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I know Matt is a big fan of GoodReads, but I have to say it’s pretty dorky to get these updates telling me about all the wonderful literary explorations of friends and colleagues.
It’s the same kind of dorkiness college Freshman demonstrate when they open their doors and blast the latest tunes to demonstrate their wonderful musical taste to the cutie down the hall.
I mean, I would never just broadcast that I had finished Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great, while also tackling David Foster Wallace’s collection of essays, Consider the Lobster, just shortly after polishing off Deathly Hallows, while slipping through Allan Kahane’s beachable (yet thought-provoking) Fire with Fire.
I would never do that. I’ve just been too busy laughing at John McPhee’s succulently reminiscent tale in the latest New Yorker, and brooding over Fred Thompson’s chops in the New York magazine review by Stephen Rodrick.
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As frequent readers know, I went to Tokyo recently. Being completely unfamiliar with Tokyo and Japan as a whole I decided to check out a couple of guidebooks on the town. I checked out the usual big names for guidebooks: Rough Guide, Time Out, Fodors, Lonely Planet as well as a handful of others. In the end I settled on Time Out: Tokyo, Rough Guide Tokyo and a new guide that comes out later this month: Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter. After less then a day in the city I closed Rough Guide Tokyo and ended up returning it which left me with Time Out: Tokyo and Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter.
Now, before I say anything about either guidebook let me talk about Tokyo as a city: It is huge, it has no street names and only a couple of real tourist sites or identifiable landmarks. With (at my count) at least 4 different sets of trains (including the subway and monorail) owned by the government and various private companies it is not exactly the easiest city to get around.
Though coming from a city with a pretty complete and, supposedly, confusing subway system, I found navigating the Tokyo subways not nearly as difficult as you would think. Finding things on the street was a different story.
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I’m amazed to even be awake following last night’s bachelor party festivities for my friend Rob, an international man of mystery and sometime writer here at AM. The evening was a surprisingly classy affair given our trip to [redacted] and especially given the possibility that party planner [redacted] might have gotten his wish with a [redacted] while [redacted], another in our party, attempted to secure a freeby from an Israeli [redacted] after discovering she knew his cousin.
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So, I spend a lot of time in books stores, mostly the Borders around the corner from where I work, but also The Strand, Barnes & Noble and Shakespeare & Co. Walking down Washington Square Park I tend to check otu the latest titles that the guys on the street have available.
Usually when I decide on a book there is a pretty good reason; I know the author; It’s been recommended by a friend; I’ve read a good review about it. But some times I just like to choose a book or two based on cover design. For the most part I haven’t been let down.
Now some people may laugh at me for this, citing the old adage “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but I don’t believe that, and I bet there are a bunch of cover designers out there who would agree with me as well.
Think about it, from the moment you walk into a book store companies are going to hope that you buy their book rather then another companies book. And what better way to target their book to you then with a snazzy cover design.
For some books this may mean putting a celebrity authors name or face right there on the front, but for most books, especially the ones I read it is more about appealing to a demographic.
The cover is the draw, when I pick up a book I never heard by someone I have never heard of there has got to be a good reason. Once I have that book in my hand the cover has almost accomplished its job, the second part is the back cover, tell me enough, make the book sound interesting enough in 10 sentences or less and I am sold. This was how I discovered books like Post Office by Charles Bukowski (I am now on the third book I have read by him), this past week I read African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou, turned out to be a pretty good book. Every now and then when I am looking for a quick “beach read” I’ll look for a brightly colored cover with a fun graphic on it that I like. Yes, some times I am led astray, but for the most part I am spot on. Those folks out there designing covers for books definitely know their job, and for the most part do it well.
So, next time you are stuck looking for a book to read, why not pick up that one you’ve never heard of, but keep glancing at because of its nice cover. Give it a try, who knows what you will find under that cover.
I’ll tell you another time about how most of the time I spend in book stores I am reading books I have no intention of buying, but that is for a different holiday weekend.
Enjoy your three days off, I’ll get caught up with some more posts come Tuesday.
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Around 5 months ago, some blog I read had a link to another site, where, if you promised to review a new book coming out on your blog they’d send you a copy of it for free. The authors name didn’t click in my head, and really, I wasn’t too concerned, I am cheap and I like free things, so I figured I’d sign up. Unlike the commercials for Focus Factor memory supplement pills (”Free? If they’re giving it away free it must be good!”), I figured the book was going to be total hackery by someone publishing their own work.
Now, about 5 months passed and I totally forgot about the book altogether until one day I check mail and find this large hard book-like item stuffed in amongst all the usual junk mail. I pulled out the envelope found that it was addressed to me and tore into it, only to be greeted by the face of Anthony Bourdain on the cover of his new book The Nasty Bits (2006, Bloomsbury USA). Now, I have been a fan of Bourdain’s ever since I read Kitchen Confidential and was recently all excited about him again when I read a blog entry he did here, so this book was a great prize.
The book is divided into 5 sections, containing, primarily, previously published essays and the author’s cuts on those essays. Gone is the censorship of some of the magazines he has written for, here we get a behind the scenes look at his various television shows and his opinions on cooking and chefs today. For the most part all of the stories and essays are just as cynical and humorous
as you’d expect from the man who has called Emeril and ewok and compares Mario Batalli’s work on Iron Chef America to “a great, toothless lion, fouling his cage” (but in a positive way). What is also nice are the notes at the end of the book updating the essays and discussing where he was when he originally wrote the pieces and how his feelings may have changed since then.
Now, I admit, I am a bit of a slow reader, normally I can read a 300 page book in about a week during my lunch hours, before bed and on my bus rides to work. I ended up powering through this book in a single day. It was an enjoyable read, not a page turner since each essay is only about 5 pages long, but I was flying cross country and had nothing better to do so I read… and read… and read. Thoroughly enjoyed the book, plus now I don’t need to feel guilty about signing up to review the book (I think at the time I even claimed it was for this website, what forethought I had). If you liked his other works pick it up, it is worth a read.
