et ready, fans of used and rare books. This coming weekend, Thursday through Sunday, the Newberry Public Library will be holding it’s 25th annual book fair full of (you guessed it) used and rare books. You can view the complete details on this event either at Publish Chicago’s Literary Events Calendar, or at the Newberry Library’s event page.  You can also check out their book fair blog, which covers interesting tidbits about donors, book fair prep, and books in general.

The Photography

Still photography and moving pictures are important media to me.  After studying cinematography I felt compelled to study the finer points of stills to gather them each in as a distinct medium and have each one instruct the other. The Time After looks at the two media in a different way, imitating one with the other to synthesize a captured memory of an idea more continuous that those normally found in simple static still frames. ¶ View In Entirety… →

n the ongoing debate about the pricing and release dates of e-books, Dominique Raccah, CEO of Sourebooks, is voicing her opinion.  The debate was recently sparked by Sourcebook’s decision to wait to release the e-book version their popular title Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse until after the hardcover copy’s release.  She is of the opinion that a model for publishing in which an author and publishers can actually be sustained by their book sales needs to be developed, and she doesn’t think this is possible when e-books are priced at $9.99.

This raises a question for me.  In fact, during a recent Q&A panel at CBC University I asked Dominique if e-book are cheaper to produce than printed books, and her answer was startlingly vague.  So I’ll pose my question again.  Are e-books as expensive to produce as printed books?  It seems to me that they must not be.

In any case, you can read her full article on the subject over at Booksquare.

The Sad Epistles, by Emma Bolden, is a Dancing Girl Press chapbook comprised of ten letters. Like all of Dancing Girl Press’ titles–and I’ve read quite a few–it’s fantastic. Bolden has a way of evoking incredibly saturated, thick emotions by using well chosen words and a quick pace in her poems. The poems all focus on the ending of a relationship between the narrator and someone she loves. Even though this seems like a used topic (I mean, how many pop songs are about lost/ending love?) she does this in a completely fresh and beautiful way that did not leave me feeling exhausted by the end (a common problem with Celine Dion power-ballads).

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Q.  What was the inspiration behind The Sad Epistles?  Throughout the collection, you seem to be writing about a relationship between the narrator and another person.  Care to elaborate?

A.  This is probably the one question I shouldn’t answer, but, yes, the collection is about a relationship between the narrator and another person.  I started and ended the series during two very difficult moments in the relationship: one, when I thought it was over, and two, when I knew it was over.  The poems follow my journey through a very difficult and painful realization which is, unfortunately, one of those things you have to realize at some point: that even if you love someone more than life itself, it may not be enough.

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re you like me? Have you ever read one of Front 40’s books and thought, “this is good, but I wish I could see this in a museum because this artwork is great”? Well, now you can. This Sunday is the grand opening of an exhibit that they are curating at the Hyde Park Art Center that complements (and goes by the same name as) their book Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture. The opening reception for the exhibit is this Sunday from 3-5pm and it will stay open until September 20th. Check out the press release for more information.

…reading.

Details:
Wednesday, July 15 7:30pm
Hopleaf, Second Floor
5148 N. Clark Street

love Ninjatown (The Adventures of Wee Ninja).  It’s probably one of the most adorable things I’ve seen in a long time.  I didn’t even set out to specifically review it, I was simply looking through a bunch of books from Chicago comic book and graphic novel publisher Devil’s Due when I caught a glimpse of the superman-posed ninja on the cover and I was intrigued.

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heck it out, Luis Urrea will be answering questions on Blog Talk Radio tomorrow at 2:00pm ET.   Call in with your questions to (646) 378-0040, and listen up here.

How to Hold a Woman, published by Chicago publisher OV Books and written by Chicago author Billy Lombardo is reviewed at the Chicago Tribune.  “How to Hold a Woman is beautifully written, replete with small, perfect details of family life in the wake of tragedy.”

emember the Chicago Book Clinic University that I recently posted about?  Well, they’re having another fantastic event:  the Book and Media Show.  The event will feature the winners of a contest CBC is having for the best books produced in the Chicago area.  The goal of the event is to highlight the exceptional quality of the books being produced here.  To enter your book, head on over to www.chicagobookclinic.org.  Interested publishers should hurry–the deadline is July 15th.

pparently they’re pushing back the production of one of their most popular titles (Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, by Kaleb Nation) in e-book format because Dominique Raccah, their CEO wants the book to hit the market at hardcover price rather than e-book price, meaning it will probably be twice as expensive.  On the subject, Raccah states, “Hardcover books have an audience, and we shouldn’t cannibalize it.  It doesn’t make sense for a new book to be valued at $9.99.”  This she says after having valued many of her own books even lower for e-book prices.  Perhaps her love of e-books may not be as straightforward as it originally appeared.

hicago author Maureen Lipinski’s first book A Bump in the Road has landed on BettyConfidential.com’s list of the best chick lit books this summer.  She’ll also be signing copies at ALA tomorrow from 2:00-3:15pm in the Macmillan booth.

he American Library Association is holding its annual conference in Chicago this weekend.  This thing is huge, attracting over 25,000 library associated peoples.  It technically starts today with community outreach events and goes through Tuesday the 15th.  The main events, such as speeches, presentations, panels, exhibits, and parties (like this one, courtesy of Sourcebooks Horrid Henry) will be at McCormick Place West.  The conference this year should be interesting considering the boom in library usage that the failing economy has caused.  You need to be an ALA member to attend certain conferences, but the exhibits are open to the public.  Head to www.ala.org/annual for the complete details.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/videobeta/watch/?watch=5954da3d-86f3-4b3d-be49-bb2d3448b4ea&src=front

Check it out.  It has to do with literature.  It’s in Chicago.  Therefore I posted it.  …and it’s kinda silly.  I like silly things, ok?

ontinuing on its tradition of publishing good literature alongside shots of scantily clad women, Playboy recently acquired the first serial rights to Vladimir Nabokov’s last and unfinished novel.  Nabokov’s intentions were to have the novel burned, not published, but Dmitri, his only surviving heir, had other plans.  Apparently Playboy’s literary editor Amy Grace Lyod won the rights by sending orchids to Andrew Wylie, Nabokov’s literary agent, in reference to the novel Ada, another one of Nabokov’s novels serialized in Playboy during the 1960s.  You know what else helped?  Lots and lots of money.

emember that post from a few days in which I mentioned Twitterature? You know, the *ahem* brilliant idea that two U of C freshman came up with to turn classic novels into Twitterature (i.e. reiterate the story in 20 tweets or less)? Well, Michelle Pauli at The Guardian recently posted a short article in which she denounces their idea as unoriginal and criticizes their site for lacking any examples of their work. I must agree; their site, as it stands, is pretty bad. Further, not only is their idea unoriginal, but this whole things smacks of a terrible scheme to make a buck without putting in too much effort. Personally, I’d rather read a work of original literature than a remake by a college student trying to make a buck. Bravo, Ms. Pauli.

I know this for a fact, because I’ve heard their CEO, Dominique Raccah speak. She’s all for e-books, and recently she just teamed up with Smashwords, a young company that produces DRM-Free e-books, to release 14 DRM-Free romance novels under their Casablanca imprint. The best part? At $6.99, they’re cheaper than amazon will sell them.