The Bookfinder.com journal rounds up some links about custom library designers, who do things like “custom-design a $70,000 insta-library for a Saudi Arabian sheik.” Would you like to buy “books by the foot?” (it’s a great way to furnish a room, if not the cheapest) We’ve looked at this phenomenon before, in March and again in August.
Insta-Libraries
Web site home to New Yorker rejects
The Village Voice has a profile of a Web site called Silence of the City, where stories rejected from the The New Yorker’s Talk of the Town section are posted by Mac Montandon, whose own work has been rejected by the section more than once. There’s only seven pieces posted right now, but its a fun idea. Among them is an article by Lisa Selin Davis (whose novel Belly I read a while back). Of another NYer reject, M.M. De Voe, the Voice writes that she “finds the experience of submitting her stories to The New Yorker oddly exhilarating in itself. Perhaps it’s like that feeling you get when you buy a lottery ticket.” I wonder if how many notable folks have been rejected by the NYer. I’d guess quite a few.(via)
The Road: A Comedic Translation (Part 3)
Penguin’s Blank Slate
Penguin, well-known for classics with sophisticated packaging, has decided to cede creative control to its readers with a new slate of books that feature “naked front covers… printed on art-quality paper.” Penguin announced the initiative on its blog and they have already posted some reader-designed covers in a gallery on its site. So far, the books are only available from the UK, and the titles that come with blank covers are:Meditations by Marcus AureliusCrime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoyevskyMagic Tales by Jacob GrimmThe Waves by Virginia WoolfThe Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar WildeEmma by Jane Austen