As a bookseller and book collector, I’m surrounded by books every day. The distinctive scent of old books is a constant intoxicating companion. This fascinating infographic explains just what causes the aroma from antiquarian volumes, as well as new books.
All well designed public transit maps are easy to interpret and provide accessible travel information for local residents and travelers alike, but wouldn’t it be great if they also offered real-time transit information too. The new app called Tunnel Vision , created by Bill Lindmeier, is a nifty tool that adds access to data on NYC’s subway system just by pointing a smart device at a MTA map.
Tunnel Vision provides real-time information on exactly where trains are at, how busy individual stations are and U.S. Census data on neighborhoods around subway stations.
The app is available here for iOS devices.
The London Outer Orbital Path—or London Loop—is a 150 mile (245km) signed walking path around the outer edges of London, England. The Loop , which opened in 1996, consists of 24 well-marked stages that can be completed in easily digestible bits.
Romanian photographer Tudor Prisacariu walked the entire route and documented the journey on his website. Take a look here.
Each June, International Crime Month is a celebration of international crime fiction. Four of America’s most prominent independent publishers—Grove Atlantic, Akashic Books, Melville House, and Europa Editions—have joined forces this time to bring this compelling genre to a wider North American audience. International Crime Month, June 2014, highlights new titles from Akashic’s city-based “Noir” series, Europa’s World Noir imprint, Grove Atlantic’s Mysterious Press and Atlantic Monthly Press imprints, and Melville House’s International Crime series.
Eighty independent bookstores in the U.S. have signed on to the initiative and will be distributing our International Crime Month magazine and stocking the titles detailed within its pages. Click here to read the magazine online and learn more about the indie bookstores.
The magazine is packed with original short fiction, interviews, conversations and profiles from/with/about featured authors. I’m dead chuffed to see Christopher Brookmyre and Mark Billingham getting some ink on this side of the Atlantic.
These rediscovered Photochrom and Photostint postcard images were produced by the Detroit Photographic Company between 1888 and 1924. Using a photolithographic process they offered peoplethe very first color photographs of The United States. For the first time, America’s colors were available for all to see. The rich reds, yellows and browns of the Grand Canyon, the sand and sea dazzle of Atlantic City, became a visual delight not only for travelers, but for Americans everywhere.
Graphic designer, photographer and collector Marc Walter has amassed an extraordinary collection of photographs for TASCHEN’s new publication An American Odyssey. With them he creates a comprehensive picture of the new world in its earliest days, all ramshackle mining towns in the West, steam boats in New York’s harbor and the booming new industrial cities. The book has more than 600 pages including fold-out spreads, this sweeping panorama incorporates everything from Native American settlements to New York’s Chinatown, from some of the last cowboys to Coney Island’s heyday.
A photochrom is a color proof obtained by transferring a black and white photographic negative on numerous lithographic stones: one for each final wanted color. This was done using a specific new process, “the Photochrom process”, invented in 1889 by the Swiss Hans Jakob Schmidt, chief lithographer at the Orell Füssli printworks in Zurich. The Photochrom process was brought to the Detroit Photographic Company by a technician who had worked for the Swiss company, Albert Schuler, in 1895–96. In the United States, it was marketed under the name of the “Aäc color photography process.”
The authors:
Marc Walter specializes in vintage travel photographs, particularly photochroms, of which he has one of the world’s largest collections. He has widely published books with images from his collection as well as his own photographs. Sabine Arqué is a documentarian, iconographer, and author. She has collaborated on numerous books on the subjects of travel, the history of tourism and photography.
St George’s Church in Bloomsbury seems an unlikely location for London’s newest museum. The Museum of Comedy, Britain’s first museum dedicated to comedic artifacts, was founded by theater owner Martin Witts to display his collection of thousands of comedic curiosities. Opened just yesterday, the museum is situated in the church’s crypt and also features a 100-seat comedy venue. You can learn more right here.
There is, I hope, a thesis in my work: we may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. That sounds goody-two-shoes, I know, but I believe that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure and time. Less time is crystal. Less than that is coal. Less than that is fossilized leaves. Less than that it’s just plain dirt. In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats—maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats—but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike. There’s no real mystique. Every human being, every Jew, Christian, backslider, Muslim, Shintoist, Zen Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, every human being wants a nice place to live, a good place for the children to go to school, healthy children, somebody to love, the courage, the unmitigated gall to accept love in return, someplace to party on Saturday or Sunday night, and someplace to perpetuate that God. There’s no mystique. None. And if I’m right in my work, that’s what my work says.”
Brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo (aka Os Gemeos) became legends in the street art community back in 2011 when they painted an entire train. Now they’ve topped themselves by painting an entire Boeing 737.
The twin brothers completed the colossal project in under a week, using 1200 cans of spray paint to depict a crowd of fans. The GOL Airlines plane will be carrying Brazil’s national football team during this year’s World Cup competition.
photo credit: Junior Lago/UOL
Boarding passes may not make anyone’s top ten list of air travel complaints, but they are really annoying. They don’t fit in pockets, passports or wallets, and by the time that you have to check-in they’re bent, torn or crumpled. But Virgin America has been listening to its passengers and has created an elegant fix—a folding boarding pass. The new design incorporates flight numbers, gate and terminal, seat assignment, departure and arrival times, as well as personal data. And it fits in your pocket.
Travel Between The Pages 