Jul 20, 2011
Tumbling Books
We start this week inspired by a message on twitter: @jhaubs2 asked if we'd ever heard of Better Book Titles, which is a Tumblr site. We love this site, so we thought we'd talk about a few literary tumblr sites that we like. Thanks for the idea, Julianna!
First up is Better Book Titles, the brainchild of Dan Wilbur. Below are two of our favorites, which we borrowed to show you. Please go pay them a visit to see more.
Coverspy is a Tumblr blog where a team of self-described "publishing nerds" hit the streets of New York to see what people are reading.
Our friends at the Bookrageous host their show notes on Tumblr. Their recent episode, which Michael mentioned, is on "Underdog Books."
And thank you to our anonymous caller who left a voicemail response to last week's cover episode: one of his favorite book jackets is The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffinegger.
Books about Books that we couldn't resist
There seem to be a lot of books in the stores right now that have to do with books.
The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai, about a young children's librarian and one of her patrons that is not allowed to read certain types of books.
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch, a nonfiction book by a woman who, as a way of dealing with grief, decided to read a book a day and blog about it. (Readallday.org)
Michael wants to read The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma, about a father's promise to read with his daughter at least 10 minutes every night for 100 nights. They kept going for 8 years, when Alice left for college.
One of our bookseller friends recommended A Jane Austen Education: How six novels taught me about love, friendship and the things that matter by William Deresiewicz.
Michael recently bought 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.
What books about books do you love? Let us know in the comments.
Two books we can't wait for you to read
Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba is Michael's choice this week. A graphic novel that was originally published as an 8 or 9 volume set of comic books, it's the story that begins with the tale of Bras, an aspiring novelist who is killed in a bar. Each chapter from there on is a look at a different point in Brass's life.
I talk about The Devil All the Time, a first novel by Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff, one of my favorite collections of short stories. This is a brutal novel of family violence, madness, and religious extremism in a small Ohio town.
Our live chat with Steve Himmer, author of The Bee-Loud Glade is July 28th at 7:30pm Eastern Time. Steve will be joining us at 7:45. More details of how you can join us to come here on the blog.