China: Antique Market

I returned from about two weeks in Beijing on Tuesday and have just overcome some pretty intense jet lag. I have a few book posts I'm excited to share. First up is my visit to the antique market, or Panjiayuan. I absolutely loved visiting the market. There were beautiful trinkets, jewelry, cameras and, most importantly, hundreds of used books.

I resisted the urge to buy a lot of beautiful books that I wouldn't be able to read or fit in my suitcase to bring home, but I spent over an hour browsing and found so many great things. Including, to my surprise, Grace Bonney's Design*Sponge at Home.

The world is so big and sometimes seems unseeable in one lifetime, but things like this still make it feel so small.

While in Beijing I also visited a wonderful library/bookstore that I can't wait to show you. Hopefully I'll have that up early next week but getting back into the swing of things in life and in work has been taking up quite a bit of time.

In the meantime, here are the books I took with me
& a closer look at Design*Sponge at Home

50 books/50 covers favorites

Of course all the books even nominated for the 50 Books/50 Covers competition are beautiful, but out of the 2011 winners, I've picked a few favorites. The six I've chosen are pretty telling of my current tastes as far as trends and colors go.

To see all the winners, visit Design Observer.

Also on the list was Cardon Webb's cover series for Oliver Sacks, which is absolutely fantastic.

Ron Swanson vs Dr. Seuss

I am a huge Parks and Rec fan. In fact, I'm going as one of the show's characters for Halloween and am insanely excited about it. So of course I love this design by Tom Trager that is a beautiful mash-up of my favorite Ron Swanson-ism and a Dr. Seuss book cover.

I think I've already sent about 10 of my friends a link to the design but I kind of needed to share it here as well. If you'd like, you can buy it as a t-shirt.

Actual children's books I love
& the book of the future.

The Witches' Supermarket

This week at work we featured a round-up of children's books that are great for October bedtimes. I couldn't help but pitch-in with my personal favorite: The Witches' Supermarket.

Growing up, I look forward to reading The Witches' Supermarket every fall. Part of the Martha Speaks series, the story follows Helen and her dog Martha to a supermarket on Halloween night that caters to witches and their cats. As they travel from aisle to aisle, Helen and Martha start to sense something is a little off with the other shoppers and the items in their carts.

I really hope my mom still has our worn-down paperback copy at home. If not, I've found a hardcover copy on Etsy that is pretty tempting to purchase.

(images via Etsy)

Lady Geek of the Week

Last week, Being Geek Chic featured me as their Lady Geek of the Week. It might be the biggest honor of my very young life so far. They asked me a few questions about my life as a geeky lady that I really enjoyed thinking over and answering. Visit Being Geek Chic to read my interview and make sure to follow their blog (super easy since it's a Tumblr) for some great content.

Thanks again to Liz and Emma!

China!

I'm heading to Beijing on Oct. 13. It will be my first time in China, and in Asia at all, and I'm so excited. China has never really been near the top of places I'd like to visit but the stars kind of aligned and I couldn't say no. I'll be traveling with my mom to visit a family friend, and hopefully things will work out so I can see my friend Taylor, who is currently carving marble for Sias University.

So far, I've snagged three travel books for the trip:

• Wallpaper* City Guide Beijing 2012
• Lonely Planet Beijing (City Travel Guide)
• Rough Guide Mandarin Chinese Phrasebook 

Of course, I've also downloaded the Mandarin version of the TripLingo App, which my friend James helped create. I've messed around with it a little so far and I'm really excited to fully put it to use when we land... or on my 20 hour plane ride (yikes).

And I'm a little intimidated by the thought of spending a whole day in the air. I've done a few trips across the Atlantic but always had a layover somewhere in Europe so I've never been on a plane longer than 8 hours at a time. Which means, I need to stock my iPad with a lot of books and movies for the roundtrip flights. 

I would really appreciate some recommendations. Any books you've recently read and loved and would like to share would be wonderful. Right no, I plan on getting J.K. Rowling's new book but that's all. So please, please give me some recommendations. 

Chris Ware's Building Stories

Although I live in downtown Chicago, I take the green line west each day to Oak Park for work. After about a year and a half at the company, I feel like I've gotten to know the community pretty well. One thing I can definitely say about Oak Park is they are really proud of their fellow Oak Parkers' achievements.

Which is why I was not surprised to see a copy of Oak Park resident Chris Ware's latest graphic novel/masterpiece, "Building Stories" in the office today.

I didn't have time to really read through any of it (I was at work after all) but I'm definitely impressed with what I saw and grabbed a few photos to share.

I've never been very into graphic novels or comics of any kind but I'm definitely intrigued by "Building Stories" and it's celebration of print. This concept definitely would not be as strong digitally and I think it's just another reminder that print and digital can exist side-by-side peacefully.

Since I haven't read anything contained in the box, I can't very well review it, but I did find some interesting review online, including one from the The Globe and Mail.

If you get your hands on a copy/box/majestic thing, let me know what you think.

Plus, another pro to print & con of digital from a year ago.
And I'm still in love with this cover by Paul Sahre.

melancholia covers

I'm so happy to have come across the work of Emmanuel Polanco, or melancholia. Emmanuel's collage and illustration work is simple and often has great punches of color. His book covers in particular are really beautiful.

I remember reading "The Pearl" in middle school and absolutely hating it but Emmanuel's cover for it has me thinking maybe it wasn't so bad and I should give it another shot. Great work on "Moby Dick" and "Lolita" as well, which are both frequently recovered by illustrators and designers. These are some of my favorites that I've seen since starting this blog.

I recommend clicking through Emmanuel's site to see more of his work.
And I still love these Vulture Books by Daniel Gray.

1950s Dick and Jane

Etsy is like it's own black hole in the internet. I could spend hours browsing just the vintage books for sale. I love this 14-book set I found from seller BookMonster of 1950s First Edition Dick and Jane readers.

The color combinations and cover illustrations are beautiful. The set is definitely something special.

You can see inside pages and more images on the Etsy listing.
And more Etsy treasures.