E BOOKS - CHANGING THE DESIGN

You might see a trend here, with the whole me posting pictures of bookshelves thing. I played with all of the Nooks last week. Or should I say Nooks. There's no "the." I don't know why. Anyway, one thing that really bothers me is that you can change the type on them--meaning you can change the font size and color and the paragraphs around so that they're really skinny and so on. I understand that making fonts really big is great for people with vision problems... but I think it just goes way too far. We book people -- illustrators, designers, etc., work really hard to make the books look nice! Within seconds this can all be destroyed. There was a giant pit in my stomach the minute I found out that the reader could do this with the devices. The reader can BUTCHER a book! Ugh.

Just one more sad thing about where things are going. Plus... you can't hang dozens of multi-colored e-books from your ceiling. Keep that in mind.

ODD (AND POSSIBLY FUNNY) CHILDREN'S BOOKS

The Huffington Post wrote an article called: The Creepiest Children's Books Ever. Here are a few of the examples they included:



Okay, I'm sure that conjoined twins is a very serious problem for perhaps one in a billion people and it's not at all a funny situation... but I'll admit it... I laughed. A lot. This is one of these things where you have to wonder who this book is targeting. Like I said: it's a serious problem for one person in a the United States MAYBE. Is there even one? I'm sure there will be a lot of sales on that one.



And this... I don't know what this story is about but perhaps they should have rethought the cover just a tad. Enough of my thoughts on that. I don't want to say anymore or I'll get myself in trouble.



And this. It's all nice and painterly and all but if you look closely there's a nude figure in it and stuff. And it's about Hiroshima. Huh???

For the rest of the covers and the journal's own thoughts on them go here. It's worth your time! Trust me. There are a few that I will admit that we, at the bookstore, carry. A couple of them do have their place for the choice customer on occasion.

DESIGN MATTERS: GOOD OL' DESIGN

For the research for my latest book I ordered a book called Brave Tales of Real Dogs. I had no idea what it looked like. All I knew is that it MIGHT have SOMETHING about my subject and it was written in 1931. When I got the book I was disapointed with the book's content. It contained almost nothing that I needed. However, its design is wonderful. The purchase was well worth every penny. I will happily perch it on my bookshelf. The design is simple, elegant, and the drawings are quiet and wonderful. You need to get up close to them and smell the pages....