Please Don’t Drool On The Books When You See This

Today while browsing the “books” tag of blogs, I came across a post on Two Muffins In An Oven about bookshelf porn.  I kid you not.

While there are no nudes or risque *ahem* activities, book lovers will definitely get a lot of pleasure from this website.

Bookshelf Porn is a collection of amazing photos of bookshelves, libraries, bookstores, and other bookshelf-related things from across the world.  It’s impossible to count how many pictures there are, but you can keep scrolling down the page for a while without running out of pictures or getting bored.

Here are a few of my favorites:

via home-designing.com


via home-designing.com

via spaces-in-between

Book Christmas Tree at Gleeson library (San Francisco)

via bookstorecouture

via nopnop

via bookshelves

and finally….

via nevertotwice

^Jay (the boyfriend), this last picture goes out to you

I hope you all enjoyed these pictures (and many more at Bookshelf Porn) as much as I did.  I also followed them on Twitter, so check them out there too.

I’ve posted once or twice about it, but for those who haven’t seen yet — I now have a Twitter account @booksandboston.  I’ll be Tweeting when new posts are updated, so follow me for another way to stay updated with my blog.  Also, I’m hosting a giveaway which you can sign up for here.  Check it out!

Book Review Request Etiquette

Today I had the honor of getting my very first request to review a book on my blog. I opened the e-mail excitedly and looked forward to this awesome opportunity.

However, my excitement disappeared when I read For: Blog Name That Isn’t Books And Boston.

I continued on to read Dear Blog Name That Isn’t Books And Boston.

Then, I skimmed past an excerpt of the novel, some mumbo-jumbo about the author, and finally got to the ending line of I would be very honored if you would consider my novel for a review on Blog Name That Isn’t Books And Boston!

I was not pleased.  Yes, I understand that this mistake was not personal and likely due to some silly technical error, but I found this very unprofessional.  If I was an author trying to self-promote my book I’d like to think that I would exercise a bit more tact and make sure I actually get the bloggers’ names right when sending out mass requests for book reviews.

I have to admit, I sent the author a bit of a scathing reply.  It wasn’t completely mean, but it pretty much summed up what I said here about professionalism and all that.  I concluded with saying that if they were in fact trying to contact me and not Blog Name That Isn’t Books And Boston, they should write back so we could discuss the possible book review.

Shortly after sending this I received another e-mail.  The author was extremely apologetic and explained that they must have incorrectly inserted the e-mails into the program they use to send out book requests.  Honestly, I started to feel like a bit of an a**hole.  Here I was being rude to this individual who made a mistake that I just as easily could have done.  I have absolutely confused names multiple times.  Still, in a professional setting you do need to be careful.

Then, I noticed this sentence in the 2nd email:

I would be very honored if you would review Book Name for Books in Boston!

Granted, it is a very small error, but I stopped feeling like an a**hole immediately.  For those who didn’t notice, the author’s second reply (in which they were apologetic about the previous error) addressed me as Books in Boston, when my blog name (as I said multiple times in my reply to their first e-mail) is Books And Boston.  Maybe I’m just being a b*tch, but you’d think after the first error an author would be extra careful to use the correct name the second time.

I think I’m not going to bother replying to this e-mail.  Needless to say, I’m not doing the review.

For all you authors out there, what do you think? Am I just being a b*tch? (I promise I won’t get mad if you say I am – I’m really curious about other people’s opinions on this).  Do you make sure to be extra careful about things like this when sending out e-mails? And for other book bloggers – have you ever encountered a similar situation with book review requests? How might you have handled this differently?

To the author who wrote me: If you happen to read this, I do understand that you made a mistake, but it was careless.  I don’t want an additional apology, but be aware of this in the future.  Careless mistakes DO affect the professional image you are trying to portray.  Also, I have not listed your name or title of your book because I am not trying to call you out or injure your reputation at all.  The e-mails provoked a necessary discussion on proper etiquette though, so that is why it is being posted here. 

Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Latest Novel

Carlos Ruiz Zafon once again brings us back to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop in his latest novel “The Prisoner of Heaven”.  El Prisionero Del Cielo was published in Spain two days ago.  I’m really wishing my Spanish skills were a bit better right now since I’m pretty sure the few years I spent studying Spanish in high school won’t get me through this.  I do want to get a copy of The Shadow of the Wind and his other books in their original language at some point though.

The Prisoner of Heaven will be translated into English and available in the UK on July 21, 2012.  I’m not sure of the U.S. release date yet.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s official website states:

“The Prisoner of Heaven returns to the world of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop. It begins one year after the close of The Shadow of the Wind when a mysterious stranger enters the shop, looking for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.”

This joins Zafon’s other books The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game which both revolve around the Sempere & Sons bookshop in Barcelona, Spain as well.  The Shadow of the Wind is my ultimate favorite book so I’m really excited to read the latest in this series.

Do Happy Endings Exist?

Or happy books for that matter? After recommending The Shadow of the Wind to someone, they loved it of course, they asked me for more suggestions.  I immediately had a few book titles ready to shout out until I heard the dreaded words…“I think I want to read a happier book now.”  Woah.

Let’s see what books I’ve enjoyed most recently:
1)  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – a young boy’s grief after his father dies in 9/11
2)  The Book Thief – Germany during WWII, Germans die from bombings and Jews die in concentration camps
3)  The Bridge to Terabithia – contains a main character death (I won’t say the character’s name for the risk of spoiling it for others)

Then a realization hit me.  I can’t think of a single good book I’ve read and really enjoyed recently that could be called a “happy book”.

Are the only books that appeal to me ones filled with tortured, struggling characters and tales of misery?  It’s quite possible.

Since I’ve hit a depressing dead-end of happy book possibilities, I’m appealing to my blogging buddies for advice.  What are some good happy books? Also, do you find you tend to read books of a similar mood or am I alone in loving the depressing ones?

Get the most out of your reading experience

You’re totally wrapped up in a book and completely identify with the main character, but you keep coming across things – songs, books, movies, places, names – that you don’t recognize.  You could look up every single one, but when it gets to the fifth song your favorite character mentions loving this gets a bit tiring.  So what do you do? You go to SmallDemons.

SmallDemons is a new website devoted to sharing connections between books.  Right now the site is still in beta, but you can request an invite to get access.  I got my invite a couple days ago – about 2-3 days after requesting it.  Already the site features a variety of books.  On each book’s page it shows people, places, music, movies, tv shows, books, vehicles, gadgets, clothing, weapons, and many other things mentioned in the book.  You can scroll through these lists and click on any person, place, song, etc.  This will then bring you to a page showing the other books that have mentioned these examples.

Furthermore, the site will feature recommendations based on books you like – as a sort of Pandora station for books.  There will also be ways to upload your bookshelves, keep track of your favorite books, and create music playlists.  Since the site is still growing they’re working on a bunch of really cool features.  Best of all, if you get an invite to access the site through beta you can be part of this development process by submitting your own ideas.

There are a lot of awesome ideas that I can’t explain in such a short post, but check the site out at SmallDemons. Here is a short video describing the unique experience:

I originally found out about this website through this blog post.