Author: peterwesley

40 books for 40 years

Here's another top 40 list to celebrate our 40th Anniversary. This is from Alison Kothe-Nihlean, the very capable and lovely head of marketing and events at BookPeople: When trying to pick my 40 favorite books, instead of going with "literary merit" (although many of these are considered to have a lot of that), I went with the 40 books that made the biggest impression on my life. I split my list into two groups: the books that have moved me as an adult, and the ones I read as a child that made me who I am. In no particular order...

In honor of our 40th, Our Top 40

In honor of our 40th Anniversary (don't miss our celebration this Saturday!) we're asking our staff to submit their top 40 favorite books. Any genre, any author, good taste, bad taste, it doesn't matter. Just the top 40 books that matter to them, in order of importance. We'll be posting several of these, and our first comes from Brian Contine, a well known contributor to this blog.

Ben Folds/Nick Hornby ‘Lonely Avenue’ CONTEST

Good news for Ben Folds fans...or Nick Hornby fans...or just fans of cross-media collaborations: Alt piano-rocker/song-writer Ben Folds recently collaborated with veteran British novelist Nick Hornby on an album, Lonely Avenue, where Hornby wrote all the lyrics and Folds supplied the music. Wait...writers and musicians...together? How can that be? Luckily, here's a video that explains the whole thing:

The birth of MysteryPeople, our store within a store

In the last three years, BookPeople's mystery section has grown into something special. Our stock as well as our sales have increased-- especially with titles like Reed Farrel Coleman's Moe Prager series, and some you can't find at other stores. Mystery authors like CJ Box and Craig Johnson now make this store a stop on practically every book tour they have. We've attracted more fans of the genre, even from outside the city, to where it feels like we're becoming Austin's de facto mystery bookstore. So we've decided to make it official. On November 7th we're launching our own mystery bookstore within a bookstore, MysteryPeople.

Why you SHOULD judge a book by its cover

I’ve talked about it before, but the idea that you can’t judge a book by its cover is wrong. Very wrong. You should be judging books by their covers. I also think you should be judging them by their spines, too, but that’s another blog. The design of a book is purposeful and artistic, chosen to target the right audience at the right time. Haruki Murakami is one of the most popular writers of the last 20 years, and he’s a great writer, but Chip Kidd’s incredible designs helped push a quirky, mostly unknown writer into the rare space of an author who actually makes money. And even if money has nothing to do with it, Kidd brings more readers to Murakami’s works because he condenses what’s inside into visually stunning cover art.

Where Good Ideas Come From…

If you're not familiar with TED conferences (the letters stand for "Technology, Entertainment and Design") you should Google it now. It's ok, I'll wait...back yet? Hopefully, you were directed to a video that blew your mind. TED is basically a reoccurring conference where really interesting people from all over discuss groundbreaking ideas on culture, science, art...anything that expands our understanding of this crazy world. In this clip taken from a TED conference, Steven Johnson discusses the methodology of "good ideas". While it's kind of impossible to predict where and when a "good idea" might occur to us, Johnson claims that there are many recognizable factors of "good ideas" and how they come into being. He cites certain factors and environments that foster the birth and maturation of good ideas. Here, just watch:

The Nobel Prize for Literature, Past and Present

Nobel Prize time! I don’t know about you, but nothing gets my literary list juices flowing quite like the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sure, the National Book award is usually the most literary, the Pulitzer creates the most buzz, and the Booker opens our eyes to World literature, but it’s the Nobel that warms my coffee cup. It’s the Nobel that often surprises, but never disappoints. This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is the Peruvian juggernaut of political and social satire, Mario Vargas LLosa.

Catch Susan Casey’s THE WAVE, this Friday at 8pm

Susan Casey's new book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, follows an elite band of surfers ( including world-champion pretty boy Laird Hamilton) as they search out humongous "rogue waves", the holy grail for those looking to hang the ultimate ten. These waves, 100-feet tall or higher, seem to defy the laws of physics. Casey also investigates the dark side of this phenomenon, believed to be responsible for the disappearance of a startling number of ocean tankers (and crews). She'll be here this Friday, October 15th, at 8PM to read from her book and discuss what she calls "the most powerful force in nature."