Remembering a fellow book lover

Kirt Card
September 9, 1949 - May 12, 2008

I first "met" Kirt back when I worked at the University Bookstore at UNL. This was way back before the wide wide world of webs, when all we had for reference were publisher catalogs and the multi-volume Books in Print (hard copy only). And the occasional helpful personal contact: sometimes a bookseller at another store, maybe a UNL faculty member, or sometimes a staff member at a publishing house. I had called the University of Nebraska Press a couple of times trying to track down regional titles and ended up talking to a guy named Kirt. It quickly became apparent that not only was this guy intimately familiar with the UNP list, but he knew a ton about regional titles in general. And to top it all off he was incredibly friendly and patient. Soon I started calling UNP and asking for Kirt whenever I had an oddball question or couldn't remember (again) where to get that Weeds of Nebraska book. I even told new employees, as part of their training, to call him if they had questions about regional titles.

In September of 2000 I started working at UNP. It had been a while since I'd worked at the bookstore so I hadn't talked to my pal Kirt in a while. I was excited to finally meet Kirt in person—I think I kind of freaked him out by being all spazzy fangirl. I was surprised by how quiet and shy he was in person. I was lucky enough to have worked with him for a few years. He was just as friendly and patient as a coworker as he had been on the phone. Also, as Erica writes, he made some very memorable contributions to our food days! We all miss him greatly.

I finished Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

I read it as an ebook from eReader on my Treo. It was recommended to my by my pal Amy and I loved it. I'd probably already be done with the next book in the series, Pretties, if I could find it as an ebook.

Why oh why make the first available as an ebook, but not the rest?

"Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license--for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world--and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Thirty Tables of Contents

The Design Observer's Thirty Tables of Contents, including one by UNP (Ronell's Telephone Book, designed by Richard Eckersley):

With this in mind, we offer this book, compiled on the occasion of AIGA’s Twelfth Biennial National Design Conference in Denver last year. In it, we have choosen to narrow our sights to the written word, considering what we read next, how we move from one chapter to the next, and how we navigate through a single volume. Often overlooked by serious bibliophiles, the humble TOC is our portal into a world of knowledge. In the realm of the printed word, it heralds what comes next, a verbal proscenium with its own peculiar prose and typographic conventions.

In this book, we have gathered together thirty Table of Contents pages from our personal collections. On the surface, the selection may elude standard organizational conceits: why a design collection that also includes poetry and fiction? Why Philip Larkin and not Billy Collins, Ayn Rand and not Philip Roth, Paul Rand and not Jan Tschichold? Like “next” itself, there’s no intentional logic or over-arching plan: we just found these examples engaging, the discrepancies between them even more so.

For more of Richard's work, check out richardeckersley.com, a site created by Sam Eckersley (Richard's son).

New episode of Titlepage

Featuring Simon Winchester, author of one of my all-time favorite books, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Watch it here.

What does this say about me?

I actually like almost all of the songs on Hell's iPod. I'm not saying they're good, just that I like them: Muskrat Love, Chevy Van, Billy Don't Be a Hero, and Seasons in the Sun!

Notable exceptions:

• Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" which, if you really listen, is quite clearly a man confessing to murdering his wife

• everything and anything by Rupert Holmes. Holy mother what a creep.
  

I finished Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman

I liked it. It made me I wish I had watched The Wire, though. Also, I missed some of the secondary characters, like her family, Crow, etc. I found the new characters (the TV people) kind of boring. Whitney was great as usual.

My Library of Congress

The new www.myloc.gov site launched a few weeks ago. From the site:

New exhibitions enhanced by interactive technology offer a chance to encounter rare and unique items, such as the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Gutenberg Bible, the 1507 Waldseemüller map that first named America and Thomas Jefferson’s recreated library.

My current favorite part is The Declaration of Independence: From Rough Draft to Proclamation

Students analyze Thomas Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence, compare its text to that of the final document adopted by Congress, and discuss the significance of wording differences.

You can thank HBO's John Adams for my renewed interest in American history.