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.
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.
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?
Here are three book events that I saw that might be of interest to all you book loving folks in the Birmingham area. Drop me a note if you know of an author signing or book-related event that I haven’t mentioned. I’m always looking for something fun to do!
This book t-shirt made me laugh… because, sadly, it’s kind of true:
For those not loading images on their mobile, the tee reads:
If turning pages is considered exercise then yes, I workout all the time.
This time of year is all about resolutions and this shirt certainly keeps it all in very honest perspective. Come to think of it, I know about 15 people who would wear this shirt too (I know some very cool interesting out of shape folks!).
After Googling around it looks like it comes from a soon-to-be-released book Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age. The book seems to be about technology and schools and reading technology and education, but I’m not sure.
That’s a great find though. No doubt the same argument was made when slide rules gave way to calculators. And of course books to Nooks and iPads.
Though there has been some interesting research lately on how well reading technology devices serve kids and in what areas they fail the students. I wonder what these studies would have turned up had they been conducted when the chalk and slate were abandoned?
Not too mention that with the glut of books in the late Nineties (and Harry Potter) it wasn’t un-heard of for the publishing industry to run out of paper for a bit.
Maybe this principal from 1815 was onto something. Ain’t technology grand?
