Harper Perennial Sale
This week you will not be subjected to the arbitrary whims of my ramblings. No, this week I have a purpose, a promotional purpose! Perhaps you remember the "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" paperback sales we had last year featuring such fantastic lines as Penguin Classics, Vintage, Harcourt, and Norton to name a few. Well, it's back, starting tomorrow, Friday March 2nd! This time we're featuring Harper Perennial paperbacks. So my purpose today is to tell you about a few of my favorites. It's looking like this may in fact be the same rambly format after all...
The official start date of Major League Soccer's 2007 season is April 7. And after World Cup mania last year isn't it time we embraced the sport of the rest of the world. I mean really hugged it and made it our new best friend? I'm not suggesting we forgo our classic American sports, I'm merely suggesting we cling slightly less tenaciously to them and maybe step out of our comfort zone a little and watch a little soccer. It's fun, it's exciting, and it's not yet beholden to corporate advertisers so the games don't get interrupted every 2 minutes for commercials. Just ask local boy and Editor of the New Republic Franklin Foer. He wrote an insightful and entertaining book a few years back called How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. Not a heavy theory book, more a fantastic voyage through cultural archetype and war-torn countries, this book reveals soccer to be a powerful metaphor for our time. I read this book as soon as it came out, captivated by the title and found it to live up to the promise. Foer writes captivating stories from around the globe that are equal parts travelogue, cultural history, and political insight.
And even though the World Cup was last year it's not too late to get sucked into the excitement with the genius anthology The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. 32 essays for 32 participating countries! And, of course, Mr. Foer writes the afterword.
Moving along to a totally different topic, another book I want to mention is Marilyn Johnson's Dead Beat. A jaunt through the world of obituary writing, Dead Beat goes beyond the compulsory reading of the obituary page into the history and quirks of the obituary writing world. I've only had a chance to read a little bit of it, but it struck me as a very funny, compelling, and kind of creepy book. But creepy in a good way. She goes to an obituary writers conference, parses different types of obituaries, lays out the cultural differences between American and English obituaries, and generally tells us about why the obituary page is as vibrant as it is.
There are countless other Harper paperback titles I could go on about and in fact I may just do that next week since this "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" sale runs through the 29th of March. That's another plug for this sale, but you can't go wrong with buying two books and getting a third one for free, really.
The official start date of Major League Soccer's 2007 season is April 7. And after World Cup mania last year isn't it time we embraced the sport of the rest of the world. I mean really hugged it and made it our new best friend? I'm not suggesting we forgo our classic American sports, I'm merely suggesting we cling slightly less tenaciously to them and maybe step out of our comfort zone a little and watch a little soccer. It's fun, it's exciting, and it's not yet beholden to corporate advertisers so the games don't get interrupted every 2 minutes for commercials. Just ask local boy and Editor of the New Republic Franklin Foer. He wrote an insightful and entertaining book a few years back called How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. Not a heavy theory book, more a fantastic voyage through cultural archetype and war-torn countries, this book reveals soccer to be a powerful metaphor for our time. I read this book as soon as it came out, captivated by the title and found it to live up to the promise. Foer writes captivating stories from around the globe that are equal parts travelogue, cultural history, and political insight.
And even though the World Cup was last year it's not too late to get sucked into the excitement with the genius anthology The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. 32 essays for 32 participating countries! And, of course, Mr. Foer writes the afterword.
Moving along to a totally different topic, another book I want to mention is Marilyn Johnson's Dead Beat. A jaunt through the world of obituary writing, Dead Beat goes beyond the compulsory reading of the obituary page into the history and quirks of the obituary writing world. I've only had a chance to read a little bit of it, but it struck me as a very funny, compelling, and kind of creepy book. But creepy in a good way. She goes to an obituary writers conference, parses different types of obituaries, lays out the cultural differences between American and English obituaries, and generally tells us about why the obituary page is as vibrant as it is.
There are countless other Harper paperback titles I could go on about and in fact I may just do that next week since this "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" sale runs through the 29th of March. That's another plug for this sale, but you can't go wrong with buying two books and getting a third one for free, really.
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