Letters Remain

Category: books

  • Evolutionary Consumption

    Geoffrey Miller, author of the excellent Mating Mind, has recently released Spent; a look at consumerism and marketing through his lens of evolutionary psychology. With an existing knowledge of evolutionary psychology theories the ideas in Miller’s latest will come as no surprise. These two reviews are still worth perusing, however: Jonathan Gottschall provides a concise…

  • How Do Free Online Book Releases Affect Sales?

    Do free book releases (gratis and/or libre) affect books sales in a positive or negative way? To try and find out, John Hilton of Brigham Young University tracked the sales of books 8 weeks prior and following a number of promotional free release from various publishers. On March 4 of this year, Random House announced…

  • Writing ‘On Writing Well’

    William Zinsser—author of 17 books—talks in length on the trials and tribulations of writing ‘On Writing Well’. My initial fear of immodesty was misguided. The best teachers of a craft, I saw, are their own best textbook. Students who take their classes really want to know how they do what they do—how they grew into…

  • Tournament of Books

    The fifth annual Tournament of Books is currently in progress. The tournament—dubbed the “battle royale of literary excellence”—pits 16 of the best novels published in the previous year against each other to find the winner of the coveted Rooster. Round one: 2666 vs. Steer Toward Rock Netherland vs. A Partisan’s Daughter The White Tiger vs.…

  • Most Borrowed Author in Britain

    For the second year in a row James Patterson has been announced as the UK’s most borrowed author. Interestingly, all is not as it seems: in calling Patterson “less a novelist than a literary factory”, The Guardian notes that he actually employs a large number of writers to do the majority of his writing. Patterson and the…

  • The Bible a Prerequisite for Understanding Literature?

    Poet Laureate Andrew Motion (incidentally, the first Poet Laureate to not hold the position for life) suggests that the classics and the Bible should continue to be taught in school, as to cease doing so will prevent a whole generation being able to understand great literature and culture. I can’t help but find myself agreeing…

  • Archive of Book Cover Designs and Designers

    The wonderful Archive of Book Cover Designs and Designers has a simple—yet important—raison d’ĂȘtre: “for the purpose of appreciation and categorization”. Already quite extensive, the archive is constantly growing through reader suggestions and is searchable by designer, photographer, author, and many more besides. The site’s footer also provides a wonderful directory of equally great sites…

  • Books on Molecular Gastronomy

    Molecular gastronomy is defined as the “scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking”. Following on from a conversation I had with Andrew this past weekend—and after reading this great article from The New York Times—I decided to compile a shortlist of the best books on molecular gastronomy (according to me):…

  • Typography and Design (Two Free Ebooks)

    Getting Real is the undisputed bible of agile software development—a manifesto that can change your view in a single reading. However when it comes to typography and design, the closest I have ever come to such a document was Mark Boulton’s Better Typography presentation. Now there’s a contender: The Vignelli Canon (pdf) I can’t do…

  • Blogging the Origin of Species

    2009 marks not only the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth, but the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a work that needs no introduction. To honour this occasion, evolutionary biologist John Whitfield (who has surprisingly never read Origin) will be blogging Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of…