While I was driving yesterday, I heard an interesting story about an astronomy book for the blind on Morning Edition. The new book is called “Touch the Invisible Sky”, and was created by astronomer Noreen Grice. She was a volunteer for the planetarium at Boston University and she was inspired to create the book after a group of blind people came to a show at the planetarium. When she asked them if they enjoyed the show, they told her, “This stunk”, and walked away.

Grice had created a previous book, “Touch the Stars” that used Braille to trace out the constellations. “Touch the Invisible Sky” combines braille, large type, and photos from the Hubble Telescope and is designed so that it can be enjoyed by both sighted and blind people.

You can read or listen to the story here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18137734&ft=1&f=1001

And you can read more about the book at the NASA website here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/15jan_touch.htm

I had apparently signed up for this service sometime last year, but I’ve only recently took the time to really play with it in the past couple days or so, and it makes me sorry that I hadn’t started sooner. LibraryThing is an online service that allows you to catalog your entire reading library and to allow you to check out the libraries of other people who likes the same books as you. It’s kind of like a social networking site for people who like to read.

You can add up to 200 books to your reading library for for free or subscribe to LibraryThing for $10 per year where you can add an unlimited number of books. Or even better, you can have a lifetime membership for only $25.

Adding books to your online library is dead simple. Simply search by author, title or ISBN number to add books to your library. LibraryThing connects to Amazon.com, the Library of Congress, or up to 229 library resources around the world. So chances are if you’ve read it, you can find it on LibraryThing. You can also organize your library by adding your own tags, and you can write your own reviews on the books you have in your library.

The coolest part of this service is that you get to see who else is reading the same things you are through the “Connection News” feature. You see the libraries of members who has the same books as you do in their libraries. You also get to see what else they are reading which is a great way to find new books to read. Plus you’ve also got all the groups on LibraryThing that you can join to talk with other members, from people who like romances, those who enjoy political books…hey there’s even a group for people who read and collect jewelry and metalsmithing books!

There’s ton’s more you can do…it’s pretty addicting once you get started.

So if you love reading, take some time to check out LibraryThing here:
http://www.librarything.com/

And while you’re there you can check out my library-in-progress:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/nikolena

Boy, oh boy! My new paper samples just came in today and they are even more gorgeous than what they looked like in the pictures. For the next couple weeks I’ll be testing out dozens of these samples for book earring cover designs.

I’ve found that even a though a paper may look fabulous, it may not work out in a pair of earrings. So I’m going to test out a new set of samples before putting the new designs into production. Keep an eye out to see what designs makes the cut!

Just like everyone else, I was thinking about some goals for the New Year. And one of them is to make more time to read. Oh, don’t get me wrong…I read plenty now…blogs, magazines….I even get around to reading books too :). But I as I was looking back on the list of books I read last year, I found that they were mostly business books. The only fiction books I read last year was the final Harry Potter book and Steven King’s short story collection “Everything’s Eventual“. And both of those I read this summer.

While there’s nothing wrong with business books, there’s nothing like curling up with a nice novel or digging into a piece of literature. So here’s some of the books that are on my next to read list for 2008:

1. The Dune Chronicles series by Frank Herbert- I’m a closet SF freak and I’ve been meaning to read this series forever…or at least they’ve been sitting on my bookshelf forever. I’ve already seen the both the somewhat bewildering David Lynch version and the Sci-Fi Channel version of the the 1st book, Dune and the Sci-Fi Channel’s version of the Children of Dune (actually supposed to be a combination books two and three of the series, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune). I hear that this series is not a particularly easy read, but perhaps seeing the movies will give me somewhat of a leg up.

2. The Lord of the Rings series, including the The Hobbit- Again, saw the movies…loved them…have the books on my shelves…and I want know what some of the purist LOTR book fans are bitching about.

3. Toni Morrison’s Beloved- Hmm…I smell a pattern here…yes, did see the movie…ditto with the book on my shelf…want to see if the book is as confusing as the movie.

4. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson- Okay, this isn’t a fiction…but I haven’t read any good bios lately either. I’m a big fan of the NPR program, “The Thomas Jefferson Hour“. If you’re not familiar with the program, it’s basically a one hour radio show where humanities scholar, Clay Jenkinson, plays the role of Thomas Jefferson (wearing the tights, powdered wig, and all) and talks about about current events through the persona of Thomas Jefferson. Really cool show…you learn a lot about Thomas Jefferson, life in 18th century America, and about the founding fathers in general. This book is on the recommended reading list on the Thomas Jefferson Hour website…so I’m checking it out this year.

5. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life- Another bio…since I’m reading about TJ, I might as well check out the bio of another Founding Father. From what I understand, Ben Franklin is a whole lot more colorful than the face on the $100 bill would lead you to believe.

Okay, that’s what I have on my list so far. Feel free to leave your own list in the comments section!

I just finished designing the new packaging for the small book earrings! Here it is:

I’ve been wanting to come up with something interesting because a plain old jewelry card never seemed to look right. Basically, this card doubles as a small 12-page booklet about The History of the Book that you can actually read. It’s a very brief overview beginning from 3,500 BC to the present day. The research was fun, but the hardest part was making thousands of years of history fit into a tiny 12-page booklet.

The nicest thing about this card is that it’s designed to be hung on a rack or it can stand by itself as shown in the photos. So far, I’ve gotten a pretty good response from those who’ve seen it. Hopefully I’ll be getting better photos to post in the new online store and in my Etsy store in the next couple weeks. And of course all new orders will be shipped out using the new packaging from now on.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know!

There are two camps to the whole writing in books issue. I personally would rather poke my eye out with a pencil than write in a book, but I respect the fact that others feel differently. So for those who like to write notes in the margins of books, here’s an interesting article on shorthand marks for margin note-taking or marginalia.

How to Masterly Marginalia is an article on the Levenger website, which is a website that sells cool reading and note-taking tools for readers. They even have a great downloadable PDF of the marginalia marks that you can use to annotate your books.

So to all of my note-taking brethren…grab your books and write away!

Just keep your pens away from my books

Question…

What does a book lover want the most?

More books, of course!

Check out this post from the Zen Habits blog on How to Get Free and/or Cheap Books, and Give Away Your Old Ones

What do you mean “give away your old books?” you might be thinking. If you truly love books the thought of giving them away is like trying to give away your right arm. But I found this excerpt from the post to ring true…

But often books are kept almost like trophies or mounted animal heads — they show how much we’ve read, and the big books we’ve tackled, and how smart we are. Be honest with yourself — you’re never going to read most of those books again. You have too many ahead of you to tackle.

Besides, the more room you make, the more that room you have to fill with those lovely free books! Check out the rest of the post at the Zen Habits blog:
http://zenhabits.net/2007/07/20-ways-to-get-free-or-cheap-books-and-give-away-your-old-ones/

It’s got a pretty hefty list of links to book swapping sites to visit. So be sure to take a look!

If you’ve ever read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar“ as a child or have read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to your own children, then you are familiar with the work of artist and author Eric Carle. This year celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first children’s book that he’s ever illustrated, called “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?“, published in 1967. To mark this anniversary, NPR interviewed Eric Carle at his home and created this really beautiful audio slideshow of his illustrations.

You can listen to the interview on the NPR website at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11889867&ps=bb7

View the slideshow at:
http://www.npr.org/programs/watc/features/2007/jul/ericcarle_slideshow/index.html

And check out Eric Carle’s website at:
http://www.eric-carle.com/

Thanks to Drawn! for the link to this story

Ahhh…so many books…too little time! The only problem I have with reading is that it seems that I always have more books I want to read than I have time. Which is why I was so intrigued by a blog post by Scott H Young on How to Read 70+ Books in a Year. Now I’m not sure that I’ll ever read more than 70 books a year (love to linger over a book)…some of the tips that Scott includes will certainly help increase how much I read. His best tips include…

Step Three: One Book at a Time

I’m notorious for reading several things at once…perhaps I should stop this!

Step Five: Cut the Television and Web-Surfing

Both are serious time sinks in our house. As as a web designer with five blogs and a podcast, I’m always on the web. This one will be a bit harder to fix.

Check out the read of Scott’s tip on his blog:
How to Read 70+ Books in a Year

Welcome to the small book company blog! My name is Nicolette Tallmadge and I am the artist and jewelry designer behind the small book company. The small book company creates and sells handmade book earrings made of exotic papers. Each earring are actual tiny hand bound books, and are perfect lightweight jewelry for those who love books and reading. The small book company online store will be open within the next couple months with an entire array of beautifully made book jewelry. In the meantime, check out the small book company @ Etsy for some examples of the whimsical, wearable, books that you’ll find here at the small book company. And be sure to check out this blog. I’ll be posting various news and tidbits about books, reading, and all other manners of book-related info.

Enjoy!
Nicolette Tallmadge