The Kobo Mini

Books, books, books, we all love books.  You love books and you should know that I especially love books.  Books are everywhere, or at least they should be.  The thing about books, however, is the more that time passes, the more books I seem to have.  Three out of four walls in my bedroom are lined with books.  I'm not complaining, I want it that way.  But there comes a time in every book lover's life where they must come to terms with their collection.  When that happens, you start to think long and hard about each new addition that is made.  "Do I really need this book?" you might ask yourself, trying to qualify its purchase.  Thank goodness for the advent of the eReader, which has pushed and propagated book hoarding onto virtual realms.

I was an eBook hold out for awhile, prefering the heft of the printed page.  But then I got a Nook last year and fell in love with it.  I could buy and read books that I didn't nessasarily want on my shelf, I could carry 1,000 + page tomes around without throwing out my wrist everytime I wanted to read, but most importantly I could carry multiple books around with me at once.  A book lover's dream.

Generally I have been showcasing physical books that I find in stores or otherwise that strike me as being interesting, but when I saw this new device, I knew I had to talk about it.  The Kobo Mini is one of the newest in the line of Kobo eReaders.  Sporting a 5 inch display, this is not only the smallest Kobo, it's also one of the smallest eReaders in the market.  In the photo, you can see that I have held up a Moleskine notebook next to the Kobo Mini just so you can get an idea of how small this thing really is.

With a device this small, the desire to be a get-up-and-go reader is really strong.  The thing could literally fit in any pocket I have, making excuses to not have a book on me null and void.  There is nowhere that you can't go with this. 

The ability to tailor the look of your Kobo makes having this a very personal experience as well.  You can swap out the trademarked quilted back with 4 other color options.  Kobo has also givin users the freedom to customize the typeface in unprecedented ways.  Not only can users select the font and  font size, but there is weight and sharpness settings letting you have full control over how you want your books to read.

Kobo is also content with letting users have control over where they buy their books.  All of Kobo's eReaders are fully open, meaning you can purchase books from many different sellers while still being able to read them on your Kobo.  With Kobo, local book sellers can now get into the eReader game.  My local bookseller, Malaprops, told me that they are now set up to sell eBooks and the Kobo eReaders help consumers who want to support them as well as other local bookshops.  It's this reason that I might switch to Team Kobo for my eReader of choice.

You have to look at this eReader in person to see how cool it is.  The Kobo Mini would make an absolutly supurb gift this holiday season, and at only $79, it's a gift that won't break the bank.  Whether it'll be someone's primary eReader or a trusty backup, this one will certianly get the job done.  Get your's here, at your local bookseller or where ever Kobo's may be sold.

Quiet, the Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

There has been a great deal of learning regarding introverts recently.  This has led to the changing of opinions and new viewpoints regarding select individuals.  Many people might have made the mistake of thinking that the defining characteristics between the two personality types are that extroverts are outgoing and introverts are shy.  While this generalization isn't false, there is much more going on in the minds and lives of individuals knows as introverts than many people aware of

Introverts are typically quieter than most people therefore it's easy for them to be misunderstood. When you're looking for studies showing the percent of the population that are introverts, you're likely to find numbers ranging from 25 to 50 percent.  If you were to talk to them, most introverts would report feeling maligned by society.  I believe this to be true due to the stereotypes that exist about this group.

The findings illustrate that understanding this personality dynamic shows traits that go well beyond a person's level of shyness.  It's all about how a person gathers energy and the way they process information.  Extroverts feel more energized in social situations while, on the other hand, introverts feel taxed when they're in those same situations.  They need time alone, by themselves to "recharge."  If you've ever know anyone who just didn't like going out very often and wondered what their deal was, it's not necessarily that the person is antisocial, they just don't have the energy for those kinds of things. It's not their fault, it's just the way they are.

I consider myself deeply introverted.  I can live in my thoughts for hours on end and being part of social gatherings can be very exhausting for me.  Again, it's not that I'm antisocial, I just need a lot more alone time than most people and I am very guarded with that time.  It's very important to me.  I also have the tendency to be very quiet.  I prefer listening to talking and if I don't have anything important to add to a conversation, I won't say anything at all.  I would make a terrible debater because I take a long time considering things in my mind and I dislike explaining myself and have difficulty with it.

I saw this book and knew  that I needed to read it.  I needed to understand myself better as an introvert as well to learn how to help change the view that the world has toward us.  Go to your local bookseller or online here to purchase it.  ALSO, Susan Cain has a great TED Conference Talk that is more than worth watching.  Check it out here.

Daniel Day-Lewis: The Fire Within by Garry Jenkins

On this cold Black Friday I've found something very apropos to both the day and the season.  Daniel Day-Lewis: The Fire Within is a book I didn't even know existed until recently.  I was killing time at a local Goodwill, perusing the bookshelf like usual when my subconscious picked up on something that the rest of me had to catch up to realize.  I thought I saw something very familiar and I could have sworn it said Daniel Day-Lewis.  I thought that was impossible because I thought there wasn't any books about him.  I looked all around the spot in the bookshelf of where I was standing and then my eyes landed on this treasure.  I nearly yelled out in the store in joy when I found this.  A true find indeed.

This plain black book, sans dust jacket, is a biography of the legendary method actor that spans from his youth in Ireland all the way up unto his success with In the Name of my Father.  Had it been written later we might have accounts of the man during his truly legendary roles.  Daniel Day-Lewis is a very big inspiration to me ever since I saw the film adaptation of The Crucible in a High School English class.  His brutal realism cut me to the core and one of his final lines, yelling out, "I have given you my soul, leave me my name!" echoes in my mind still. 

Day-Lewis is starring in this year's Lincoln, a movie that I haven't seen yet but I can't wait to see.  His approach to acting is unparalleled in the industry today.  Stories abound of how deeply he immerses himself  in the characters he plays and how intense he becomes.  I'm excited to find the secrets to his character and the facets of his personality.  

If you're interested, get lucky and find it a Goodwill like I did or go online here.

The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Dainelwski

The Fifty Year Sword is the latest novel by author Mark Z. Danielewski.  Danielewski is an author who's books would fit better on a wall in MoMA rather than on the shelf of your local book store.  His debut work, House of Leaves is one of the most original novels I have ever read.  It is enigmatic in approach and chilling in execution.  The book still haunts me to this day and gives me chills whenever I think about it.

Thinking that people understood his work too much, Danieleswski followed up with his second book, Of Revolutions, which is almost a novel in name only.  Composed in a very confusing free verse style, Of Revolutions tells a love story from two different perspectives and from two literal ends of the book. Readers are encouraged to turn the book upside down every seven pages and read from a new side to complete the full story.  Similar to House of Leaves, colored text is an important facet to fleshing out the work, but it's the complicated narrative, filled with symbolic language, that makes this book too difficult for even his most ardent fans.

Now, six years after later, we have Danielewski's third novel, The Fifty Year Sword.  Seeming to be more straightforward than the last book, The Fifty Year Sword is about a seamstress who comes to be the caretaker of five orphans.  Its theme involves sewing and the ability to stitch things together. This is represented in the cover art below the dust jacket and must be seen for yourself.  I will always applaud Danielewki for being an author who brings many visual elements to his stories.  Color, again, plays a role where different speakers have different colored quotations marks making William Faulkner roll in his grave with jealousy. 

This is a very big release and makes me excited to see it in stores.  Find it at your local bookseller or online here.

Hot Pink by Adam Levin

Hot Pink is a new collection of short stories by the author of the monumental tome The Instructions, Adam Levin.  I recently finished that book earlier in the year and ended up loving it.  That's why  I equally pleased when I saw these in the store.  I hope that it's filled with the off-beat sense of humor and darker tinting that made The Instructions famous.

Levin is one of the stars of McSweeny's publication house.  Like the rest of the catalog, Hot Pink is done up in very collectible fashion.  A little less ornate than other McSweeny titles, it's still a handsome volume done up in a two-toned cover without a dust jacket.  A bright yellow logo is embossed into the cover, as well as Levin's name, reminiscent of a DIY screen printing job.

Find it here or at your local bookseller.  Also it seems like there are multiple colors for the cover but they're all sold out.  Onward collectors, onward toward the hunt!

The Star Wars Trilogy

What perfect timing regarding recent developments that have happened.  If you have perused Barnes & Noble only casually in the last three to four years, you'll notice tables that have been ever-burgeoning with collection of classics, old and modern, that are bound handsomely in stylish leather with pages gilded in gold or silver leaf.  These are part of their Leatherbound Classics Editions.  Their website touts well over 50 titles ranging from Shakespeare and Jane Austin to Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman.  For the book lover, these books are irresistible.  If I had room and the money, I would buy them all just to have them on my shelf.

Most recently, I went to graze the familiar table and, to my surprise, found an iconic face staring right back at me.  In the quintessential font, shining brilliantly, was "The Star Wars Trilogy."  I literally gasped as I lifted the tome to inspect it.  There they were, all three books, names I don't even need to say because you should know them already.  I held the book while a blocky, monotone voice played in my head on repeat, "MUST. OWN.  BOOK."

Not only is this the most unique addition to their collection but it is also the coolest culturally speaking. Most people don't know about the Star Wars novelizations and if it's any Star Wars books people are aware of it's the many novels that range from zipped up fan fiction to quasi-canonical additions to the lore.  Originally published a few months before A New Hope arrived in theaters, the books served to introduce people to the characters that would soon become cultural icons that still loom large today. They were credited toward George Lucas but it was later revealed to be ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, the man who would be the first to expand the Star Wars universe in print with Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

The rest is, as you say, history.  History that many of us are well aware of.  This handsome volume would look great in the collection of your favorite Star Wars nerd or someone looking to liven up their shelf that is sagging from the weight of dark and dusty classics.  Go to your local, brick and mortar B&N or find it online here.

The Book of Emotions by Joao Almino

The Book of Emotions is an interesting book about an aging photographer looking back at his life and relationships.  Cadu is compiling a book of the same name that is a compilation of some of his most famous photographs.  In his old age his has gone blind and so he requires the assistance of a young assistant to find the photographs that he wants to include, an assistant that he has a growing attraction to.

The book is divided into divided into separate sections.  There are sections from his personal journal where the present takes place.  He discusses his progress of the book and his feelings for his assistant.  There are also descriptions of each photograph.  His ability to take photographs has been robbed him but his memory of the ones that he has already taken are, literally, picture perfect.  Because we are given detailed descriptions of the photos without seeing them, you in effect experience the blindness that Cadu does.

For Cadu, his photographs represent bookmarks in his life.  Each one that he includes come with rich context.  In his younger days he worked for a politician which gave him steady work but restricted his free spirit considerably.  He also had torrid affairs with many women.  It wasn't that he couldn't be satisfied, it was that he had great love for many beautiful women.

I didn't end up finishing the book, if that's any indicator of how it is.  I would like to go back and re read sometime soon.  If you would like to read this, I would recommend keeping a short list of characters that are introduced and their relation to the other characters.  There wasn't an inordinate amount of characters so I don't know why I had keeping track of them.  I don't know if it was the unfamiliar names or what.

If this is something you'd like to read, you can pick it up at your local bookstore or online here.

Poor Richards Almanack

What!? So all this time I thought that the Poor Richard's Almanack was written by some poor soul named Richard.  Little did I know that it was one of the many accomplishments of everyone's favorite statesman Benjamin Franklin.  Franklin used a psedonym for this work which was based of a character from writings of Jonathan Swift, Issac Bickerstaff, who was an astrologer and almanac writer.  It was very popular publication among the American colonists, with print runs going into the many thousands of units.

For those of you don't know what the Poor Richard's Almanack was, it was a annual serialized pamphlet that ran from 1732 to 1758.  It had weather forecasts, mainly for the context of  planting and harvesting crops, household tips and other forms of entertainment such as word games and puzzles.  Think of it as one of those glossy household magazines that you might see your mom reading, things like Martha Stewart Living or Better Homes and Gardens.

Had it existed today, it would have been largely forgettable but due to the connection with one of our founding fathers as well as the cultural significance with the people of the time, it has gained a certain popularity among people of our time.

For those that are interested, you can find it here.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

I'm a sucker for enormous novels. Even though I shouldn't be giving permission to these authors for typing out such bloated stories, I always find myself intrigued by the fact that that they did write such enormous works. I wonder if what they have to say is worth the pages. That's why I read The Pale King by David Foster Wallace and why I'd like to conquer Infinite Jest. I'd just as soon read Animal Farm than listen to Cate Blanchett read Marcel Proust's seven volume novel In Search of Lost Time on board the Belefonte in The Life Aquatic.

Speaking of sprawling epics and George Orwell, last year when Haruki Murakami published 1Q84 my interest was instantly piqued. It was a hulking tome of more than a thousand pages and it had a strange yet iconic title that referenced one of my most favored books. I wanted to read it but wasn't training for any endurance strength tests so I downloaded it on my Nook instead. Recently when I went to go peruse my local book shop, I found that the brand new softcover edition on display.

This is a handsome presentation for such a interesting work. Separated into three novels, the books fit into a clear plastic slipcase. The artwork has been redone to include the moon motif that is in the novel. It's so colorful and the three books makes reading it even more attractive.

The story involves two intertwined narratives. One tells of Anomame, a woman desperate to get to a meeting on time, she jumps out of her cab and takes a ladder off the freeway. The other tells of Tengo and of a book by a young and mysterious writer, a book who his publisher wants him to rewrite in order for it to win a prize.

This new edition makes transporting it easier, and the writing and story seem to earn the number of pages that it is written on. If you are interested, check out Murakami's 1Q84 here. 

Hologram For The King by Dave Eggers

Alan is going through some hard times.  He's coming off a recent divorce, he's buried in debt and he's trying to find money to keep his daughter in school.  No one seems to want to help him either.  His ex-wife once told him, "College is your thing, be a man about it."  Naturally Alan, might be a little desperate.  That's why he has found himself in the deserts of Saudi Arabia trying to present some new hologram projector technology to a local king.

And thus set's the stage for Dave Eggers fourth full length novel.  Dave Eggers hardly fails to disappoint considering how much of his work is award winning or prize nominated.  He's versatile too, having compelling works that are both fiction and non.

But enough about Eggers, what about the book?  This particular edition of Hologram For The King is published by McSweeney's Books, a company renowned for their unique and striking editions.  I mean look at that cover, it begs to be read!  The shiny lettering, the etched designs, the textured cover; this book is the full package.  How could you not want to pop this open and see if the contents are as impressive as the facade?  This is why I must read this.

I'm not going to link you to Amazon for this one.  Something about this book makes me want to tell you that if you really want to read it, go to your local book shop.  So get to steppin'!

Get Jiro! By Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is most widely known as the nomadic foody god on his Travel Channel TV show, No Reservations. What many people are probably not aware of is that he is also a writer. He is the author of many books, most notably Kitchen Confidential, a sort of tell-all of what happens in the many restaurant kitchens across America.

For his most recent authorial outing, Bourdain has decided to go down the visual route and co-author a graphic novel with Joel Rose. With Bourdain's pedigree, it's natural to assume this will also be in world of food. In an opening scene Jiro, a sushi chef, violently decapitates a man when they boisterously order a California Roll. Fast food sushi is something he does not do.  I found the scene wildly hilarious and you would too.

This book seems like tons of fun. It has over top violence, great art provided by Langdon Foss and an abundance of tongue-in-cheek, food centric humor and that is why it is a book that I should be reading.

Check it out here

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Ahhh, Freedom; the smash mega-hit written by literary super star Johnathan Franzen. What more can be said about this man or this book that already hasn't been stated? He has written one of the best books of the decade. He comes off as a complete jerk. He is a jerk precisely because he knows that he is God's gift to literature. Despite his jerky-ness we love him; we really, really love him.

I happened to see this in a Target long ago when the book came out and was surprised to see the dreaded "O" sticker adhering to the book jacket.  Having knowing a little of the history between Franzen and Oprah Winfrey, I was quite surprised.  I almost thought it was a mistake until I could confirm that yes, Freedom had become an Oprah's Book Club selection.  The good news was that it was just a sticker and not a logo printed directly onto the jacket so you can promptly remove it ASAP (poor, poor Poisonwood Bible).  This only proves what I have been saying for years, that Oprah loves to take books that are already popular or have previously been considered great and smack that sticker on and rake in the royalties.  I consider those stickers pock marks on an otherwise beautiful cover.

Don't let this sticker deter you, however, because this is one fantastic novel.  Everything good that has been written about it is true.  It is one of the best books of the decade, He might be one of God's gift to literature and this is sure to stick on bookshelves for years.

The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century Edited by Harry Turtledove with Martin H. Greenburg

With the recent release of Tim Burton's adaptation of Seth Grhame-Smith's novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, it's clear that screwing with established conventions is all the rage now.  This book is in a similar vein, being filled with a collection of "what if" stories of history-bending, mind-blowing fare.  The stories include a Rebel victory in the Civil War, a Nazi victory in World War II and other tales of truth tweaking and time travel.

Find it here!