Way to go Jonathan Sanchez!

My long-time friend Peter Finch stopped by the bookstore this morning, and in the midst of a bustling weekend crowd, we were able to carve out a few minutes to discuss the future of the book for a new radio show he's hosting. No shortage of thoughts on that subject, as you can well imagine. More details right here on Wed. in my next blog post, but if you aren't already familiar with Peter's work on the KFOG Morning Show (or his theatrical prowess with The Thunderbird Theatre Company) I encourage you to visit his FogFiles archive page and give a listen. I especially enjoyed the one from June 7th: Reading to Kids. Check it out!

Then later this afternoon, I was walking back to the bookstore with another chum: author, musician and all-around literary hero, Sam Barry. While he was regaling me with tales from his honeymoon trip to Europe (his recent marriage to author,musician, and all-around literary hero Kathi Goldmark, was the single best thing to happen to the future of the book since Guttenberg. Truly peas in a pod, those two.) I glanced down and noticed a funny book in our free box. Funny like, "HaHa" funny, because it was Dave Barry's Guide to Life, and he's a very funny writer. He's also Sam's brother. "Hey, Sam. . .dig what's in the free box." Sam snatched the copy, flipped through the pages of the collection, considered keeping it for a second, and then put it back. "He's probably got it already." Humor must run in the blood of that family.

Thanks to BoingBoing for linking to the cool (yet disheartening) info graphic above: Where Does the Money Go? Click it to go big, because I was thinking that my eyes were playing tricks on me at first. Only .2% spent on reading ($118 from ~$50k)? Wow! Least by a long margin. More than triple that amount goes to buying cigarettes each year, and it's illegal to smoke, like, everywhere these days, isn't it?!? So what do you think? Is the future of the book alive and well thanks to folks like Peter, Sam, Kathi and You? Or is it in danger of going up in smoke?

Bad cover, great book

In my 15.5 years at Green Apple, I have learned numerous valuable lessons: bad books hide good books, never drive on Clement Street, the customer is not always right but should be allowed to think so, and if you're comfortable with meat of an uncertain provenance, it can be cheaper to buy lunch in this neighborhood than to pack one from home. Here's another lesson I realized just today: there are more great book covers published each year than there are great books published each year.

It took a good book with a bad cover to make me realize this, and I'm not about to roam the store collecting good covers on bad books. . . .

Here's the book that made me realize this maxim, with apologies to New Yorker cartoonist Edward Koren. It's not Mr. Koren's fault. There's nothing wrong with his goofy drawing. It simply doesn't even remotely allude to what's inside: an insightful, readable, holistic take on contemporary behavioral economics and its relation to our current fiscal meltdown. While the text isn't dry (OK it's not exactly juicy), there's little whimsy in the contextualization of contemporary behavioral economics in the traditions of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. The authors are clear, and the book is very interesting (a longer blurb about the book itself, which is quite good, can be read here). But there's nothing therein that says to me "silly monkeys, hold on tight!"

Now I'm in the business of selling books, not joaning on them or their covers, but c'mon, Princeton University Press, why hide this interesting and insightful book behind hairy Sasquatchian man-apes clinging to a zig-zag? This is more like it, huh?

I hope bad covers don't become a recurring theme on our blog, but if you have any suggestions of "this book is better than its cover," I'm all eyes. We won't even get in to "this book is better than the movie," right?