I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet, but Book Sense has merged with IndieBound. IndieBound includes a similar search engine for finding your local independent bookstores and (my favorite Book Sense feature) a list of recommended books called Indie Next List. However, I cannot find past lists from Book Sense on the site. The “Community” section is still under construction, so I’ll just have to wait and see what I think in a few months. The ABA has an article about the merger, though not exactly why it was necessary: “IndieBound builds upon the foundation of the Book Sense program.”

Any thoughts on the merger or the IndieBound site?

1. Notification ::
2. Cheat ::
3. Top Ten ::
4. Draft ::
5. Unbelievable ::
6. Cheap ::
7. Spontaneous ::
8. Harass ::
9. Lipstick ::
10. Transpire ::

Read my “answers” in the comments section. Feel free to leave your answers, too!

Courtesy of Unconscious Mutterings.

I’ve been having fun with Unconcious Mutterings, so I thought I would join another weekly post - Weekly Geeks. This week’s theme is to discuss a magazine that I frequently read.

1. Name of magazine. The Believer - a literary magazine run by McSweeney’s

2. Do you subscribe or just buy it now and then? I purchase my copies from St. Mark’s Bookshop each month.

3. What’s your favorite regular feature in the magazine? Hands down, my favorite column is Nick Hornby’s “Stuff I’ve Been Reading”. Hornby begins with two lists: books purchased and books read in the past month. Then he writes about books, but also tends to go off on tangents.

4. What do you think your interest in this magazine says about you? I’m a strong supporter of McSweeney’s and enjoy the writing styles of the authors associated with The Believer.

5. How long have you been reading this magazine? Since March 2003, when they published their first issue.

6. Is there any unique or quirky aspect to the magazine that keeps you reading? The magazine as a whole is quite unique. It’s well designed and uses great artists for the images. All cover images are created by Charles Burns. Each year, they feature a special editions such as a music and visual volumes. This year, they also have a movie issue.

UPDATE: McSweeney’s and The Believer are owned by Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The magazine is in no way religious in nature.

1. Loneliness ::
2. Traffic ::
3. Chaos ::
4. Burp ::
5. 500 ::
6. Movie ::
7. Coma ::
8. Bark ::
9. Stare ::
10. Angelina ::

Read my “answers” in the comments section. Feel free to leave your answers, too!

Courtesy of Unconscious Mutterings.

Kate has tagged me for the Seven Songs meme. Below is a list of seven songs I’m really enjoying right now. Tagging seven other bloggers to do the same via email.

Unlike Kate, I rarely listen to a physical or virtual radio. I do read a couple of music blogs: Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands and I Guess I’m Floating. So here’s my current playlist:

1. “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton. From the video game Portal, “Still Alive” is written by the same person who gave us gems like “Code Monkey”. Yes, I’m a nerd. Here are lyrics to give you a taste of the song, all sung by a female computer: “Aperture Science - we do what we must because we can.” “Now these points of data make a beautiful line. And we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time.” After hearing it the first time, Christian showed me a video of Coulton performing the song live using Rock Band with Veronica Belmont, Leo Laporte, and Merlin Mann.
2. “Jesus, etc.” by Wilco. Since I cannot listen to music at work, sometimes a song will just get stuck in my head all day. Luckily, this time around it was “Jesus, etc.” I’m fairly new to Wilco’s music - I started with “A Ghost is Born” and then moved backwards to “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and “A.M.” There’s even a documentary about the band called “I am Trying to Break Your Heart.” Great stuff.
3. “Shut Up and Let Me Go” by the Ting Tings. Yes, from the iPod commercial. Yes, I’m part of the Apple cult. That doesn’t change the fact this is a good album and a great song. A perfect people-watching song while taking the subway to work.
4. “Again and Again” by the Bird and the Bee. Not really my kind of music, but a fan’s fake music video of the song won me over. I’m a sucker for a good YouTube video that shows off Mac’s magic OS features.
5. “Hello Sunshine” by Super Furry Animals. I put this song in heavy rotation as soon as the sun came back out in NYC. “In honesty, it’s been a while since we had reason left to smile.”
6. “If You Want Me” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. This one’s off the “Once” movie soundtrack, which happens to be one of the few musicals I actually like. Irglova shows off her impressive voice on this tune. Listening to it always pulls me back into that moment in the movie where she’s walking around the streets in her pajamas.
7. “Slow Dance” by John Legend. Legend was on The Colbert Report awhile back and I’ve been smitten with him ever since.

My friend Kristin had this on her blog and I wanted to play, too! In bold are the titles I’ve read (from Entertainment Weekly’s list of the New Classics)

1. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

via someecards.com

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
Date: Monday, July 28 @ 7:30 PM
Location: Solas Bar

Wow, it’s now 8 PM and the weekend is coming to an end. I didn’t get around to any of the posts I wanted to write about: my trip to Alaska or the books I’ve recently read or even Kate’s song meme (I’m excited about that one).

How did the weekend go by so quickly? Iron Man, The Strand, Belgian frites, Scramble, lunch with friends, walking through LES, four hour nap - yep, it was well spent. I just didn’t get around to my “to do” list!

1. Goodbye ::
2. Cage ::
3. Buddy ::
4. Magic words ::
5. Library ::
6. Fall in love ::
7. Tense ::
8. Work! ::
9. Empty ::
10. Heat wave ::

Read my “answers” in the comments section. Feel free to leave your answers, too!

Courtesy of Unconscious Mutterings.

I’m excited about this upcoming book event. Gotta love St. Mark’s Bookshop. Hope to see you at Solas Bar on Monday for book group and Thursday for this reading series event.

THIS THURSDAY, JUNE 26th we’ll “take our ashes and, singing, fling / them from the top of the Brill Building” as we invite writers for CONTINUUM’S 33 1/3 SERIES to THE ST. MARK’S BOOKSHOP READING SERIES AT SOLAS.

33 1/3 is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike. St. Mark’s Bookshop will invite 33 1/3 Authors LD Beghtol (Magnetic Field’s 69 Love Songs), Franklin Bruno (Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces) and Elisabeth Vincentelli (Abba’s Abba Gold) to the Solas stage.

…

Signed books will be available at St. Mark’s Bookshop before the reading. All St. Mark’s Bookshop events are free to the public.

WHEN: Thursday, June 26, 7:30 PM
WHERE: SOLAS BAR (232 E. 9th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues). See a map.
More Info: St. Mark’s Bookshop Reading Series at Solas

Learning I’m not very good at Scramble (online Boggle), but having a great time playing anyway. Want to play? (via Facebook)

Oh, my! I have a new favorite YouTube video. Watch it when you’re blue - it’s impossible not to smile!

It’s a very sad day in the Gloddy/Taylor household. We are canceling our subscription to Netflix. Yes, I’ve been frustrated with the “very long wait[s]” for new movies - even indie movies; suffering through it with a little help from iTunes movie rental via Apple TV.

But today was the end. Beginning September 1, we will no longer have separate queues. This means we also cannot have separate ratings or individual profiles for the community features. So, I am calling Netflix and saying goodbye.

Hello Kim’s Video.

I’m back online!

I’ll be offline through June 18, but will still check my mail thanks to my lovely iPhone. What would I do without this thing?

Enjoy,
Restless Reader

For the Book Awards Reading Challenge, I have from August 2008 to June 2009 to read ten books that have won awards. I’m really excited about this one, as I did quite a bit of research before deciding on the final titles. I wanted each book to have won a different award and along the way found some very interesting books. Here’s my list:

1. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (Hugo Award)
2. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman (Quill Awards - Mystery/Suspense)
3. The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (National Book Award)
4. The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa (Independent Foreign Fiction Prize)
5. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (The Pulitzer Prize)
6. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu (The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction)
7. Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriaul (National Book Critics’ Circle Award)
8. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Nebula Award)
9. Half Life by Shelley Jackson (James Tiptree, Jr. Award)
10. Runaway by Alice Munro (Giller Prize)

I’m not sure I can wait until August to begin!

I’m back on the book challenge bandwagon. The Wind-Up Book Chronicle challenges me to complete books that I started before May 1, but have not finished. Since I have until November 15 to read my three books, I should be successful in this challenge!

1. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides (began in February)
2. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto - Michael Pollan (began in January)
3. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver (began in April)

Challenge hosted by 3M.

I have been very open about my disdain for Oprah. I’m not a fan of the show or many of the messages to her followers. But I have to give her credit for this one…she’s going vegan for 21 days. I’m not sure I could do that. I’ve tried, but being vegetarian seems to be the right place for me.

Oprah’s vegan diet is part of a larger spiritual and body cleansing based on the book “Quantum Wellness” by Kathy Freston. I feared from the title that the book’s message would be similar to the film “What the bleep do we know?”. That does not seem to be the case - no quantum mysticism here. I continued looking into Freston’s process and it seems that most steps do not have to be spiritual in nature. For instance, you can meditate without it being a religious experience.

Without having read the book, it’s difficult for me to give a solid opinion on the subject (possibly a quick read at the library at a later date). The skeptic in me says there are too many marketing buzz words around the program, like “pillars of success”. Though I have to give Freston and Oprah credit for going vegan, for now I’ll stick to reading health/food-related books by Dr. Dean Ornish and Michael Pollan.

Our good friends Tom and Heather came up to see us last weekend and we had a blast. We spent a good part of Saturday just walking around the city. In the East Village, we ran into the dance parade (who knew???). I finally saw the depressing demolition construction going on at Washington Square Park.

For lunch, Heather and I had an amazing brie and pear sandwich at ‘SNice. Then we headed into Chelsea Market where I purchased more Spa tea from T Salon. Heather wanted to check out the Chelsea Hotel, which has a plaque outside the building I had never seen before - Arthur C. Clarke wrote “2001: A Space Odyssey” at the hotel. We ended the night at Brick Lane Curry House (I scored a reservation for four on a Saturday night!).

Sunday was rainy, so we headed up to the MET to see the Superheroes exhibit. We were all expecting something completely different, but it was interesting. Spending some time in the modern art section was good, too. There was a painting by Picasso entitled “Still Life with a Bottle of Rum” from 1911 that was quite impressive (image left). I’ll want to go back soon and check out more of the collection.

Our final stop was Hummus Place on 8th between 1st & A (image right). I had no idea they served sangrias! Very unique flavor, as they add star anise with the fruit mix. (I’m hoping to talk Mike into going there tomorrow, actually.)

I’m sure the next visit will include more video games, but I loved hanging out in the city with such a great couple.