Ready for some great summer reading? Fantastic! The Kids’ Book Club Card is back! Get your Official Kids’ Book Club Card at the front desk in the Open Books store, then have it punched every time you visit this summer. On your 5th visit, redeem it for a FREE book …or wait to fill up 2 cards and get THREE free books! No purchase necessary. One punch per day. Cards must be redeemed before 09/2/13 and have no cash value. Incomplete cards may not be redeemed. Complete cards may be redeemed for a used children’s or young adult book priced at $10 or less.
View Separately

 

Ready for some great summer reading? Fantastic! The Kids’ Book Club Card is back! 

Get your Official Kids’ Book Club Card at the front desk in the Open Books store, then have it punched every time you visit this summer. On your 5th visit, redeem it for a FREE book …or wait to fill up 2 cards and get THREE free books!


No purchase necessary. One punch per day. Cards must be redeemed before 09/2/13 and have no cash value. Incomplete cards may not be redeemed. Complete cards may be redeemed for a used children’s or young adult book priced at $10 or less.

imageSo this a pretty nifty old cookbook! It’s even niftier than you’d guess at first glance, though. It harbors a secret.

image

Look closely! What do you see? Drawings by an Andrew Warhol??

imageIt’s true, though! Who knew Andy Warhol did cookbook illustrations? 

Listen up, tumblrites! We’ve got an event coming up this Sunday about which I am so excited.

The Chicago Nerds Social Club has invited local authors Wesley Chu (The Lives of Tao), Wesley and Brad Sun (Chinatown) and Mark McLelland (Upload) to do a reading and question/answer session this Sunday, May 19th from 3-6pm. The Just Write Chicago group will be present to network. Open Books is the proud host.

We already have all of the authors’ books in stock, and I am excited to read all of them. I particularly can’t wait to get them signed. Be here!

We get a lot of delectable rare book donations, some of which remind us of forgotten eras, others remind us that some cultural moments should perhaps remain in obscurity. For our readers who want online access to antique books, here’s an international database of rare books, manuscripts and antique photos.  http://www.wdl.org/en/
View Separately

We get a lot of delectable rare book donations, some of which remind us of forgotten eras, others remind us that some cultural moments should perhaps remain in obscurity. For our readers who want online access to antique books, here’s an international database of rare books, manuscripts and antique photos.  http://www.wdl.org/en/

New Intern: Analeah

Analeah recently moved here from Florida (where, despite popular opinion, it is not spring break all the time, it’s more like an endless litany of strip-malls and alligators). She is slowly breaking out of the post-liberal-arts-degree-anxiety, which is chiefly characterized by a profound skepticism for the degree’s utility and debilitating logorrhea. When she is not feeding this anxiety in coffee shops, she is trying to find answers in books. Though unfortunately, she often forgets the questions.  

You could also say that the Monkey’s Paw is an idea masquerading as a bookshop. It’s a cross between a retail establishment and a conceptual art installation, which upends traditional book-trade values and views the literary canon through a cracked lens. It’s a bookstore that argues that bookstore are, by definition, Dickensian old curiosity shops. “Most booksellers can’t adjust to the postprint era,” Fowler says. “The only way to sell books in the 21st-century is as artifacts. I’m a 20th-century person myself, but with Monkey’s Paw, I’ve tried to adapt. This place is a church of print. It’s just that the old rules are a bit scrambled.

Stephen Fowler “An Oddly Modern Antiquarian Bookshop”, The New York Times Style Magazine March 10, 2013

Let’s discuss! I think there is a huge appeal to the “books as artifacts” idea. I may subscribe to it a bit myself, with my shelves at home absolutely overflowing with books that I think are beautiful but will likely never read. Still, my soul absolutely rebels at the idea that the only way to sell books is as artifacts. I see differently every day. I suppose my rebuttal to Stephen Fowler would be that the book industry is still big enough for many different types of bookselling.

But I suppose the real conversation is which the book industry is going from here.