Judging a book by its cover

This is one of my all-time favorite book covers (technically it's the front cover of a jacket). I'm not sure exactly what it is about it that makes me so drawn to it. The first time UNP designer Annie Shahan showed it to me I said that I would buy that book for the jacket alone. I love the colors, the image, and especially the way she handled the type.

In the Shadow of Memory
by Floyd Skloot
University of Nebraska Press

In December 1988 Floyd Skloot was stricken by a virus that targeted his brain, leaving him totally disabled and utterly changed. In the Shadow of Memory is an intimate picture of what it is like to find oneself possessed of a ravaged memory and unstable balance and confronted by wholesale changes in both cognitive and emotional powers. Skloot also explores the gradual reassembling of himself, putting together his scattered memories, rediscovering the meaning of childhood and family history, and learning a new way to be at home in the world. Combining the author’s skills as a poet and novelist, this book finds humor, meaning, and hope in the story of a fragmented life made whole by love and the courage to thrive.

Keming

A new typographic term meaning the result of improper kerning.
from Ironic Sans via Boing Boing

Teeny Project Runway

A couple of my favorites

The entries are in and it's time to vote in Mason-Dixon Knitting's teeny project runway contest. You can see all of the entries in a flickr group here.

New craft projects

This tutorial shows how to make these rings:

They're homemade ShrinkyDinks!! I love them. I'm going to try it—is anyone else interested?

Also, this no-sew jersey scarf (instructions here):


I ran across both of these via the craft and found blog.

Oscars 2008

One of the things I most look forward to after the Oscars: Cintra Wilson's column the day after. You really should go read the whole thing (and ones from previous years, as well).

Here are some highlights:

The third "Enchanted" number had waltzing couples dressed like Cinderella and Prince Charming, which could only have been choreographed by John Ashcroft or a 6-year-old girl.

To karmically rebalance these mortal offenses, Bob Fosse must rise and vengefully return from his grave to fan-kick down the door of Robert Iger's summer home and terrorize him with zombie jazz hands.

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In a year where most of the actresses were shielded from their own regrettable taste by professional stylists like Rachel Zoe, best supporting actress winner Tilda Swinton, at least, was bravely and refreshingly fashion-forward enough to look bonkers. She wore no makeup and what looked like a velvet Isamu Noguchi coffee table, and spoke in insouciant, artistic free verse about Oscar's naked buttocks in the great weirdo-artiste tradition of Dustin Hoffman.

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Real life, for all its broken noses, cigarette butts and bad decisions, is more beautiful than the L'Oréal illusion, or six hours in the grip of Rachel Zoe—provided you can muster enough emotional intelligence to feel your way out of a paper bag, and you're not so desperately afraid of offending people or not looking pretty that you can't move your face or be funny anymore.

Oddest book title of the year

The Bookseller magazine has announced the shortlist for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year:

I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen
How to Write a How to Write Book
Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues
Cheese Problems Solved
If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood

(thanks, Courtney)

New books

I haven't read anything by these authors before so I can't wait to dig in.


Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
(ebook from eReader.com)



The Learners: A Novel by Chip Kidd
(cloth from the University Bookstore at UNL)



Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by by Leonie Swann
(cloth from the University Bookstore at UNL)