J.D. Salinger rude to his maid...

...and it's now worth $50K.

A Nevada-based company is selling the nearly-illegible note on eBay for $50,000. It reads:

Dear Mary, please make sure all the errands are done before you go on vacation, as I do not want to be bothered with insignificant things. Thank you. J.D. Salinger

Via Jezebel 

The infinity book shelf

What's a Book Track?

It's an e-reader that "brings movie quality sound tracks to books". As in, the books you read on this Kindle-esque tablet have sound effects and a musical score - the sound is activated by the turning of a page (and you enter your "general" reading speed so it knows what pace to keep). I'm not sold. But then I still buy paper books. Want to know more?

Here's a sexy explanation starring James Frey...

And here's one that actually tells you something...

A book in a box (without a beginning a middle or an end)

Composition No. 1 is a re-imagining of a book originally published in the 1960s. It's literally a box of loose pages.  Each of them has a self-contained narrative, so it's up to the reader to decide the order they read it in, or how much or how little of the book they want to read before they begin again. 

"In so many ways, Composition No.1 was published ahead of its time: the book raises all the questions we ask ourselves today about user-centric, non-linear screen driven ways of reading. Ultimately, our re-imagined Composition No.1 asks readers to consider: what makes a book a book?"

The Corrections gets a HBO make over

Exciting news today via Lee Tran, via Indiewire, via Daily Mail (phew); Joanthan Franzen's The Corrections, once slated to be made in to a movie by (friend of Wes Anderson's and he of the perfect hair fop) Noah Baumbach, is now rumoured to be being prepped to become a mini series for HBO. Still in the hands of Baumbach it's rumoured that both Anthony Hopkins and Donald Sutherland are interested in taking the lead role of Alfred Lambert, the family patriarch who suffers from Parkinson’s-induced dementia. Seems like it's in safe hands, looking forward to more casting rumours.

Noah and Wes (right) wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Fantastic Mr Fox together

The reader: Peter Giugni

I was introduced to Peter Giugni by my friend Jac at the East Village Hotel last summer. He spoke enthusiastically about Sodoku for an almost uncomfortably long period of time.  Beyond Sodoko Pete enjoys camping, drinking XXX and talking about gendercide and despite all this we get along super well. Pete is a big-hearted, muesli-eating humanitarian who works for the Australian Red Cross. He’s the kindest, loveliest most joyful person I know and I feel extremely lucky that I get to spend so much of my time with him. These are his three favourite survival stories.

Guantanamo: My Journey by David Hicks 

"People have a lot to say about David Hicks. Everyone has the right to tell their side of the story, and I for one am glad David has finally had the chance to give his. David spends the first half of the book detailing his misspent youth, which resulted in him hanging out with some pretty whacked out types in Pakistan and Afghanistan (I identify with this a lot, however I didn't get to that stage until adulthood). The remainder of the story is about David's time in Guantanamo Bay. Guilty, innocent, stupid or naive, what he was put through was truly horrible and I do find it remarkable that he has survived. A very important perspective for the West to understand in its attempts to win the "Global War on Terror". 

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

"Yann Martel's incredible story of young Pi set adrift with all sorts of marauding animals on a tiny raft whom he manages to tame and get along with. How he did this I will never know. I was devastated when I found out this wasn't a true story (which was several months after I read the book)."

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

"I'm not actually that much of a Nick Hornby fan, but this book had me laughing out loud on the tram on the way to work for several weeks. A bunch of losers who are so pathetic that they can't even kill themselves make a pact to refrain from suicide for six weeks to see if they feel happier at the end. Their hilarious story not only had me in stitches, but also reminded me of how great life is, even when everything isn't going your way." 

There's a website that just sells book ends

Conveniently you can find it at http://www.justbookends.com/

Buy the novel idea set at Etsy