Attended the last day of BookExpo America over the weekend, with my sister, who is a book “shepherd” (will see you through every stage of creation), who attends every year. She had arrived home the day before with an armload of catalogues, and I went off in pursuit of those small publishers who had Shakespeare books soon to be released. Stay tuned on this site! Much riches to come! How beauteous mankind is!

On the children’s floor, I bought a Shakespeare finger puppet to support a New Jersey library. Since it was buy-one-get-one-free, I took a George Orwell as well.

Later on the bus, I tried to entertain a lap dog with engaging canine quotes (“Let slip the dogs of war!”) but he merely sighed and burrowed deeper into the duffel bag he was being carried in. On the subway, my sister and I held an impromptu puppet show of Orwell (“Big Brother is watching you!”) and Shakespeare (“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!”) until we noticed that tourists were filming us.

Good thing one of the books I snagged was The Birth(and Death)of the Cool by Ted Gioia, which I've starting reading and loving. It covers the history of "cool" as an attitude/lifestyle and asserts that it's being replaced by a new authenticity.

I knew (or is that “hoped”?) cool was on the way out. It’s so much more fun to play with finger puppets of famous authors.

Labels: George Orwell, Shakespeare

posted by Elizabeth at 11:04 AM