Browsing in quirky little bookstores is a pleasant way to pass the time. If this describes you, be sure to check out 10 of the Coolest Niche Bookstores From Around the World in this week’s Monday’s Link Roundup. And for a insightful look at the history of memoirs, don’t miss The New Yorker article But Enough About Me.
- This column will change your life. “Hofstadter’s law, conceived by the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, goes like this: any task you’re planning to complete will always take longer than expected – even when Hofstadter’s law is taken into account. Even if you know a project will overrun, and build that knowledge into your planning, it’ll simply overrun your new estimated finish time, too, Hofstadter says. We chronically underestimate the time things take.”
- eBooks Gone in 5 Years? “The future of what we do, once we start to put books into this connected/network world is totally open, and that’s a very exciting thing for people who love books and who love the web.”
- Quick Tips for Better Interview Video. “Moving from audio only to video and audio recording is not a small transition. Frame composition, lighting, and background are only a few of the considerations now affecting oral history recording that previously- when only recording audio- were of less importance. With that in mind, there are five basic principles for capturing better video.”
- 10 of the Coolest Niche Bookstores From Around the World. “We all know about the plight of independent and specialty bookstores, so we won’t lament it again here. Suffice it to say, fellow book and bookstore lovers, that all is not lost!…Click through to see some of the coolest niche and specialty bookstores in the world, and since no list like this can ever be really complete, be sure to pitch in with your own favorites in the comments.”
- The Ultimate Guide to Publishing Your eBook on Amazon’s Kindle Platform. “The opportunities to grow and expand your business or ideas through publishing an eBook are limitless. With a insightful, compelling eBook, your words can instill valuable wisdom, actions, stories and ideas that can build trust and relationships with your audience. If you follow the seven steps below, you’ll never have to read another article on publishing to Amazon’s Kindle platform ever again.”
- How to Create a Timeline: The Power of Re-working Your Life’s Story, 1 of 2. “A timeline or lifeline exercise is a grid that allows you to have a bird’s eye view of your life, and to see the positive and negative shifts along the way on a single trajectory…Putting your timeline on paper is an opportunity to record vital information about your life and past. There are several benefits to completing this exercise.”
- But Enough About Me. “…memoir, for much of its modern history, has been the black sheep of the literary family. Like a drunken guest at a wedding, it is constantly mortifying its soberer relatives (philosophy, history, literary fiction)—spilling family secrets, embarrassing old friends—motivated, it would seem, by an overpowering need to be the center of attention…The greatest outpouring of personal narratives in the history of the planet has occurred on the Internet; as soon as there was a cheap and convenient means to do so, people enthusiastically paid to disseminate their autobiographies, commentaries, opinions, and reviews, happily assuming the roles of both author and publisher.”
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Posted in Monday's Link Roundup
Tagged better, Bookselling, bookstores, E-book, eBook, history, Hofstadter's law, How to, Kindle platform, life story, memoir, New Yorker, niche bookstores, planning, publishing, The New Yorker, timeline, Tips, video interviews
In this Monday’s Link Roundup there are many treats. If you’re a graphic designer, I think you’ll love watching Print in Motion Winner: Medusa in Fragments. For those who admire good craftsmanship, don’t miss The Last Letterpress and Paper Store in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s a poignant video about what is being lost in our digital world.
- Memoir Writing Tips for Creating Story Structure and the Narrative Arc. “Memoir writers struggle with plot and structure for a very good reason: they think they know the plot. They assume that writing “what happened” is enough to create a memoir, and think that putting journal entries into the computer can be their memoir. A memoir is a story, created and constructed with skill and focus. It can be chronological or it might not be. Writing a memoir asks for you to dig deep into your biography and come up with scenes that bring a reader into your world fully and inspire them to keep reading–something about you and your story is relevant to their lives.Some tips for thinking about story and plot:”
- From Psalters to Downloads. “The MP3 is just the latest in a long line of ways of buying music. Tim de Lisle composes a short history …”
- Print in Motion Winner: Medusa in Fragments. [Video]“With so much stunning work being produced in the world of motion graphics these days, we wanted to invite the field’s artists to show off a bit. And so Print in Motion was born. We approached the competition with no real parameters other than to feature the most interesting and innovative work we could find, and to build a forum for designers eager to see—and be inspired by—what their peers are doing.We received many worthy entries, but eventually we whittled them down to 10 standouts, starting with this great piece titled Medusa in Fragments.”
- A Storytelling Lesson from South Park. [Video] “A while back I gave some tips for tightening stories. One of them was to watch out for “and then” syndrome. That is, if you find yourself saying “and then” a lot, what you have “may not actually be a story, but just a long sequence of events”…Then this weekend I came across this video of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone making the very same point. Only more eloquently. (And profanely, of course.)”
- Nelson Mandela’s life in a digital museum. “For a look at the future of digital museums, check out the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory’s new digital archive composed of thousands of scanned documents from the African leader’s life…But instead of scanning them and dumping them online for scholars to peruse, the center, with Google’s support, created a virtual museum experience — highlighting certain pieces from the archives, putting them in the context of Mandela’s life and then enabling a visitor to the site to go deeper if they’d like.”
- The Last Letterpress and Paper Store in Downtown Los Angeles. [Video] “ink&paper is a portrait of Aardvark Letterpress and McManus & Morgan Paper, neighboring businesses working together to survive in a digital era. The film was directed by Ben Proudfoot, a film student at U.S.C., and he describes the making of the film in a brief interview below.”
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Tagged Downtown Los Angeles, history, How to, ink&paper, journaling, letterpress, link roundup, Los Angeles, Matt Stone, Medusa in Fragments, memoir, music, Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, paper store, print in motion, South Park, storytelling, Tips, Trey Parker, video, Writing
In today’s Monday’s Link Roundup take a look at Outrageous adverts from the past that would never be allowed today. It’s jaw dropping. Being a Downton Abbey fan, I couldn’t resist The Downton Abbey Guide to Irresistible Narrative Marketing. The article is worth a read for its useful marketing insights. But for personal historians it’s also a good reminder of what we need to aim for in our storytelling.
- Playing Kitchen Detective. “There’s a new obsession at the intersection of genealogy and foodie culture—reconstructing beloved, long-lost family recipes. Fueled by nostalgia and thrift, legions of eaters are returning to the kitchen for some food detective work, searching for the half-remembered dishes they grew up sharing at the family dinner table.”
- A Brief History of Children’s Picture Books and the Art of Visual Storytelling. “In Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling, illustrator Martin Salisbury and children’s literature scholar Morag Styles trace the fascinating evolution of the picturebook as a storytelling medium and a cultural agent, and peer into the future to see where the medium might be going next, with case studies of seminal works, a survey of artistic techniques, and peeks inside the sketchbooks and creative process of prominent illustrators adding dimension to this thoughtful and visually engrossing journey.”
- Little Phone Booth Libraries. “There are 13,659 pay phones on NYC sidewalks, even though there are over 17 million cell phones,” reads a poster designed by New York architect John Locke. Seeing an opportunity for creative reuse and community building, Designboom writes, Locke is turning obsolete phone booths into mini libraries.”
- 30 Clients Using Computer-Generated Stories Instead of Writers. “Forbes has joined a group of 30 clients using Narrative Science software to write computer-generated stories. Here’s more about the program, used in one corner of Forbes‘ website: “Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.”
- Outrageous adverts from the past that would never be allowed today. “They’re incredible by today’s standards, but once upon a time these adverts were perfectly acceptable. From an ad that claims smoking is healthy to one telling mothers they should give Coca-Cola to their babies, these shocking posters give a fascinating insight into a time gone by.”
- A Brief History of The Elements of Style and What Makes It Great. “The book has become a legend in its own right, its story part of our modern creative mythology — but, like a good fairy tale, it brims with more curious, unlikely, even whimsical details than a mere plot summary might suggest. Those are exactly what Mark Garvey, a 20-year publishing veteran and self-professed extreme Elements of Style enthusiast, explores in Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.”
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Tagged advertisements, children's picture books, computer-generated stories, Designboom, Downton Abbey, Elements of Style, genealogy, history, How to, Marketing, Martin Salisbury, narrative, Narrative Science, nostalgia, phone booth libraries, recipes, storytelling, The Elements of Style, Tips
In this Monday’s Link Roundup I found PANTONE: A Color History of the 20th Century a reminder of the important role of color in our memories. The book looks gorgeous. It’s definitely on my Santa Claus list. Anyone want to play Santa? 
- The Terrible Word of the Year “Voltaire famously said that the Holy Roman Empire was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” Yesterday, Oxford University Press announced that, for the first time, their U.S. and U.K. lexicographers (along with “editorial, marketing, and publicity staff”) had chosen a “global word of the year.”
- On the Future of Books: A Discussion with Seth Godin. “The industry of publishing ideas has been undergoing a revolution for more than a decade, and where it’s headed is still an open question…Today I share a conversation I had with best-selling author, blogger and publisher Seth Godin on the future of books, publishing and blogging. It was fascinating.”
- Nile Rodgers’ top 10 music books. “From Beethoven’s letters to Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, the musician chooses books that reveal the private lives behind the public melodies.”
- 16 Ways to Leave a Legacy. “You’ve spent years digging up data and stories to breathe life into the grandparents and great-grandparents who’ve made your existence — and your children’s — possible. But what are you doing to ensure your family’s legacy will be around after you’re gone?”
- PANTONE: A Color History of the 20th Century. “… longtime PANTONE scholars Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker explore 100 years of the evolution of color’s sociocultural footprint through over 200 works of art, advertisements, industrial design products, fashion trends, and other aesthetic ephemera, thoughtfully examined in the context of their respective epoch.”
- EyeWitness to History.com. “Your ringside seat to history – from the Ancient World to the present. History through the eyes of those who lived it.” [Thanks to Mim Eisenberg of WordCraft for alerting me to this item.]
- The Legacy Project. “The Legacy Project began in 2004, when I started collecting the practical advice for living of America’s elders. Using a number of different methods, my research team systematically gathered nearly 1500 responses to the question: “What are the most important lessons you have learned over the course of your life?”
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Tagged biography, books, Color History, elders, history, language, legacies, link roundup, music memoirs, Nile Rodgers, Oxford University Press, Pantone, Seth Godin, The Legacy Project, top 10, wisdom, Word of the Year
A Happy July 4th to all my American readers. If you’re taking it easy today, why not settle back and check out some of the great links in this Monday’s Link Roundup? My favorite is Any Last Words? It made me ponder what I’d want for the opening line of my obituary.
- What Is the Difference Between a Hobby and a Business? “It’s important to get the right answer to this question, because it has broad implications regarding your taxes and bookkeeping. In this post, we’ll discuss this important topic and provide some additional resources that you can turn to with questions.”
- Best-Ever Guide to Integrating Stories into Speeches, Presentations, Indeed, Any Influential Message. “A couple of weeks ago… I noted that Terrence Gargiulo, who delivered a commencement speech recently, was “considering doing a meta analysis of how [he] worked with the craft of story making to research, design, and deliver this talk. Well, he’s done it, and the resulting white paper is a wonderful primer on bringing story into the communication of any kind of influential message, including speeches and presentations.”
- Any Last Words? The narrator of Timothy Schaffert’s new novel The Coffins of Little Hope is the 83-year old obituary writer of a small-town newspaper in Nebraska. “Inspired we asked you to provide the first sentence to your own obituary…The responses — humorous, whimsical, and poignant — rolled in, and we asked the authors of our favorites to read them.” [Thanks to Pat McNees of Writers and Editors for alerting me to this item.]
- Chicago Billboards, 1942. “This film produced by the outdoor advertising industry in the 1940s is a great slice of everyday history. It shows some classic product advertisements, vintage Chicago street scenes and antique vehicles. We also get an in depth story about how outdoor advertising works. This third part is in gorgeous color including some great footage of public transit.”
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Tagged Blurb, Blurb book templates, book design, English language, history, How to, last words, link roundup, Resources, small business taxes, storytelling guide, Tips, vintage outdoor advertising
This Monday’s roundup is a blast! It includes Mama Mia, family junk, the end of books, a writing contest, Ken Burns, and much, much more. I guarantee you won’t be bored!
- Anthony Zuiker’s plan to bury books. “As a first-time author, Anthony Zuiker nurtures an ambition that is surely unique in the annals of literature. It is to make publishing disappear, beginning this season with the release of Level 26: Dark Origins , a thriller that he and his publishers call the world’s first digi-novel.”
- Mamma Mia: Memoir Model. “…why do I claim this totally fictitious, over-the-top comedy musical is a model for writing memoir? Precisely because it takes isolated fragments of story (each song is a tiny story) and pulls them together into a coherent overall story, woven together with some added narrative to give setting, context, and consistent meaning. Furthermore, the songs are used quite randomly, not at all in the order they were written.”
- People’s ‘junk’ can tell interesting family story. “A group of women in Austin have formed a Story Circle Network, which has sponsored Older Women’s Legacy in which they encourage women, who are generally the family story keepers, to use the stories about the origins and personal feelings about their junque as the starting point for writing their family stories for future generations. Men can borrow the method, too.”
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