Bookdwarf

Tomorrow the trade show for NEIBA (New England Independent Booksellers Association) starts in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s a chance for booksellers and publishers to come together, talk about upcoming books, gossip, etc. Imagine a smaller, homier version of BEA. I’m having dinner with a few authors on Friday night: Rudolph Delson, author of Maynard & [...]

A great trailer for Shalom Auslander’s forthcoming Foreskin’s Lament.

The Harvard Coop—not to be confused with independently owned Harvard Book Store—called the police last Thursday on three students who were collecting information for a student run textbook website after they refused to leave. The Coop claims it’s intellectual property. Also, though the police showed up, no one was forced to leave. How very civilized.

The Huffington Post posted about the Harvard Coop asking the student when they saw him writing down price information on textbooks. Except the picture they include is the wrong store! They’ve got a picture of my store, the independent one, not the Barnes & Noble managed one. Yes, it’s confusing with the names. I have [...]

Barnes and Noble exposed! A student was asked to leave the Harvard MIT Coop after writing down prices of several textbooks. the best part is that no where in the article does it mention that the Coop is run by Barnes & Noble. People are often shocked when I tell them that—often people who have [...]

Ah, the Mamas and the Papas.  I returned from a weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia late last night in time to watch the Sox lose to the Yankees. That’s okay. I’m not going to let this ruin my birthday. Monday birthdays are odd. So far it feels like a regular day, except for the lovely sweet-smelling, [...]

That Shalom Auslander—even when he writes about sex, he’s good. Somehow I’m not surprised at the books Knopf turned down publishing. They’re still one of the gold standard of publishing, quality-wise that is, so why are people shocked that they made their share of “mistakes”. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but considering how much crap [...]

Reading this essay by Michael O’Donnell on the NBCC blog today, I thought to myself, here is someone writing in a more clear way almost exactly what I feel about book review pages. I haven’t had a chance to wade through Steve Wasserman’s lengthy article on the death of book reviews. I’ll try to write [...]

Bostonist has a nice interview with local favorite Junot Diaz. I had no idea that there were so many Diaz fans out there. I thought I would have to work pretty hard to get his book out there, but people seem to be clamoring. The reviews started rolling in this weekend, most reviewers commenting on [...]

I’m back at work, slightly rested from my trip to Atlanta. Luckily, it was not too hot, rather it was pleasant and warm. I savagely consumed Benjamin Percy’s Refresh, Refresh. I started it as the plane took off and didn’t put it down until I finished the last page, even forgoing the paltry snack the [...]