As Halloween is over I thought I’d catalogue a few impressions from the wonderful night of mischief, vampires, and literary encounters with the ghosts of writers past. If you didn’t spend All Hallow’s Eve at a monster ball in Brooklyn and ended up in a loft party with sparklers, demanding fake passwords from strangers, you …Read More.
Read MoreYesterday afternoon my copy of Publisher’s Weekly arrived and highlighted on the cover: their annual 100 Best Books of the Year. As a well read member of the book community I always look forward to this issue and inevitably feel bad after reading it-this year was no different. There has been a lot of discussion …Read More.
Read MoreWhile reading Edgar Allan Poe, rather defensively, as I came home to Brooklyn last night on the L train, a young man (ok, let’s say a hipster with an MA in English Lit) asked politely what I was reading. I was faced with a predicament. Do I ignore this (despite what must have been a …Read More.
Read MoreAs schedules become more hectic with the speeding year, it’s easy to forget about one of the best celebrations of the year, that is Halloween. As a firm believer in the make-your-own-costume Halloween ethic, and given the current economic crisis, I hope many New Yorkers steer clear of overpriced costume stores or websites. Common Store …Read More.
Read MoreFeeling rather pale and sickly lately, perhaps due to the rain and long hours of reading (but also doing the bar rounds at Lorimer and other Brooklyn drinking favourites that have lost my interest), I’ve rethought the notion of the writer/intellectual lifestyle. A number of examples come to mind, we’re not the Beats anymore – …Read More.
Read MoreIn my quest to become a female version of a Renaissance man, I have decided to take up the cello again. Instead of hiring a private teacher through a music school (which is quite expensive in the city), I thought: it’s a recession, there has to be a hungry cello genius somewhere, right? While at …Read More.
Read MoreWith the industry debate on the value of e-books, online marketing, free versus paid and the like I thought this would be a great time to rave about an example of how it can all be done well. One of my prime time, never erase DVR picks of last year (and this) is the ABC …Read More.
Read MoreHaving spent this past summer acquiring news friends with unfamiliar eating habits, and old friends with new found tastes, I thought I’d better brush up on New York diets/ways of life/spiritual eats/yoga etc. Coincidentally there’s a lot of information online and in book stores about this subject. Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, raw foodist, fruitarian …Read More.
Read MoreAs I sat on the subway today trying to figure out the Ken Ken puzzle (“The puzzle that makes you smarter!”) on the back of A.M. New York, I worried about a discussion I had with some friends about elevator etiquette. This discussion the previous night turned into a heated debate, one friend insisting on …Read More.
Read MoreTonight I’m off to see Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Iago in Othello. The circumstances? A friend gave me a ticket last minute. This coincides with the Shakespeare course I’m currently taking, and of course, in the past 2 weeks I’ve become completely, utterly, bodily, irreconcilably obsessed with the great bard. This isn’t too uncommon for me …Read More.
Read MoreTomorrow a lot of people will be reading the new Dan Brown novel, but I will be reading the infinitely more suspenseful Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. And since everyone (I’m not going to specify who falls into this category) will be blogging/reviewing/emailing/conspiring about the new Dan Brown novel, I have a few words for my …Read More.
Read MoreAs many of us returned to school last week, we now find ourselves lining up at the university bookstore buying books that we’ll read for four months and 1. turn the book into a Kwanzaa/Christmas/Hanukkah gift in December 2. keep around to make you look smarter 3. change your life and be kept in the …Read More.
Read More(Via Publishers Lunch) Amazon Bought Two Locks to Keep LOST SYMBOL Secure The New York Times won’t be obtaining any copies of Dan Brown’s new book from Amazon, where the e-tailer’s home page carries a note promoting the new release from Jeff Bezos–who insists that “even inside Random House, only a half dozen employees have …Read More.
Read MoreAs I was trying to think of a justification to buy the Amazon kindle when I already have a perfectly good Sony Reader, I noticed three excellent placements- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The New York Times, and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers were each given a screen shot in advertising the kindle on Amazon.com, and I …Read More.
Read MoreAs a few colleagues sat down in the office yesterday to celebrate an important occasion, the conference table conversation got talking on books (and talk show mathematics). As we all contemplated the sense of impending doom with the new Dan Brown novel coming out, I thought about what would make the greatest mega-seller of all …Read More.
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