Where Does Your City Rank?

Central Connecticut State ranks the Top 10 Literate Cities in the United States! USA Today can't help but offer commentary.

Where does your city rank? Is it a chain bookstore kind of city, or proud to support independents? With Top 10 Crime stats, & Top 10 Vacation spots, is a Top 10 list focused on literacy a very good thing to make people stop and reevaluate?

Give us your thoughts!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Yes, in the latest sign of the apocalypse from the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. In a bookstore near you. (More on reimagined classics at USA Today - Little Women and Werewolves anyone?)

Modern Day Prophets: Orwell vs. Huxley

Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death is still must reading, two decades after its publication. Illustrating it adds an amazing power to Postman's statements. Kudos to Ego Dialogues for the successfully making these prophecies even more contemporary. (BTW, I happen to believe both secular prophets were correct, as we're living in a weird blend of the two.)

Read the comic, then go read the book. You won't be sorry.

(Thanks to alert reader CD for the link!)

Who Will Be Reading Their iPads?

With all the hubbub about Apple's iPad, many are wondering what the statistical breakdown is for future readers. Happily, Galleycat offers some hard stats:

"Avid readers are using their eReaders to supplement their print reading habits. There is an emerging hybrid market--they will continue to buy books but split those purchases [between eBooks and print books]," he said, cheering up the publishing crowd.

Most Expensive Book Sales 2009

How much are you willing to pay for a Hardcover at your local superstore these days - $25-$35? (Much more if you're forced to purchase for a university class, of course.)

How about $14k for a set of signed Stephen King books? $12.5k for Dickens? $11k for F. Scott's Tender is the Night?

Abebooks shares it all, with subcategories for children's, photography, and religious - to the tune of $11k! What book does this describe:

Printed and published at the Golden Cockerel Press in 1931. Limited to 500 numbered copies with 64 wood-engraved initial letters and illustrations by Gill.

Yes, this fits under sister blog Word, but it's also a snap shot on what our culture values. Indeed, maybe we're not as technology-addled, as we think.