The Book Works

We recently discovered a group of peers who are actively discussing books, reading, and the future. This is important for all of us -- for The Book Works, this conversation is important because 1) we obviously have a passion for books and wonder what the future holds and 2) bookselling is our livelihood -- we pride ourselves on being a class of people that stretch back hundreds of years, informing and guiding our customers in our shared passion.

This new discussion grew out of a great blog (?) called Snarkmarket,  "a long-running con­ver­sa­tion about media, jour­nal­ism, tech­nol­ogy, cities, cul­ture, design, books, music, movies, the
future and the past".  Here, I (Lisa) discovered new words to characterize current trends: bookservative, bookfuturist, and technofuturist. I leave it to you to figure out what these words mean, and where your philosphy fits along the continuum. I figured out my position, and subsequently joined the new forum called Bookfuturism. YOU MUST VISIT THIS PLACE. To get started, look at the very first entry, posted by Tim Carmody, a founder of the blog and the person to coin the term "bookfuturism". 

The Book Works intends to spend a lot of time visitng Bookfuturism. We encourage you to do so, too. Our interests are philosophical but also very, very practical. We want to survive, we want to adapt, we want to stick with you (and vice versa) through the next several decades. If we are inspired enough, we may try out some ideas in a project that I'm calling "Bookfuturism: A Case Study". 

Trust us -- "bookfuturist" sounds very sci-fi -- a genre I'm not comfortable with --but, well, welcome to the future. Have a say in it.

Lisa S

Thursday's Morning Edition on NPR featured "Top Picks from Independent Booksellers." The three offering recommendations were Daniel Goldin, Boswell Book Co., Milwaukee, Wis., Rona Brinlee, the BookMark, Atlantic Beach, Fla., and our very own manager Lucia Silva! 

Listen to the story!

The New York Times named its 10 best books of 2009, noting that "after so many years, and so many lists, you might think the task of choosing the 10 Best Books would get easier. If only. The sublime story collections alone created agonies of indecision. So did the superb literary biographies we read--and deeply admired. But in the end the decisions had to be made."

This year's top 10:

Fiction
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

Nonfiction
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka (who will be at The Book Works on Jan 14, 2010!) 

Click here for the full article.