[Thursday, December 30, 2010
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Just in case you didn't acquire enough new titles over the holidays, Gilt has few delicious sales going on with which you can stuff your shelves.
Sterling Publishing will simultaneously appeal to your artsy, manly, fashiony and Audrey-loving sides. For starters, you can rediscover classic album covers with The Art of the LP, check out new views of famous ruins via Archaeology from Above and ogle the aforementioned Miss Hepburn in the pages of Audrey 100. Lonely Planet's sale promises to wet your traveling whistle with The Cities Book, The Europe Book, Tales from Nowhere, and The Traveller's Guide to Planet Earth (plus gobs more).
The Sterling sale runs until this Sunday at 11 p.m. CST, Lonely Planet ends tonight at 11 CST. Gilt members, you know the drill; non-members, you can sign up via my personal invite here.
[Thursday, December 30, 2010
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Looks like January's a slow month for lit adaptations, as there are only three lined up this month. Interestingly, each is based on a book whose author hails from a different country - Canada, Poland and England. Needless to say, the three films share as many characteristics as do a transistor, the color chartreuse and a banana split. Video after the jump!
Barney's Version, starring Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike and Jake Hoffman. Based on Mordecai Richler's 1997 novel of the same name
. In limited release starting Jan. 14.
[Wednesday, December 29, 2010
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Maybe it's because Michael and I made a flying visit to his parents' farm for Christmas or maybe it's just the season, but I was in the mood for something rustic for today's BW post. These branch brackets are made by Live Wire Farms and are part of its Timber collection of products (the brackets are actually in the hook product line and range in price from $40-$50). Each product is handmade from maple, beech, cherry and other hardwoods grown in Vermont. For more information on these specific brackets, click here. To see the rest of the collection, click here.
[Tuesday, December 28, 2010
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The bottom four books are Christmas presents from friends and family, the rest are presents from me to me, courtesy of the Borders that is going out of business on Michigan Avenue. (It's very sad, and the atmosphere of a closing-down bookstore is beyond depressing. If you're looking for some cheap post-Christmas reading, though, you should stop by - Michael and I nabbed 12 books for $10. Also, all the fixtures - tables, bookcases, shelves - are for sale at rock-bottom prices, if you need book storage.)
All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my haul. Got some fiction, some humor, a hefty dose of biography and some general nonfiction. What about you guys?
[Thursday, December 23, 2010
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Happy insert-your-preferred-holiday-here! My holiday travel starts today and continues through Sunday night, so the Booklicious goodness will resume Tuesday. I (and the lovely Catherine Deneuve above) wish you good food, good family and, of course, good books!
[Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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This week's BW post continues the animal theme started a few weeks back. Unlike the cow shelves, however, this polar bear design actually is for sale. (Well, technically. If you can shell out $5,488 plus tax and shipping, that is.) The manufacturer calls this one Iron Joe, and old Joe measures a hefty 81 inches in width, 34 inches in depth and 61 inches in height - which makes him one inch shorter than me. That's incredible. (And incredibly depressing.) If you're looking to save a few dollars (and feel taller than a novelty bookcase), though, you can opt for the junior version. That one comes in both black and white and will only run you $1,882. (Plus tax and shipping.) Now that's called shopping smart.
[Tuesday, December 21, 2010
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Are you sweatily scrambling to find those final few presents? Here are some gift ideas for the notoriously hard-to-shop-for bibliophiles in your life.
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz; Amazon
; $10.99
[Monday, December 20, 2010
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Some people just see plagiarism differently. Reminds of the debacle surrounding this girl. Whatever happened to her, anyway?
[via Wondermark]
[Saturday, December 18, 2010
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1. Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury
Stephen W. Hines has compiled all of Alcott's Christmas-themed sketches and novellas into a single cozy volume. The book features excerpts from Alcott's longer works as well as standalone short stories.
2. A Christmas Carol
(the pop-up version!) by Charles Dickens
It's the quintessential holiday classic, this time in gorgeous pop-up form, with illustrations by artist Chuck Fischer.
3. Nigella Christmas: Food Family Friends Festivities
Nigella is probably my favorite celeb chef. If you want satisfying, indulgent, craving-it-so-bad-you-can-feel-it-in-your-teeth food, she's your girl. In this cookbook, she covers updated holiday classics, brunch, drinks, desserts, full party menus and how to deal with leftovers.
4. The Art of the Snowflake: A Photographic Album
by Kenneth Libbrecht
Libbrecht is the undisputed master of snow crystal photography. He's a physicist at Caltech and an expert in microphotography, so he's the perfect person to prove that no two snowflakes are alike and that every single one is a thing of beauty.
5. The Simpsons: Homer for the Holidays
by Matt Groening
Sometimes the short, dark days and unending cold can be a bit depressing. But you know what's not depressing? Yellow. Lots and lots of yellow.
[Thursday, December 16, 2010
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If I were asked to think of a literary animal, I'm not sure the chicken would immediately spring to mind. But for Scratch Studios, the chicken is the perfect barnyard creature to adorn its literary wall calendar. Each year, the studio designs the calendar around a new theme - this year it's 'Et tu, Wilson?' (Wilson is one of the studio's own chickens, I believe - Scratch, Scarlet and Cornelia round out the rest of the crew.) The $20 wall calendar features chickeny images matched with literary quotes and makes special note of literary dates and poultry holidays (who knew there were such things!). To read more and order your own copy, click here.
[Wednesday, December 15, 2010
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This bookshelf cracks me up. Its designer, Arun Kumar Francis, explains:
"Design outcome can be sensible, sensual, sentimental, senseless or downright Sensational.
I took up a study on sensational designs by its attributes to understand why some designs are absolutely sensational. To design a SHELF was the focus here, a single line flowing through the shelf to make out an expression, a shelf that makes the observer go ‘wow’, in this case plain ‘sexy ;)"
Does sex sell - even when it comes to shelving? Why yes, I think it might.
[Tuesday, December 14, 2010
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What do you do when it's less than 20 degrees outside? I imagine being somewhere far, far away (and preferably warmer). Cue Lonely Planet's list of the world's best bookshops. Here are three of their top 10 - you can check out the rest here.
1. City Lights Books, San Francisco, U.S.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books is still one of the world’s coolest bookshops, almost 60 years after it opened for bohemian business. Having been a meeting point for American literary icons, from beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg onwards, it’s still central to the city’s vibrant cultural scene. As well as three floors of tomes, including those published by City Lights, the shop offers weekly readings and events. More than the nearby Beat Museum, this is the place to feel the boho buzz that once inspired Kerouac et al to drive across America to the Bay Area.
It’s grand, it’s splendid, it’s a strong contender to be the world’s most beautiful bookshop. Occupying a 1920s theatre in downtown Buenos Aires, El Ateneo has kept the sumptuous auditorium’s original furnishings – and added books. Beneath the painted ceiling, shelves have been built into the spectator balconies. When you’ve finished gawping at the ornate carvings and it’s time to put finger to page, the former theatre boxes are now intimate reading rooms. There’s a cafe on the stage, between red velvet curtains, and the final firework in the literary spectacle is the round-the-clock opening hours.
Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid is located on the south side of Ave Santa Fe, 50m west of Ave Callao.
A little over 100 years old, this art nouveau gem in Portugal’s second city remains one of the world’s most stunning shops – perhaps of any kind. Competing for attention with the books are wrap-around, neo-Gothic shelves, featuring panels carved with Portuguese literary figures. A track, used by the staff for transporting stock in a cart, leads from the entrance to the lolloping red staircase, which winds up to the first floor like an exotic flower. Books are available in English as well as Portuguese, and there’s a small cafe upstairs beneath the stained-glass skylight.
You can continue the Art Nouveau tour of Porto at Café Majestic and streets such as Rua Galeria de Paris.
[Monday, December 13, 2010
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The London Review of Books is Britain's most esteemed literary magazine. Published fortnightly, it features essays, reviews and the most outrageous personal ads ever set in type. The following is a selection from the latest issue.
*Why Mahler? Is Ibsen edifying? I don't have answers, but I do have tickets! Seeking inquisitive, appreciative, adventuresome lover of words and music, 60ish man, to share the experience, ponder the questions
email: BritLit1950@gmail.com
*Wants to meet new people. Likes include contemporary abstract art, Russian cinema, horror, Prokofiev, funk. M 34.
email: Jamesbernard1@hotmail.com
*Accomplice (F) sought for escape from SantaClawsUK and for the long term. M. 50’s wishing to have children.
box no: 23.01
*New Yorker (smart, beautiful, funny) who lives in New York and reads the LRB seeks man (smart, handsome, funny) who also lives in New York and reads the LRB to do all the usual things people do when falling in love in New York. Woman, 45.
email: nyclrb@gmail.com
[Friday, December 10, 2010
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[Thursday, December 09, 2010
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Books repurposed as purses aren't new - you can find plenty of examples on Etsy - see here, here here - and last year I posted a tutorial by Country Living for those looking to make their own. But add a French designer who boasts art school credentials and an internship at Chanel to the mix and suddenly you've got a hot Hollywood trend.
Olympia Le-Tan has designed a line of book purses, each in the image of a classic work. Only 16 purses are made of each design, and Le-Tan makes the "first edition" of each design by hand herself. Natalie Portman carried the Lolita design at the New York premiere of Black Swan, while Harry Potter actress Clémence Poésy (she plays Fleur) picked La Belle et la Bête to go with her dress. You can browse her book bags here.
The Telegraph gushed about Le-Tan's creations earlier this week.
"Le-Tan cites the surroundings which framed her childhood as the inspiration behind her unusual designs: 'My father has a huge collection of beautiful old books. In the house I grew up in, all the walls were covered in books,' she says.
When she moved out of her family home, Le Tan began collecting first-edition books from the 40s and 50s, with very vibrant graphics. 'I just felt that some of them were so amazing that they had to be turned into something even more special,' she says."
No word on if Le-Tan actually reads the books she collects.
[Wednesday, December 08, 2010
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Being a renter and having mostly renter friends, the plaintive cry for more storage is one that's very familiar to me. With many items - papers, clothes, shoes, seasonal decorations - a few solutions are obvious - boxes under the bed, hanging file folders on the wall, back-of-the-door shoe racks. But when it comes to books, there's not much space-saving to be done, especially if you actually like reading your books.
The Nureyev bookcase by Roderick Vos, however, has potential. Instead of being a big, boxy, one-fronted unit that demands wall space, it's a rotating four-shelved unit that can be placed in a corner instead of along a wall. It doesn't hurt that it's also sleek, modern and eye-catching.
You can learn more about it here.
[Monday, December 06, 2010
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The box of matches in the bathroom is a staple in virtually every home - albeit one we don't really talk about. But Etsy seller dippylulu is looking to change that with her classed-up matchboxes. She's gone for the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em approach and designed the boxes in the style of the iconic orange Penguin books, giving them tongue-in-cheek twists on classic titles. And while nothing can really save them from the shame of their purpose, at least the humor lightens the mood.
You can browse her shop here.
[Friday, December 03, 2010
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*"Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her." That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Well done, Rowan Somerville, this year's honoree.
*Ian Fleming interviews Raymond Chandler. 'Nuff said.
*Classic-lit nerds, get thee to this exhibition! The handwritten first draft of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is on display in Britain for the first time. It's part of an exhibition that includes other previously unseen items from the rest of her famously brainy family - her husband was the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, her father was the philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the women's rights champion Mary Wollstonecraft. The exhibition will travel to New York after its Oxford run.
*In lighter news, I love this Tumblr. If you think Stephenie Meyer can't write, you'll love it too.
*I'm not a beer drinker - make mine a whisky sour instead - but even I can appreciate the beauty in these beer-book pairings.
*Google is finally ready to shake up the e-book world, it seems, with the announcement that it will be launching Google Editions at the end of December. What is likely making its competitors nervous is that unlike Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Google will allow customers to read its e-books on almost any device that has a Web browser. That's pretty damn cool.
*The U.S. has a pretty good track record when it comes to importing British ideas - see The Office, Dancing with the Stars, Simon Cowell, etc. How about we adopt this, too?
*Want to co-write a story with Tim Burton? Then this is your lucky week.
[Thursday, December 02, 2010
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December is a huge month for weighty adaptations - only one of the movies coming out this month doesn't have serious classic-lit credentials - Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor's quirky-looking I Love You Phillip Morris. Otherwise, Hollywood is taking on quite a few literary giants - it'll be interesting to see what audiences make of its efforts. Video after the jump!
Gulliver's Travels, starring Jack Black and Emily Blunt. Based on Jonathan Swift's 18th century satire
. In theaters Dec. 22.
[Wednesday, December 01, 2010
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Well hello there, new love of my bookcase-adoring life. You're looking mighty fine. If only I could find out more about you and figure out how we could "accidentally" meet sometime - I know we'd be so happy together.
Call me!
[via Yatzer]
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