 March 3, 2009
We put some new features up on the web last week that are worth having a look at. DDG's National Bestsellers and Awards Page is filled with all kinds of interesting book lists. It includes national and international awards in many different genres and age ranges, as well as an array of intriguing regional award lists. All lists are complete with cover images and annotation. Let us know if there are any lists you'd like to see added! Another thing we've been working with is the social networking tool Twitter. I can't say that I fell in love with twitter's blending of public and private personas, nor am I sure that broadcasting every thought and activity out in 140 character updates is the embodiment of a profound human enterprise, but we have found two ways to use this new technology. First is by making DDG's Newsdesk where we're posting a stream of links to interesting book industry news articles. It seemed to us that these articles might be more interesting than posting what we were eating for lunch or whether Karen forgot to bring in her cell phone. The one person on staff, however, whose talents are ready made for Twitter is Mystic Jon, our fifteenth generation medium who specializes in speaking with famous deceased authors from all of recorded history. To facilitate this we have created Mystic Jon's Realm of Literary Communing with Famous Deceased Authors. Mystic Jon, pictured above right receiving "tweets from the other side" will be posting those important messages onto his page. One thing we've seen thus far is that twitter's 140 character limit can cause some important revelations to stop mid stream. Which is amazingly unfortunate! Another thing is that some messages have been coming across without attribution. These are marked Unidentified Author. The first person to correctly identify the author of an unidentified mystic twitter will receive a $5.00 gift certificate. At least one new UA tweet will be posted each Tuesday! Here they are! Our weekly picks for the two best: two hardcover, two paperback, and two children's books. The very best new arrivals to leap out of the box and onto our shelves this week. Call or email us if you want more information on any of these titles, or to have us hold you a copy. Or stop in and check them out in person. We'd love to see you. Thanks as always for sharing your reading with us!
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