Books on the Brain
Today's lunchtime news chum is all related to books....
- Writing on Demand. Today, the LA Times is conducting an event where Neil LaBute and Theresa Rebeck are writing a play live, based on a topic suggested by the readers. This made me remember the time that Harlan Ellison sat in the window of "A Change of Hobbit" in Westwood and wrote science fiction based on topics suggested by store visitors. Alas, as Kevin Roderick observed, there are no more independent bookstores in Westwood, which raises the question...
- Save the Bookstores?. ...of whether we should fight to save the independent bookstore? The New Yorker has a nice piece asking just that question. The article notes we didn't make the same effort to save the local video store where our tastes were equally curated and we could serendipitously find something new. So is the physical bookstore something we should save, or is the Amazon suggestion feature sufficient to discover something new?
- Shelving It. Of course, if we do break down and buy physical books, where will we put them. Ikea is supposedly tweaking their bookcases to hold something other than books. The updated Billy bookcase will feature deeper shelves meant to display "ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffee-table tome -- anything, this is, except books." You could, of course, use them for books, but as one commentor noted, the shelves might not be strong enough to support all that weight.
- Celebrity Authors. The Atlantic has an interesting discussion: Can celebrities write good children's books? The answer, of course, is "it depends". Some are just crass marketing. I don't recall being that impressed with Jay Leno's "If Roast Beef Could Fly". Rosanne Cash's "Penelope Jane" was OK. However, I really loved reading Jamie Lee Curtis' "Today I Feel Silly" to my daughter when she was young.