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, Book Talk, Books About Books

A Word About “Books about Books”

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One thing I truly enjoy reading about is books. Books about books is just about as good as it gets. These can cover book collecting, book arts, book plates, libraries, crafts, publishing, biographies about writers or editors,etc. There are even sub-genres of fiction that identify when books or bookstores or libraries figure heavily into the story. It’s a little meta. It’s a little nerdy (but not geeky), but it’s great to read up on people’s personal libraries and people’s relationships to books.

books about booksBut there is no word for it! You read that right. I can find no single word that means “books about books”.

How can this be? Is there one that I haven’t thought about? Surely someone has solved this problem by now. How can there be no word for “books on books”?

If you read books about book fanatics you’re reading about bibliomania. If you read mystery books about books you are reading bibliomysteries. But what if you’re reading books about books? The trio of words works, but you have to admit “books about books” is a bit cumbersome. Can’t we come up with a word whose sole definition is “books about books”? I guess if you read books about books you are a bibliophile, but how can we work that so it means an actual book whose focus is books.

Time to get busy wordsmiths! Let’s solve this. The solution (the final word, if you will) should be an elegant one worthy of the task. Biblio-biblio is just weird. Biblio-books is even more awkward than the original phrase.

Of course, this whole exercise makes me think of Sniglets. So now I have to go find those books and thumb through them. You should do the same. But when we get done reading…. back to the neologistic task at hand!

Digital Publishing, Events, News, Publishing Industry News

O’Reilly Cancels Tools of Change Conference

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Yesterday, Tim O’Reilly announced that, after a seven year run, O’Reilly Media would no longer organize their annual “Tools of Change” conference. Of course, like many I was asking a fearful “Why? What’s not working?” Which is why I was thankful to see this quick exchange between LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding and O’Reilly-founder Tim O’Reilly:

Tools of Change Talk

The two Tims talked via Twitter briefly where Tim O’Reilly said that there was a definite opportunity cost:

“Expensive in NY, not very profitable, not enough resource to do everything we want”.

So it sounds that, yes, as ebooks settle into their own and trends are maturing and flattening, it was really a numbers decision to pull the plug on the Tools of Change conference.

The TOC conferences have been fun. While many other digital publishing conferences have popped up over the past few years, TOC tended to focus on “high level views” of publishing and technology. While the details were mentioned and listed, there were more chats and sessions on trends and next year’s tools than this year’s strategies and products.

Speaking of which, it sounds like (paragraph 5) O’Reilly plans on rolling out their own publisher-focused tools in the coming months. I’m anxious to see what they can offer that other services and add-ons don’t already. It’d be exciting to see then apply their forward-looking experience to current publishing tools and services. We’ll see.

Book Column, New Releases, Upcoming Titles

New Basbanes Book

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It looks like famed bibliophile Nicholas Basbanes and Knopf have put the finishing touches on Basbanes’ long awaited new book “On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History”. It has an official street date of October 15, 2013. Basbanes started researching paper and paper ephemera back in 2005. The new Basbanes book was first mentioned in a CSPAN video interview the author did back in 2008, where he gave the cameras a tour of his home library. The new book is listed at 488 pages with a full retail price of $35.00. Can’t wait to see what it looks like when it comes out this October!

On Paper Nicholas Basbanes

Basbanes is best known for his books about book collecting and bibliomania  A Gentle Madness and Patience & Fortitude.

Birmingham, Bookstores, Events, Free Books

Church Street Books Scavenger Hunt

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The bookish barristas at Church Street Coffee & Books have organized something cool next week. They call it ‘Bookstravaganza’ and it kicks off on April 22nd, with a books-themed scavenger hunt, ending April 26th. Starting on the 22nd,  the indie bookstore will start posting cryptic clues for their Facebook and Twitter followers. Once decoded, the answer will points to another local Birmingham business where a free book is waiting on the first successful code cracker. So that’s four days of following for freebies. Sounds fun!

They are also running a neat promo inside the store, which I’m anxious to go by and try out. Basically, they’re inviting you to scan the books, on the shelves, with your smartphone to get the super-secret discount (10%-50% off)  price. Some of the books will also score you a free cookie or coffee.

Other events planned during the week that is Bookstravaganza 2013:

April 22nd at 7p.m. – Q&A with murder-mystery author Jenny Milchman about her book Cover of Snow

April 23rd (all day) – World Book Night giveaways, with hundreds of books to be given away free to help encourage reading. Many of which volunteers will hide in places around the city. This is a global event and very cool that they are participating.

So grab your decoder ring, smartphone barcode reader and follow Church Street Coffee & Books on Facebook and Twitter to play along next week. Bookstravaganza sounds like four days of fun promoting local businesses, reading and books, books, books!