Category Archives: On the Web

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.

On the Web, Type

Typographical Wallpaper

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I ran across these tonight and snagged a couple for my screens. The quality is typographically top notch and the site (i love typography, which is always fun to check out) encourages you to make your own and send in. Share the love!

Book Talk, On the Web, Publishers

Turning free web material into books

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The NY Times ran an article on blogs/sites moving into printed products. Pretty interesting though nothing really new is mentioned. They don’t even mention the word “blook“. Which is a book mainly consisting of blog posts (and one word I hope never makes it into the dictionary). Basically some marketing folks look at a blog’s traffic stats and see dollar signs, but over the last two years, publishers have realized that a high number of unique visitors does not always translate into dollars.

Though it seems that comics and illustrations do seem to do better than fiction and narratives.

Basically, Frank Warren (of Post Secret fame) summed-up the whole business model when he is quoted in the article saying “I don’t think there is a formula,” Mr. Warren said. “There is a bit of magic there that can’t be replicated.”