Wednesday, December 21, 2011

OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS (Or: The Hobbit is coming out!)

Exciting news! (OH how this news is exciting!)

The trailer for The Hobbit is out! I have nothing but high hopes and great things to say about this movie. It's directed by the same person who was in charge of the Lord of the Rings, and it's The Hobbit!

Secretly--or, not so secretly now--The Hobbit was always my favorite Tolkien book. You can keep your Two Towers and your Return of the King, but The Hobbit is mine. My... precious.

(Actually, fun fact, I can recite the opening paragraph of The Hobbit from memory. It remains one of my favorite openings in all of book-dom.)

Anyway, you can watch the trailer on Youtube by clicking on this statement. Otherwise, you can check almost every entertainment/book-oriented blog on the whole of the internet.

--KELLER

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Books are awesome.

Something that makes us jump up and down and throw our hands in the air:

"When you give a 'real world' book to someone you are saying, 'I am totally in love with this book and think you will be too,' or 'The sentiment in this book reminded me of you,' or 'Here, this is a journey you will never forget.' A book is a personal gift--something uniquely picked out, inscribed, and physically presented to another person. It has emotional and actual weight. I am not saying there are not other good gifts out there (a ukulele comes to mind), but with a book you don't have to: mortgage the home, guess bra size, learn to sing, or find out too late that they are allergic to nuts. That is why I think the book is the best gift you can give. It is economical, beautiful, hours of entertainment, thoughtful, and can last (both physically and in the mind) a lifetime."

-- Steven Salardino, manager of Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Calif., from the bookstore's latest e-newsletter.