Bud posted about Penguin publishing blank covered books so that the reader can create their own cover. Of course, they’re doing this in the UK. No word on if this will be happening here in the US. Check out the cool My Penguin gallery website.

In my opinion, book covers can make or break a book. Often, publishers will retool a cover between hardcover and paperback release if the sale weren’t great. And you might have noticed the trends in book covers. Why do business books always have ugly covers? Why do I need a book with a picture of Jack Welch on it? The same can be said for chick lit (I’m not bringing up the pro or cons here, just the covers)? The pastel martini glass/high-heeled shoe design is so overdone. I wonder what sort of covers we could come up with?

Addendum: Speaking of cool looking books, check out these redesigned Penguin Classics, up for auction on Abebooks. (thanks Condalmo!) I heart that Crime and Punishment.

It’s that time of year again, when everyone creates their lists of best “whatever” of 2006. The New York Times announced theirs last night. Frankly I found their list underwhelming (Absurdistan? Really?). The Christian Science Monitor has both a non-fiction and a fiction list. I’m sure over the next few weeks everyone else will be releasing their lists. I’ll try to keep you informed. Mostly I like looking at them to remind me of books, but I mostly find the exercise silly. How do they matter really? They’re arbitrary and subjective. Perhaps that’s the point. Regardless, the lists will keep on coming.

Who here can say that they spent a chunk of their Monday with former Senator John Edwards? I can! Edwards was here at my store doing a signing for his new book Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives. He’s very charming and personable I must say. Plus he got a lot less of the crazies come out for him than Al Gore.

Also, if you’re in the Cambridge area this Thursday, November 30th, you can come watch me talk about books. It’s the annual Holiday Hints from the Buyers night. There will be free refreshments I’ve been told. I insisted we serve some wine, if only because I need the liquid courage. It’ll be a good time, I promise.*

* Disclaimer: Any promises made here are not promised to be upheld.

First, I’ve received word that Charles Shield, whose biography of Harper Lee Mockingbird appeared earlier this year, is working on a biography of Kurt Vonnegut. He would like to know people’s experiences with Vonnegut, either personally or with his novels. You can email me or leave a comment. Vonnegut’s a writer that influenced me early on when I was a freshman in high school. Slaughterhouse-Five was one of the first books I read that challenged my notion of literature. Up until that point, I had been reading mostly classics like Dickens, Steinbeck, Bronte, and Austen. Vonnegut was an eye-opener.

My second piece of business isn’t really business. I just read this article in the NYT today about the London Review of Book’s personals.

A woman in the current issue, for instance, specifies that she is looking for a man “who doesn’t name his genitals after German chancellors” (not even, the ad says, “Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, however admirable the independence he gave to secretaries of state may have been.”)In an e-mail exchange also conducted on condition that her name not be used, the woman, a 38-year-old local government arts official with an interest in Bismarck, said she been inspired by a disastrous experience with a date who announced over the tiramisu that he called his private parts “Asquith,” after the World War I prime minister.

I’ve been trying to write a personal in my head that would both offend and attract. People, you’re assignment is to write a personal ad in the comments below. With all of our great minds, surely we can come up with some real prizewinners.

The OJ Simpson book If I Did It has been cancelled by the Fox Corporation. Murdoch said: ‘I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.’ Most booksellers were sold this title blindly, meaning that we were not told the author or title at the time we had to buy it. I guarantee my store will never buy another book where we’re not sure of this information. I hope that Harper Collins and Judith Regan learn something from this.

I’m off to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon for the rest of the week. I’m still not sure what I’m bringing with me to read. Butterfly Stories by William Vollman? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe? Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy? The choices are endless. I’m not bringing the Pynchon because it’s just too damn heavy and I can’t imagine a worse place to read it. One needs total concentration with this book, which I cannot get while traveling in the air. Any suggestions for some good plane reading? In the meanwhile, here’s some links to keep you busy, if only for a short while:

• They’re making a movie of Patrick Suskind’s Perfume and a young perfumer has also created, wait for it, perfume to go with the movies release. It actually sounds pretty cool. I’d love to smell it.
• Apparently Scholastic bookfairs are too commercial for some schools. We didn’t have bookfairs all that often when I was growing up. Then again, I lived in Alabama, so…I do agree with those who object to the product placement in the books. Sure Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob are great, but shouldn’t they be a gateway to reading other things, not just more of the same?
• Did you read Rachel Donadio’s piece on literary disputes in last week’s NYTBR? I thought it was pretty lame. Others agree. The essay seemed both arbitrary in examples and boring.

• Richard Powers The Echo Maker (Yay!)
• Timothy Egan The Worst Hard Time
• Nathaniel Mackey Splay Anthem
• M.T. Anderson The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One

• Lucky Sarah got to interview NBA finalist Richard Powers. The award will be announced tonight around 10 o’clock.
• Reviews of Thomas Pynchon’s mammoth Against the Day are beginning to trickle in at the Complete Review, Scott Mclemee’s Inside Higher Ed column, Time, and the Boston Phoenix.
• The latest scandal on litblogs: free books. Some say that a disclaimer should be made for reviews of books which were sent free from a publisher. Others claim conspiracy. For the record, almost all of the books I review her I didn’t buy or check out of the library. As a buyer at a bookstore, I get anywhere from 25 to 50 books a week sent to my office. But I only read and review what I want. Let the opinions fly.

We’re giving away 3 copies of the Read This! pick Firmin over at the LBC. All you have to do is leave a comment telling everyone what book you would mostly like eat as a rat like Firmin and why.