December 2010
42 posts
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Ways your year can end →
I wrote a short thing on my year in skateboarding for n+1. Really it was my year in injuries.
Dec 31st
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“You dear creature, I want to see you so amazingly.”
– From a fan’s letter to Herman Melville.
Dec 31st
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“In my opinion there are worse insults than floggings. I would rather be flogged...”
– D.H. Lawrence, from Studies in Classic American Literature.
Dec 30th
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“…the ship’s library was stocked with wholesome books,...”
– From Andrew Delbanco’s biography of Melville, writing about a whaleship Melville was aboard in his twenties.
Dec 28th
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Dec 28th
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Dec 27th
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Ed Park is the author of “Personal Days,” a novel... →
Dec 26th
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Anonymous asked: I'm in a jam. My brother is coming up for Christmas and he loves to read, but I have no idea what book to get him. A little more about my bro: he lives in New York, he works in a bookstore, and he blogs about book gift ideas. I'm pretty sure he's already read Moby Dick. What to do?
Dec 24th
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annawiener asked: Dear Sam,

What might you recommend buying for a 16-year-old interested in science, specifically biology? If BEE by Rose-Lynn Fischer is as titillating as Dustin's review implies, I might need something a little more... PG.

Thanks!
AW
Dec 23rd
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Dec 21st
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tplus-deactivated20110729 asked: Hi

I am in LA and need some bookstore recommendations. Preferably bookstores with a good art books section. Any ideas?

I know family and skylight.

besos
t.
Dec 19th
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Dec 18th
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timeoutnewyork asked: Help us! What do you get for a dad who loves to read, and enjoys the following things: 20th century American history; mid-century Modern architecture/design; Nascar and Formula One racing; surf rock; and Hollywood in the 50s/60s. Seriously, we're stumped.
Dec 18th
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Dec 16th
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Dec 16th
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Just discovered
That there’s a new Nicholson Baker novel coming out this summer (August). It’s called House of Holes: A Book of Raunch. According to the product description on an unnamed internet website that sells things, it is a “gleefully provocative, off-the-charts sex novel that is unlike anything you’ve read.” I wonder: Which charts?
Dec 15th
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kechuu asked: A little brother (20 years)...likes sports, poker, creative combinations of the f-word, but is a total softy on the inside.

traditionally he hasn't been much of a reader, but he's an amazing e-mail writer with a biting wit. help?
Dec 15th
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Dec 15th
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Dec 14th
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Dec 14th
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Another Call for Questions
If you are stumped presents-wise and don’t know what books to get the people you barely know, you’re in luck. This is essentially my job—deciding what books people I barely know should read. (Customers = people I barely I know.) So, since I’ve already solved your great aunt Virginia problem, tell me about your other relatives and I will tell you what you should buy them.
Dec 14th
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Franzen Juvenalia
You get a haircut Ordinary people laugh Do friends? No, they don’t. A haiku about friendship written by a young Jonathan Franzen. Found in The Discomfort Zone, which we recommend.
Dec 14th
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Dec 14th
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“Reading Frazier and Franzen back to back underscored, first, that they have...”
– Keith Gessen picks his favorite books of the year for the Millions.
Dec 13th
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Gentlemen Wear Fluorescents
objectivecorrelative: towirr: Yesterday [Is that right? It’s been a long weekend and I haven’t been getting much sleep.] I bought a copy of the new edition of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, one of the strangest and greatest novels in the English language. This latest was put together by the folks at Visual Editions. They’re the ones who let JSF tell...
Dec 13th
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The opposite of Bookscan on Amazon (and you don't...
melissa: We would just get emails from Sam at McNally Jackson every few weeks saying, “We’ve sold out. Can we have another box?” So that’s part of how we sold 1200 books: 651 in pre-sales over 45 days (Jan 15 - Mar 1) and the rest Sept 1 - Dec 9. We’ve got 25 copies. You know, it’s Christmas, and I’m pretty sure your great aunt Virginia could use an anthology called Coming...
Dec 11th
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Dec 8th
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Dec 8th
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Something's different around here.
laphamsquarterly: We came to a realization a few months ago. Tumblr and LQ, it just makes sense. Here’s what we do all day at LQ: we read and research and fact check and read and Twitter and read and eat a sandwich and read and read and read. We read a lot, and this Tumblr is where we can share all of our strange findings and recent obsessions with you. It’s also where we can reach deep back...
Dec 8th
33 notes
Into winter
carpentrix: Zeus rumbles and a mammoth winter of snow pours from the sky; agile rivers are ice. Damn the winter cold! Pile up on the burning logs and water the great flagons of red wine; place feather pillows by your head, and drink. Let us not brood about hard times. Dionysos, our solace is in you and your red wines: our medicine of grape. Drink deeply, drink. -Alkaios, Greek lyric poet of...
Dec 7th
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McNally's Bookstore - m4m →
housingworksbookstore: McNally’s Bookstore - m4m - 24 (Nolita / Bowery) Who’s the beautiful man I see daily? : ) ——- Double dog dare me to email him and start suggesting names of likely candidates? I never knew Dustin felt this way about me.
Dec 7th
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Dec 5th
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Dec 4th
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annawiener: Best part of my week: Maggie Nelson’s BLUETS (thanks, @mcnallyjackson!). Here is a terrific review by Ben Fama: http://bit.ly/hN9FHG. I will never tire of forcing everyone I know to read this book. No one’s not loved it.
Dec 3rd
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Dec 3rd
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Question:
What is the great Internet novel?
Dec 2nd
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“Both sisters…mixed with the young Cambridge group, the group that stood...”
– From Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Dec 2nd
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The New York Times' 10 Best Books of the Year →
Dec 1st
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On Amazon
Today Amazon is getting a lot of good press for donating $44,000 to Words Without Borders. As my co-monger Dustin pointed out on Twitter, “Amazon does not, does not, care about the written word,” and that “Amazon is a very real reason publishers and booksellers cannot afford to support amazing works of literature in translation themselves.” Words Without Borders is a...
Dec 1st
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Dec 1st
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Dec 1st
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Nerd Jeopardy
housingworksbookstore: “Lit nerds and bookworms, this one’s for you. Nerd Jeopardy is an inebriated, team version of Jeopardy, focusing on literary and publishing trivia. So if you’re constantly groaning at how easy the “20th Century British Novelists” Double Jeopardy questions are, or if you’re hip to the twisted circle of NYC book editors, head to Lolita tonight to claim “modest glory and...
Dec 1st
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