Here's a word cloud of the words in The Tragic Muse, by Henry James. 

And the Princess Casamassima.  The flavor of James' diction definitely comes through in both of these.

wordle.net

Troy, who is our antiquities maven, went to an auction the other day and came back with 7 boxes of...old tools.  Not really that useful for the store, but it did produce a number of odd gems.  This was one of them.

Illustrator M. S. Corley, the artist whose re-envisioned Harry Potter covers we all liked so much, has posted his own new versions of the covers to Phillip Pullman's famous trilogy.  Click the images to view the hi-res versions on his blog.

Corley also writes on his blog about being contact by Warner Bros. regarding use of his Harry Potter covers:

Today I was contacted by Warner Bros. IP Counsel and was asked that no commercial use of my Harry Potter art is made.
While there is no objection for me to continue to display my work online, I may not sell or distribute it. So unfortunately I will not be providing prints.

During the discussion I brought up my attempt to send these covers to Bloomsbury and Scholastic to see if there is any interest in them being made into real covers.

I was assured by Warner Bros. that my request would be sent to the right people in each company. So fingers crossed that someday something cool could happen with them.

If only.

via mscorley.blogspot.com

The people at oldbookart.com are living the dream.  They sit around all day scanning the most beautiful illustrations from the most beautiful old books, which they then post on the internet for free.  They'll also put them on neck ties and coffee mugs if you want them to.  All of the images are from the 19th century or earlier and so are fully in the public domain.  The ones below are just a tiny sample, being just the first ones I came across and not even the best of the lot.  They claim to have scanned over 3200 images so far, with more being added all the time, and most are pretty high resolution.

As a gadget junky and a bookseller, I've felt a bit torn about e-book readers since Sony's first model hit the market a few years ago.  Amazon's Kindle, and now the Kindle 2.0, with their always-on connection to the Amazon store and nifty note-taking capabilities, have only weakened my resistence.  But something I read this morning may have helped to stiffen my resolve.  Stephanie at URBZEN has written about a feature in the Kindle that should worry anyone who cares even a little about privacy.

Much like the way your computer checks for software updates, the Kindle periodically checks for updates to the texts you've purchased from their store.  It's not hard to imagine cases where this could be useful.  A book on Adobe Photoshop, for instance, could be updated as bug fixes and other patches are made to the software itself.  The reader could be fairly certain that the manual is always up to date.  But what about other "updates"?

From UrbZen:

Consider what might happen if a scholar releases a book on radical Islam exclusively in a digital format. The US government, after reviewing the work, determines that certain passages amount to national security threat, and sends Amazon and the publisher national security letters demanding the offending passages be removed. Now not only will anyone who purchases the book get the new, censored copy, but anyone who had bought the book previously and then syncs their Kindle with Amazon—to buy another book, pay a bill, whatever—will, probably unknowingly, have the old version replaced by the new, “cleaned up” version on their device. The original version was never printed, and now it’s like it didn’t even exist. What’s more, the government now has a list of everyone who downloaded both the old and new versions of the book.

A little paranoid, maybe, but in light of what we've seen in the last eight years in the way of privacy violations, not all that far-fetched.  My books may be edge-worn and dog-eared and take up too much room in my house, but I like knowing they're mine.  That's one assurance the Kindle doesn't offer at the moment.

Just found these wonderful pieces of cover art by illustrator M. S. Corley (via The Book Design Review).  They're redesigns of the Harry Potter books in the style of the old Penguin Classics from the 60s.  Corley also re-envisioned the Lemony Snicket books.  No, these editions don't exist, but I WANT them to.

Some months back a customer special ordered a little copy of Ruskin's On Art and Life, and I was so charmed by the design of the book that I ordered a copy for myself.  I didn't realize at the time it was part of a series, Great Ideas by Penguin Books, every volume of which is beautifully designed from the cover to the type.  I discovered the rest of the series last week when I stumbled across the blog of best-selling fantasy author Jeff VanderMeer, who for the past month or so has been reading one volume every night before bed.  From the blurb on the Penguin website:

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

All of the books in the series are between 75 and 150 pages.