ssmith's blog

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Stackers
Please enjoy: The avant-garde art of book stacking in stores of Japan.

Binders
The Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition for 2013 has been won by...(drum roll please)...Dominic Riley! Way to go, Dom! He takes home the Sir Paul Getty Bodleian Bookbinding Prize and a cool £10,000. Check out the winning design and other finalists here.

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Herbarium
Here are Emily Dickinson's pressed flowers. I don't know why.

Dominoes
Seattle public library breaks book-domino record (video).

Sign 'o the Times
Venerable antiquarian David Mason says that after being in business for 50 years, his store will be gone in two years.

Odd

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Annotations 1
This very cool interactive tool lets you look at annotations authors have made in their own books.

Annotations 2
And here are some classic books annotated by famous authors

Mine
The apostrophe: own it, please.

Covers

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Poison
In his new book Who Owns the Future?, Jaron Lanier has some deep thoughts about this here stuff you're consuming right now: "Unfortunately, although no one realized it beforehand, the medicine turns out to be poison."

Paths
Editor and media scholar Jane Freidman sheds a little light on the possible paths to publishing.

Covers

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Hic!
The cocktails of famous literary characters and other fictional creatures, presented graphically.

Grilling

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Rep
Need an agent? Search here. Good luck!

Libraries
NPR asks: What Can Libraries Do To Survive In The Digital Age?

Thou
PBS asks: Which Shakespeare Character are You? (I was, um, Rosalind.)

Typing

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Jobs
What do poets do when their not doing poetry? NPR and Book Patrol each fill us in on the day jobs of poets.

Nonjob

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Grote
NYTs magazine brings us an interactive gallery of covers for de Grote Gatsby (aka The Great Gatsby), as accumulated by the scholar and F. Scott Fitzgerald biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli who spent his adult life stockpiling pulpy paperbacks, fancy slip-covers, French-flapped foreign editions, etc... to accumulate a trove now housed at the University of South Carolina.

Don'ts
Literary agents tell Writer Un-boxed what NOT to do when beginning a novel.

Diaries

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Natives

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Found
Carlos found $20,000 cash in a used book. He advertised it. A few people tried to claim it, but none could provide convincing facts. Six months on and he’s just about ready to keep it for himself.

Tent
Camping season is almost upon us and for the bookish Field Candy offers the book tent.

Reading