Your Ten Minute World #2: Salutation

Smokler on November 9, 2005

Whew! Episode #2 of my podcast, Your Ten Minute World, took me the better part of last night to finish up but you can find it here:

Your Ten Minute World #2.mp3

Again, If you already subscribe to this site’s rss feed (available here), do nothing. It should send the podcast directly to you as an .mp3 file. Or if you want the podcast, plug this URL…

http://feeds.feedburner.com/WhereTheresSmoke

into iTunes or whatever you grab your podcasts from.

Episode #2 is called “Salutation:” Enjoy.

Recommend a Few, Win a Few:

Smokler on November 8, 2005

So the summerwide hype of my book is drawing to a close but my publisher has kindly agreed to sponsor this contest, which gives you, the loyal or passing reader the chance to win a whole pile of really good books. Here’s how it works.

Visit this site. Recommend your favorite books, the books that changed your life, to friends and loved ones. Doesn’t have to be my book. Probably better if it’s not.

Once you’ve made your recommendations, as many as you like, your name will be entered in a drawing to win this list of 15 books, as recommended by the contributors to Bookmark Now. No names are kept or sold or placed on a spambelt by anyone.

Da List

Christian Bauman recommends: The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Tracy Chevalier recommends: Restoration by Rose Tremain
Stephanie Elizondo Griest recommends: Nothing to Declare by Mary Morris
Douglas Rushkoff recommends: Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson
Nico Cary recommends: Power Politics by Arundhati Roy
Tom Bissell recommends: The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Benjamin Nugent recommends: Atonement by Ian McEwan
Paul Collins recommends: How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
Paul Flores recommends: Smoking Lovely by Willie Perdomo
Glen David Gold recommends: Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne
Karl Soehnlein recommends: The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White
Kelley Eskridge recommends: Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Dan Kennedy recommends: Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Neal Pollack recommends: Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Megham Daum recommends: The White Album by Joan Didion

Easy peasy. Recommend books, get entered to win. And blog owners, feel free to steal the graphic above to alert your own readers about this opportunity.

Again, the Electronic Bookmark, where this contest is happening.

I’m in Maimi tomorrow, reading and seeing my folks. More this weekend.

Book Tour, Part the Second (Imaginary)

Smokler on November 7, 2005

So when I found out from Lucia that I would be missing Pandora’s first meetup because I would (again) be out of town on book tour (again), I just about lost it. Then I regained, remembered how excited I am to do be doing an event at Books and Books Miami and to see my parents, and figured this rage could be put to better use. Therefore…

If you are a creative person and have spend untold months on the road, keep a list of every event, happening, hootnanny and box social you miss at home. Then when your travels end, try and recreate these missed gatherings, one at a time on whatever scale you chose. You can throw a friend a second birthday, play a day’s worth of Matt Nathanson because you missed his concert, or reenact the Pandora Meetup with finger puppets. I say do all three.

Chip Kidd’s New Book:

Smokler on November 3, 2005

The New York Times profiles Chip Kidd, perhaps the only book jacket designer with name brand recognition, who has a new monograph out called Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006. Actually, it’s a profile of the house he shares with his partner but whatever. It gives you a lot on the man too.

Despite the steep price tag, this exictes the hell out of me. Kidd is best known for such memorable book jackets as Michael Crichton’s Jurrasic Park, David Sedaris’s Naked, and Augusten Burroughs’s Dry.

The holidays are coming up. Perfect for the book geek (me) in your life.