Chronicle Books Give-Away

        My thanks to Kelly at Book Dirt for calling my attention to the Chronicle Books Give-Away.  The prize is $500 worth of books for the winner and one of the commenters on the winner's blog post will also receive those same books--how cool is that?  

        Not only will those prizes be awarded, but the winner will also be able to pick a favorite charity that will be able to pick out its own $500 worth of books.  Do I have your attention yet?  Maybe I should be keeping this a secret so there will be less entries and my odds will increase, but I guess I love my readers too much not to let you in on this great contest.

        For my charity I'm going to choose the same one as Kelly did--Prospect Elementary School in Blount County, Tennessee--since I don't know of any other particular place and it's in my home town, I'll support that small library as well.

Here are my book choices:

Volume

Writings on Graphic Design, Music, Art, and Culture 
Princeton Architectural Press

By Kenneth FitzGerald    ($24.95)


This sounds like writing about a topic that interests me.

Survival City

Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America

By Tom Vanderbilt  ($25.00)

This is the era during which I grew up.  It scared me and fascinated me.  I love this kind of stuff.

Absinthe

History in a Bottle

By Barnaby Conrad III  ($22.95)

After seeing the Jack the Ripper movie From Hell, I became curious about this substance.  Now to learn more.

Ghostly Ruins

America's Forgotten Architecture 
Princeton Architectural Press

By Harry Skrdla  ($29.95)

Ruins are so cool.   I love looking at them.  Sitting home at looking at the photos in a book would be the next best thing to being there (at least until they come up with the DVD documentary version--now that would be cool.)

I Was Here

A Travel Journal for the Curious Minded

By Kate Pocrass   ($16.95)

This might me fun to play with in my future travel adventures.

Ready, Set, Novel!

A Workbook, Plan and Plot Your Upcoming Masterpiece

By Chris Baty, Lindsey Grant, and Tavia Stewart-Streit of National Novel Writing Month ($16.95)

Another thing to add to my collection of writer's resource material.

Grady McFerrin Photo Album    $18.95

I've got a bunch of loose photos that should be put in an album.

The Autobiography Box

A Step-by-Step Kit for Examining the Life Worth Living

By Brian Bouldrey  ($19.95)

Something that might go hand in hand with my new Wrote By Rote blog.

Cartes Postales

small edition  ($18.95)


I've got an old post card collection.  Maybe I can take some of them out of the shoe box they are in now and put them in an album.

Participate

Designing with User-Generated Content

By Helen Armstrong and Zvezdana Stojmirovic, foreword by Ellen Lupton ($24.95)

Maybe I can learn something from this and if not I'll pass it over to my daughter who might be able to use it.

Visual Merchandising 2nd edition

By Tony Morgan ($40.00)

This topic interests me for various reasons.  It's another book that perhaps I can learn from.

Cut & Paste

21st-Century Collage

By Richard Brereton with Caroline Roberts  ($29.95)

This one might be helpful to create experimental stuff for the blogs.  If not my daughter might be able to use it as a resource material in her work as a collage artist.

Visual Complexity

Mapping Patterns of Information 
Princeton Architectural Press

By Manuel Lima  ($50.00)

Patterns...I'm interested and curious.  Let me see how this book can expand my mind.

Geometry of Design, Second Edition, Revised and Updated

Studies in Proportion and Composition

By Kimberly Elam  ($24.95)

You might get the impression that I've got some artistic bent after some of the books I've picked.  It's just a topic that's been on my mind of late.  This book's description sounds intriguing.

Graphic Design Thinking

Beyond Brainstorming

By Ellen Lupton, editor    ($24.95)

This could have greater application than just visual arts.  I'm willing to check it out.

Art Work

Seeing Inside the Creative Process

By Ivan Vartanian  ($24.95)

The description says this book covers all types of creative processes.  I want to be a creative person.

The Toaster Project

Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch

By Thomas Thwaites ($19.95)

This sounds like something I'd think of but would be too dumb to actually do.  Here I can read about someone else doing it.

Circus

Over 50 flaps plus seek-and-find!

By Roxie Munro  ($15.95)

There's gotta be a juggler in this somewhere and I like the circus anyway.  This might be fun to share with my grandkids.

Moleskine® Address Book Pocket

($12.95)

The address book I have now is about 35 years old, falling apart, and filled with defunct information.  I need a new one.

Starry Crown Eco-Journal

By Grady McFerrin  ($10.95)

This looks nice and if I don't use it I can give it as a gift.

DIYDesign It Yourself

A Design Brief 
Princeton Architectural Press

By Ellen Lupton  ($24.95)

I'm thinking a lot about design lately--in case that point didn't come across in some of the above picks.





That's my line up and I think they sound pretty good.
Grand Total $499.10   Close enough for me.  Chronicle can keep the change.

If you want to play along then follow the link below:
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/happyhaulidays

       Do you see anything here that you especially like?   Have you read or seen any of these?    Let me know if you add your own blog entry to the list so I can come and leave a comment.



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Related articles

• Win up to $500 of Chronicle Books for You, a Friend, and Your Favorite Charity (chroniclebooks.com)
• Can You Ever Own Too Many Books? (tossingitout.blogspot.com)

Can You Ever Own Too Many Books?

Image by Ben Oh via Flickr

     
           Last Monday's post stimulated some interesting discussion about whether or not most of our writing is done in vain.   The over all consensus is that it is not so long as we enjoy what we are doing and if others derive some kind of benefit or entertainment value from what we write.   I want to write and so I do.

          Today I ask can we ever own too many books.   At what point do we have too many books?

          My wife probably is thinking that I am approaching hoarder mentality, especially where books are involved.  I haven't counted what I have in my house, but I would estimate within the view from my office desk I can see about 300 books.  Then I have several in the closet that I can't see.  In other rooms of the house there are at least another two or three hundred scattered about.  Add to that another few hundred that belong to my wife (she shouldn't be pointing at finger at me!).   And did I mention the I don't know how many hundred that are out in our garage on shelves or packed in boxes?   I even still have books from my younger days at my mother's house.

          Let's face it--I probably have more books than I will ever read in my remaining lifetime at the rate I'm reading now.   And I seem to keep acquiring more to add to the collection.

           Over the years I've amassed many of them through book club memberships, purchased several for school classes, bought them during sales like the Borders clearances, and had them given to me.  I rarely get rid of any of them because I like having a library in my home.

          Even the ones I have read I would probably not want to get rid of since I tend to forget what I read and think that I may one day read them again.   That might not be possible since I've got so many left to read for the first time.

           Maybe I have too many books.   That could probably also go for CDs, DVDs, and other recorded media.   I look around the house and see all the stuff and realize maybe we have too much of all of it.  Where does it end?

            Recently when I helped my sister move from Phoenix back to Tennessee, we loaded a rental truck with a great many things she would need in her new home and a lot of personal possessions that she wanted to keep.  The rest of what she owned she left behind to be sold by an auction company.  As I looked around the house before we left I was amazed at the sheer quantity of material goods that she and her late husband had acquired over the previous decade and a half.   Most of us own so much that is just there but rarely used for anything functional and often not even noticed that it is there.

           That is my book collection--untouched for the most part, but are there any books I would immediately want to give up?  I guess I would have to think on that for a while and it might prove to be a difficult decision.  Maybe when they start stacking up, threatening to fall over and crush me, then maybe I'm starting to own too many books.  Perhaps I need to slow down and start reading instead of accumulating.

          Do you own too many books?   What should be the point at which you stop accumulating books?   When do you decide to get rid of books?   How do you get rid of them?


          If you'd like to add more books to your collection be sure to see my post coming up on Wednesday November 23rd where I'll be talking about the big Chronicle Books Give-Away.   Oh boy!  More books.



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• Is Most of Our Writing Done in Vain? (tossingitout.blogspot.com)
• book hoarder (cathweber.blogspot.com)
• Book Hoarder (whitechocolatestar.wordpress.com)
• It's not the best picture but these are the books I use... (skillzmcfly.tumblr.com)