Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Column, Book Covers, Book Design, Book Talk

Best Book Covers of 2014

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The learned and eagle eyed folks over at Design Observer have released their list of the 50 Best Book Covers of 2014. It’s quite a list! There are 50 of them, so click through to see them all.

Seeing this Chip Kidd cover for Murakami online doesn’t do it justice. The colors pop and the die-cut holes to the map below really make this cover. It’s a fun trim size too.

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It’s a fun ranking and worth scrolling through. It seems to be a great mix of ones seen often in shops and other lesser known ones that have it made it to the front-of-bookstore tables yet. I’m always glad Design Observer does these lists as I’d miss out on quite a few of these books.

This raised 3D slip cover is C-R-A-Z-Y.

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The Best Books ranking/competition goes back around 90 years. Here are the Best Book Covers from previous years as well:

Design Observer also compiles a list of the 50 Best Books of each year, where the whole design is judged and not just the cover. And it’s fun to see who made the list as well, but when online, I enjoy the covers more. Anyway, here’s their choices for 50 Best Books of 2014. To get an idea what this is about, the book ODD VOLUMES got a nod in both the cover competition and the book competition. The folds really show how the book is organized and speaks to the subject of the book which is book art.

I was glad to see The Martian on there as the paper used really made it glitter as if covered in martian dust. So you have 50 to choose from – which book cover is your favorite from last year?

Book Column, Book Reviews, Book Talk, New Releases

The Fold – Book Review

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Title: The Fold
Author: Peter Clines
Publisher: Random House, 2015
Where I heard about this book: I received this book directly from the publisher.

For years a government agency has been trying to get high school science teacher Leland “Mike” Erikson to come work for them. But he always turned them down until they asked him to investigate a secret physics installation in southern California. A place that “folds” the fabric of space/time, allowing people to walk across the universe in the blink of an eye. At least, that’s what they think it does.

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I really enjoyed the whole build up of The Fold as Mike, who has been assigned the task of figuring out what is going on and how it’s being done, is piecing clues together, grappling with the science and coming around to believing the impossible. And when the impossible happens, people start dying. Fast. And then things get weird. Fast.

Clines does a decent job with the science with this story, leaving just enough in the realm of WTF and fuzzy thinking to make it fun and plausible. Just make sure you’re reading with an open mind and you’ll enjoy.

If you’re a fan of Sherlock I think you’ll like The Fold as Mike (who, in the book, is compared to both Holmes brothers) has one hugely useful talent – his eidetic memory. He remembers everything as if he’s skimming through a DVD with time codes and everything. It makes piecing together crime scenes, looking for patterns and eliminating variables fast and easy. And he can sound like a jerk. But so did Sherlock at times.

While it all wraps up quickly, you can’t be sure how it’ll end or even who will be standing when it does.

I give Peter Clines’ The Fold three out of five stars and recommend it to fans of the Stargate series, time travel movies and anyone else who already realizes that there are some things mankind just shouldn’t mess with.

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.

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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 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.

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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?