Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Talk, On the Web

We share no books

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I have never read a book that Thomas Jefferson did. What a bummer! Not one! I was hoping for at least one, but alas, Jefferson read too many French books (or maybe I don’t read enough).

I know this thanks to 17 volunteers over at LibraryThing who cataloged all 4,889 books that Jefferson owned. VERY cool! They even entered all of the third President’s book reviews. The collection these folks spent four months cataloging is the own Jefferson donated to the US after the British destroyed the Library of Congress during the War of 1812. It’s a pretty cool catalog and author cloud to peruse to see what all Jefferson collected.

The libraries of Tupac Shakur and Mozart have already been completely entered.

Other famous folks are slated to ‘join’ LT, including  Ernest Hemingway, John Adams, William Faulkner, William Congreve, Adam Smith,  Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette and Isabella Stewart Gardner.

I wonder what one book (outside of the Bible, they all seemed to own the Bible) all these people owned?

Book Talk, On the Web

Meet the Kidd

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Here’s an under 5-minute video interview with Chip Kidd. {via Galleycat}

I haven’t looked up all the details, but it look slike it was produced by Dwell magazine. If you watch through the end there is video of Kidd singing with his band is Artbreak.

Hope the buffering doesn’t suck for you! I had to let it all load and then come back to it.

Book Covers, Book Design, Book Talk

Covering the covers

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Across the pond, The Financial Times is running a periodic “check in” with current book covers. They’ve only picked 4 so far, but the insight from the news staff as been fairly good. They actually take the time to discuss some of the designers influences and frames of reference for each of the covers. I hope they keep it up.

What’s fun is that they are not just reviewing the covers of new releases. So you never know what might turn up. So far, the Molloy cover is my favorite. Very Alvin Lustig. And they say the spine has no title, author or publisher emblem, which would seem to make it one of the more useless jackets designed.

Book Talk, New Releases

New Basbanes is out

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Nick Basbanes’ latest ‘book about books’ is out today. It’s titled Editions & Impressions: My Twenty Years on the Book Beat and is a collection of essays written by Basbanes over the past 20 years. There is a hb trade edition available. But you can also get the Deluxe or Limited editions straight from the folks at Fine Books, if you have the cash!

According to the press, most of the articles here have been expanded upon and updated since they first ran. This one seems to have a pretty large global scope too. Could be a good one.