Today, December 15, is the last day to order from Amazon.com using free Super Saver Shipping and still receive books in time for Christmas giving. So I’m putting aside my regular look at the New York Times bestseller list this week and instead pointing out some matching sets of books perfect for readers of your list.

Monday: books for conspiracy buffs
Tuesday: celebrating the season
Wednesday: armchair traveling
Thursday: on the lookout for UFOs and strange creatures
Today: lost classics of literature

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This Friday, December 15, is the last day to order from Amazon.com using free Super Saver Shipping and still receive books in time for Christmas giving. So I’m gonna put aside my regular look at the New York Times bestseller list this week and instead point out some matching sets of books perfect for readers of your list.

Monday: books for conspiracy buffs
Tuesday: celebrating the season
Wednesday: armchair traveling
Today: on the lookout for UFOs and strange creatures
Friday: lost classics of literature

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

This Friday, December 15, is the last day to order from Amazon.com using free Super Saver Shipping and still receive books in time for Christmas giving. So I’m gonna put aside my regular look at the New York Times bestseller list this week and instead point out some matching sets of books perfect for readers of your list.

Monday: books for conspiracy buffs
Tuesday: celebrating the season
Today: armchair traveling
Thursday: on the lookout for UFOs and strange creatures
Friday: lost classics of literature

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

This Friday, December 15, is the last day to order from Amazon.com using free Super Saver Shipping and still receive books in time for Christmas giving. So I’m gonna put aside my regular look at the New York Times bestseller list this week and instead point out some matching sets of books perfect for readers of your list.

Monday: books for conspiracy buffs
Today: celebrating the season
Wednesday: armchair traveling
Thursday: on the lookout for UFOs and strange creatures
Friday: lost classics of literature

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

This Friday, December 15, is the last day to order from Amazon.com using free Super Saver Shipping and still receive books in time for Christmas giving. So I’m gonna put aside my regular look at the New York Times bestseller list this week and instead point out some matching sets of books perfect for readers of your list.

Today: books for conspiracy buff
Tuesday: celebrating the season
Wednesday: armchair traveling
Thursday: on the lookout for UFOs and strange creatures
Friday: lost classics of literature

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

Looks like the major player in bookselling these days has decided that print-on-demand is the coming thing:

Multiple HP Indigo digital presses have been installed at Amazon fulfillment centers and are now producing full-color books on demand as well as color covers for black and white books.

Why?

The books-on-demand market is expected to grow from approximately 20 billion book pages in 2006 to approximately 38 billion book pages by 2009. This is due chiefly to the increasing demand for small-volume, rare and self-published books.

This is great news for book lovers around the world. No innovation in print publishing today can take off without the backing of the 800-pound gorilla in the virtual room, and this is Amazon saying that POD is not only here to stay but is set to take off. This will make it even easier for boutique publishers like Cosimo to continue our mission to bring back into print — in attractive new editions — lost classics that have been unavailable to readers for decades, and longer, and to bring to light the work of new authors with more select readerships than those the corporate publishing houses deign to deal with.

It’s an exciting time to be a reader and a writer…

(Technorati tags: Amazon, POD, print on demand)

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One of the things I love about working at Cosimo is that I’m constantly discovering wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully weird!) old books that I’ve never even heard of before, as well as getting regular reminders of great classics that I either haven’t read since school or have never read at all (and should). But even more surprising is that the more I look through books published 50, 100, 150, even 200 years ago, the more I see that the topics that fascinate readers today are, in many instances, the same ones that booklovers were gobbling up decades and centuries ago.

Every week, I take a look at the current New York Times best-seller lists and point out a few Cosimo Classics that connect to today’s hottest books. Cuz all true readers know that too much of a good thing is never enough.

Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes fame is back on the Times paperback nonfiction list with his Teacher Man: A Memoir, at No. 8. His concerns seems a bit less philosophical than what legendary and influential educator Maria Montessori was dealing with when she developed her groundbreaking The Montessori Method, but her ideas continue to be urgently necessary today as “traditional” methods of early-childhood schooling seem to be failing us. Published in Italian in 1909 and first translated into English in 1912, these revolutionary theories focus on the individuality of the child and on nurturing her inherent joy of learning to create schools and other learning environments that are oriented on the child. Eschewing rote memorization and drilling, Montessori’s method helps to foster abstract thinking and to fulfill a child’s highest potential, emotionally, physically and intellectually, and parents and teachers today still find the ideas herein immensely valuable.

Over on the Times paperback fiction list this week at No. 16 is The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream, by Paulo Coelho, which features a journey to mystical Egypt. That fabled land has long inspired travelers and seekers after wisdom, as in Pierre Loti’s mesmerizing Egypt. Called one of the finest descriptive writers of his day, and certainly one of the most original, Loti, a French writer and sailor, traveled the world in the late 19th century and painted what he saw in prose acclaimed as extraordinarily rhythmic and lyrical. This 1909 novel is a dreamlike reverie of travels through Egypt just before it became overrun by Western tourists. For readers today, it serves as a window into a world forever lost.

(Technorati tags: Frank McCourt, Teacher Man, Maria Montessori, Montessori Method, Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, Egypt, Pierre Loti)

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