Carter coming to town

President Jimmy Carter will be in the Birmingham area on December 1st. He’s making the rounds promoting his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m told this latest release is about on par with Carter’s previous books. Sort of “same thoughts and rationale, just different backdop”. But I’ll have to pick up a copy and judge for myself.

You can only get yours signed if you have a ticket. Tickets can be bought at the Alabama Booksmith’s site or at the store. You buy one book, you get one line ticket. Makes sense. Of course, if you can’t make the December 1st event Jake at The Alabama Booksmith will make sure to hold you a signed copy, if you let him know!

Penguin’s Pet Project

They seem to be going after the “Pimp Your Ride” crowd.

Basically Penguin will start selling (end of November) real books by real authors… but with no covers. Apparently they hope people will buy the blanks and design their own covers and share with the world.

You can keep up with this project and gallery of uploaded user’s pics on Penguin’s site.

I’m not sure this gimmick will catch on. Just seems kinda hokey. Should be fun to watch though. I wonder if there will be a price difference in a book with a cover and without a cover?

Title trivia and other tid-bits

Four days of BookTV has been great! The best segment I saw was Morse talking about the Dictionary. Fascinating! But I still have three shows to watch on the old dvr (including Isaac Stern!)… so that may change.

Just wanted to let you guys know about the fun Title Quiz the New York Times has posted right now. It was pretty fun and I picked up some neat facts.
Also,  I had The Fellowship  by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman on my Christmas Wish List. But after reading the NYTBR I’m thinking about dropping it. Just not interested if all the book as to offer is re-hashing the sex drive and decades old gossip of one of our nation’s most talented designers.

Let me know if any of you have read it and disagree with the NYTBR. I’d love to be persuaded to buy and read it! I’ve always enjoyed Frank Lloyd Wright’s work.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham