del Toro!

Here is the only teaser or trailer-related bit I could find for The Strain, which apparently will be on the Fox network:

The teaser doesn’t show much, but I have complete confidence in Mr. del Toro that this will be as close to the books as possible. So it has to be good, right? This is all Wikipedia as on it, which seems a little out of date.

The Strain Trilogy

The Strain trilogy was a good blend of classic sci-fi, vampires and tech. So if you like two out of those three you may like these books. But if you don’t like vampires, then I’d pass if I were you. All three books were fun reads and the series ended on a pretty big note. So go read the books. And then get ready for The Strain on Fox TV this Summer.

Have any of you read these books?

Authors, Birmingham, Book Column, Events

Book Events: Jan. 19th-Jan.26th

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Things are starting to pick up around town. There are a lot more author events and book events appearing on calendars around Birmingham. Looks like 2014 is getting under way!

Here are three events this next week that would be of interest to book loving folks in the area:

January 23rd from 10 a.m. until 12 p.m. – Theresa K. Thorn, author of Noah’s Wife will be speaking and signing at the Vestavia Hills Library.

January 23rd from 2 p.m. until 5 p .m.  – Gus Mayer will host a book signing with Jane Weitzman who will be there talking about her new book Heart & Sole, which focuses on shoes and clever “art shoes.

January 25th from 2 p.m. until 3:30 p.m. – author Robert Inman will be at the Pelham Library signing copies of his latest book The Governor’s Lady. Inman will be signing any of his books… but you have to bring your own copies! The library will not have books there to sell.

Book Column, Book Talk

Ten Books that Stayed with You

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There is a neat thing going on over on a network of Tumblr book blogs where they are sharing Ten Books That Stayed With You. It all started on this site and hasn’t lost any steam. Lots of good books being mentioned.

I like the idea of “don’t think about this too hard” and “take a photo of the ones you have near you”. I don’t Tumbl (or is it Tumblog? How do the cool kids say it?) so I thought I’d just post mine here as I can’t find a way to jump in without being on Tumblr. These are ten books that I have found myself quoting or sharing more than others. There are a couple of others as well, but I borrowed those from the library. So they were cut from the running simply because they weren’t available for the photo shoot.

ten books that stayed with you

In no specific order:

    • Kavalier and Clay by Micahel Chabon
    • The Secret History by Donna Tartt
    • The Information Diet by Clay Johnson
    • Book Business by Joseph Epstein
    • The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
    • Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
    • So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid
    • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
    • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
    • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

How about you? Do you find you have books that have stayed with you?