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housingworksbookstore:

Updated Dickens tree! We’ve added some ornaments/readers for Sunday’s What the Dickens? event (Scoutmob and TONY think you should come). Full list of readers is below (in the order they are reading, if you want to catch someone in particular), it’s going to be great this year. We’ll kick things off with caroling from the New York City Master Chorale at noon; the reading will start at 1PM. Drop in or stay for the whole thing; we’ll be keeping you fueled with festive treats from our cafe, hot chocolate, mulled wine, and more. BAH! HUMBUG!
Simon Van Booy Emily Gould Stefan Block Martha Southgate Lev Grossman Scott Adsit + John Hodgman Susan Minot Baratunde Thurston Jill Hennessy Alexander Chee Eileen Myles Kathryn Harrison Said Sayrafiezadeh Elissa Schappell Ira Glass Laura Miller Emma Straub Justin Taylor Lynne Tillman Jonathan Dee Aryn Kyle Michael Kostroff Julie Klam Mike Albo + Sandra Bauleo Kurt Andersen Elyssa East Josh Cohen Lorin Stein Eve Plumb David Goodwillie

Updated Dickens tree! We’ve added some ornaments/readers for Sunday’s What the Dickens? event (Scoutmob and TONY think you should come). Full list of readers is below (in the order they are reading, if you want to catch someone in particular), it’s going to be great this year. We’ll kick things off with caroling from the New York City Master Chorale at noon; the reading will start at 1PM. Drop in or stay for the whole thing; we’ll be keeping you fueled with festive treats from our cafe, hot chocolate, mulled wine, and more. BAH! HUMBUG!

Simon Van Booy
Emily Gould
Stefan Block
Martha Southgate
Lev Grossman
Scott Adsit + John Hodgman
Susan Minot
Baratunde Thurston
Jill Hennessy
Alexander Chee
Eileen Myles
Kathryn Harrison
Said Sayrafiezadeh
Elissa Schappell
Ira Glass
Laura Miller
Emma Straub
Justin Taylor
Lynne Tillman
Jonathan Dee
Aryn Kyle
Michael Kostroff
Julie Klam
Mike Albo + Sandra Bauleo
Kurt Andersen
Elyssa East
Josh Cohen
Lorin Stein
Eve Plumb
David Goodwillie

millionsmillions:

Though Tomalin’s breadth of knowledge is wonderful, it is the clarity of the writing and the absolute singularity of purpose that made this such a delightful book: Tomalin wants to explain. She does not want to tell you how clever she is, how much research she had done, nor engage in controversy or best anyone. This is an exploration of Pepys, not an academic cockfight.

Denise Mina selects Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self for her Year in Reading feature.

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book-aesthete:

5 Christmas Novellas by Charles Dickens

1. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843. [viii], 166, [2] pp. Four hand-colored engraved plates and illustrations in the text by John Leech. FIRST ISSUE.
2. The Chimes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1845. [viii], 175, [1] pp. Additional engraved title, frontispiece, illustrations throughout by John Leech, Richard Doyle, and others. FIRST STATE.
3. The Cricket on the Hearth. London: for the author by Bradbury and Evans, 1846. [viii], 174, [2] pp. Additional engraved title, frontispiece and illustrations throughout by John Leech, Richard Doyle and others. FIRST EDITION.
4. The Battle of Life. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1846. [viii], 175, [3] pp. Additional engraved title, frontispiece, illustrations throughout by Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, John Leech and others. FIRST EDITION.
5. The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1848. [viii], 188 pp. Additional engraved title, frontispiece and illustrations throughout by John Tenniel, John Leech and others. FIRST EDITION.

All bound in full crimson morocco, spine gilt, upper covers with morocco inlay vignettes depicting characters from each of the works, a.e.g., all with original cloth bound in at rear, for Henry Sotheran. Custom cloth slipcase. Mild fading to original cloth on some volumes, spines somewhat sunned.

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“Some new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the Bells; some faint impression of the ringing of the Chimes; some giddy consciousness of having seen the swarm of phantoms reproduced and reproduced until the recollection of them lost itself in the confusion of their numbers; some hurried knowledge, how conveyed to him he knew not, that more years had passed; and Trotty, with the Spirit of the child attending him, stood looking on at mortal company.”
-The Chimes, Chapter IV

housingworksbookstore:

JUST ANNOUNCED! Live From Home with Julia Nunes

Tuesday, January 17 at 8:00pm

Julia Nunes plays ukulele super hard, she sings her face off, and she turns terrible moods into toe tapping sessions. She’s most known for her videos, which serve as a window into the list of her favorite songs as well as a platform for her heart-wrenchingly honest originals. Several layers of voices and instruments comprise the reinterpretations of 90s pop songs and breath new life into those “oldies but goodies”. She’s covered Nat King Cole and N*Sync, and it’s impossible to just watch one. Audience members are willingly sucked into an alternate reality where everything is harmonized and ukulele-ized and Julia’s lyrics are somehow perfectly describing that feeling that has remained eluded by any song on the radio.

At age 22, Julia has a ridiculous amount of experience. She started writing songs at age 13 and performing them at open mic nights in upstate New York. From there she took a big jump into the opening slot of a Ben Folds tour. They both played solo sets but came together on the song that helped Ben find Julia in the first place. She had covered his song “Gone” in a video and he too was taken in, like so many before him. They took to the stage, adding her uke his piano as they harmonized to close the shows. Nunes has toured England and headlined countless US tours since then but she’s got a weakness for Bens. In November of 2011 she left for a two-month tour with Ben Kweller. She’s also shared the stage with Weezer, Matt & Kim, and Katy Perry. Not to mention she’s rocked the stage at the Bonnaroo Music Festival two years in a row.

Her crowd-funded album, Settle Down (release date: Feb 28, 2012) will be her fourth album of original material. She broke records on kickstarter.com, raising $78,888 and selling over 1,200 copies of Settle Down months before it was even finished being recorded.

Tickets available at Live From Home with Julia Nunes — Events — Housing Works.

iheartclassics:

Lookie here, it’s a birthday cake for Jane Austen by the fabulous Heather Baird of Sprinkle Bakes!

Who wants the first slice?

sprinklebakes:

Happy Birthday Jane Austen!

bookmania:

Bookshelf vista (via wendycooper)

emilybooks:

Our e-zine is free for subscribers and for non-subscribers it’s $1.99 so buy it! Or subscribe!

Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews: "Rudy" Indicted For Stock Fraud »

lazybookreviews:

…finally.

No, I mean, I love Sean Astin, and everything, but I was in the Catholic school system from second through thirteenth grade (Canada, you know), and was therefore forced to watch “Rudy” on rainy days at least sixteen, seventeen times.

No movie is more frequently screened for innocent…

Electric Lit interviews our founding editor C. Max Magee

Electric Lit: We’re currently in the season of year-end lists. What makes The Year in Reading different than other lists? And what do you hope it will accomplish?

Max: The year-end list has become a cliché and is very obviously now little more than a symptom of our cultural obsession with keeping score and ranking everything. It’s a fun pastime, one that we at The Millions are not above engaging in, but at year end, amid the onslaught, it becomes somewhat meaningless and feels transparently like a marketing boondoggle to support the promotional-book-cover-sticker-and-blurb industry. There are so many best of the year lists that everything is the best (and the worst). So, how can we have some year-end fun while still extracting something meaningful from the effort? To echo some comments I’ve made in past years when introducing the series, among the chief arguments leveled against such “best of” lists is the way they posit an illusory pinnacle of achievement and quality. By means of a grand consensus, the list smooths over natural and exciting variations in individual taste. But true discoveries are often made not by finding out what everybody liked, but by getting from one trusted fellow reader a recommendation that strikes a nerve or piques an interest. And rather than hearing from just one trusted fellow reader, we try to give you 70 or so each year. The cup overfloweth.

W. W. Norton: Weather Report »

wwnorton:

We will have a continuation of today tomorrow

Clouds will form these ragged gloves
in which the hands of God make giant fists
as He grits His teeth against the slaves
of time. And the sun and moon will never rest.

from the boring grind of dark and light:
subway tokens glittering on the…