From-the-Editors-Desk

Putting Family First
February 7, 2010

I am going to beg everyone’s indulgence this week and even perhaps next. A prolonged family medical emergency is taking my time and attention so I will not be writing something here as I normally do. I will be back with more book talk as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I offer this suggestion for this week: Turn off your television. Yes, all week. Don’t want the news, don’t turn on your favorite programs. Instead, I encourage you to spend this one entire week with a book (or two).  Fill your evening time with quiet, enjoyable reading by first choosing your favorite chair or sofa, turning on a good lamp, and sinking into a novel or nonfiction story that captures you and takes you on a journey into new worlds. Focus on that. See if you don’t come out of it feeling different. (You will.) Books give us so much. Giving them a week of undivided attention is the least best we can do for them.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Florida will be the site of the Amelia Island Book Festival this coming weekend, February 11-13. Special paid ticked events include A Night with Poppy (featuring Pat Conroy), a Story and Song Concert , a Savory Southern Breakfast, and a Lunch with Authors. He Writers’ Workshop takes place on Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm and offers a wonderful variety of workshops and panels. Free, though is the all-day festival on on Saturday. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church will be alive with authors doing presentations, panels, and book signings, vendors, children’s activities, an Author’s Marketplace, and a Guitar Jam in the late afternoon.

February  12-14 is for booklovers in Los Angeles. The annual International Antiquarian Bookfair, which rotates between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is in the souithern part of the state in 2010. Each year the fair has a theme, and this year it’s about great books that have been turned into great movies. More than 200 antiquarian dealers will exhibit and sell five centuries of printing and manuscripts. Subjects include the history of travel & exploration (including maps), early science and medicine, technology & manufacture, law and commerce, children’s books, literature and the arts, first editions of 20th century literature, complete with dust jackets and superb illustrated books in fine condition.You’ll even be able to see a seventeenth-century Shakespeare folio.Fair hours at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza are Friday, February 12 from 4 pm to 9 pm; Saturday, February 13 from 11 am to 7 pm; and Sunday, February 14 from 11am to 5pm.  A three-day admission ticket can be purchased at the door on Friday for $15.00. One- or two-day tickets can also be purchased. These kinds of fairs are wonderful to visit even if you can’t afford to buy.

The Pub House:
MVP Books is the imprint of Quayside Publishing Group that focuses on sports books: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, cycling, boating, watersports, golf, tennis, boxing, fishing, hunting, and other sports. These are not only  not entirely “how-to” books; what you’ll find include biographies, history, photography, travelogues, stories and essays, and more. Among their releases are The President’s Team: The 1963 Army-Navy Game and the Assassination of JFK, an unusual take on a football game that turned into a memorial for the late president. The Fly Fishing Anthology combines lovely artwork with stories and essays that celebrate, reminisce, and bemoan the sport of fly fishing around irritation, vistas, trout, the art of fly-tying, memories, and defense of the sport. And When Football was Football: A Nostalgic Look at a Century of Football explores the sport of English football (soccer) back to its working-class roots using the photographic and written archives of Britain’s Daily Mirror.

Of Interest:
If you own a MacBook or MacBook Pro and you like books, I have the ideal carrying case for you. BookBook is a hardback leather case that looks like an antiquarian book yet acts as a protective bad for your laptop. And it’s gorgeous! Each one is handmade so no two are exactly alike. They have dual zippers (that look a bit like bookmarks) so you can charge the laptop while it stays inside, hardback covers, and shock-absorbing protection. It’s available for either the 13” or the 15” MacBook and comes in a choice of red or black.  At $80 it’s not cheap. But it is unquestionably beautiful—and popular.

This Week . . .
I want to share the blog of an online friend, someone I know through a book discussion group. Like Fire describes itself as championing “the offbeat, the independent, and the underdog” through “commentary, criticism, recommendation, exploration, provocation, raillery, discovery, and—we hope—fun.” What a great description. Lisa Peet, the founder, has a distinctive voice and a curiosity that makes her posts compelling reading. Her ablity to find a seven-word story on bookshelf markers or discover and share serendipity in all its guises is only the beginning. This, folks, is a blog worth marking.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren

 


 

 
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