2009 January - Better World Books Blog - Book Reviews, Author Interviews, Community Outreach & more

Paging Authors with Dana Barrett is a weekly podcast in which our lovely and talented Ms. Barrett sits down with your favorite bestselling authors as well as up and coming literary stars.

Marion Nestle sits down with Dana to talk about her latest book Pet Food Politics and how last year’s pet food recall shed light on larger problems in the food distribution systems worldwide. Marion Nestle is Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and also a Professor of Sociology at New York University. She is also the nutrition coeditor of The Bark Magazine and author of a number of books including Food Politics, Safe Food, What to Eat.

Marion Nestle [ 17:25 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (816)

1 Comment » | Tagged Author Podcast, bark magazine, marion nestle, pet food politics

Testing “The Secret”

Posted by Chip on 01.14.2009 at 1:37 pm

A friend of mine, Kyle, suggested I read a book entitled The Secret. Immediately, I assumed it was a “how to meet women” kind of book and declined the offer. Kyle reads countless books on how to meet women and then uses the “tactics” he learns to make women fall in “love” with “him.” (until human beings come up with a sarcasm font or a *sarcasm symbol, I am stuck with quotation marks) If Kyle ever gets married, his best man should be Logan Edwards the author of Secrets of the A Game: How to Meet and Attract Women.

I asked Kyle what the The Secret was about and he explained to me that it is about “the law of attraction.” It turns out the book is about the power of positive thinking and positive energy. The idea is that we are all made up of energy and if we focus our positive energy on the things we desire the universe will help manifest our desires.

Testing The Secret: To test this theory, I am going to focus my positive energy on the book itself and if “The Secret” manifests into my hands… I will definitely read it.

* One of Better World Books core values is to “Lead the movement.” I plan to lead the movement to create the sarcasm symbol. Do you know Chip Boyes? Yeah, he is the guy that invented the sarcasm symbol. Look out keyboard manufacturers. I am going to rock your world. [To be continued]

5 Comments » | Tagged Flabbergasted, Law of attraction, sarcastic, The Secret

The Calm (Before the Storm)

Posted by Jack on 01.13.2009 at 3:25 pm

Sorry about the somewhat lame amount of posts lately. There’s a lot cooking over here at Better World Books, so while I don’t want the sauce (the blog) to burn, sometimes all I can manage is the occasional stir while I’m working on dishes for other customers.

Some of the things we’re doing right now:
-Combining the woefully out of date (very 1999) Better World Books website with today’s glorious and awesome betterworld.com
-Changing the $5 Challenge into the $10 challenge and getting it back up on Twitter and Facebook
-Figuring out who we can give out some money and awards to (because who doesn’t like money and awards)
-Getting Facebook Connect to work on betterworld.com and more importantly over here on the blog!
-Figuring out global warming (OK, this one is an ongoing process, but it takes up a lot of mental time just trying to figure out what to wear in a city that can be anywhere from 45 and windy to 65 and sunny on any given day)
-Selling books a.k.a. what we do

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized

Better World Books 6,400 Book Donation to NCFL

Posted by Jack on 01.12.2009 at 4:00 pm

From the NCFL blog:

On Wednesday, Emily Kirkpatrick, Meg Ivey and I headed up to snowy Detroit for a book giveaway from Better World Books. Better World Books donated 6,400 books to three family literacy programs in Southwest Detroit, and NCFL was on hand for the donation!

bwb-delivery-blog

We met up with Rudy and Phil from BWB at Roberto Clemente Learning Academy, one of the three sites to receive books. They had driven up from South Bend, Indiana, with 8 huge pallets of books.

rudy-and-phil-from-bwb-blog

4 Comments » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners

“So Many Books” Emerson Reader

Posted by Jack on 01.12.2009 at 11:31 am

Stefanie over at “So Many Books” wrote a great little paragraph about the book she’s currently reading, A Year with Emerson

“I will leave you with the Emerson quote for today from A Year With Emerson. It is a letter of recommendation to the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, on behalf of one Mr. Walt Whitman: Read more…

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized

Week in Review: January 5-9

Posted by admin on 01.12.2009 at 11:15 am

What you missed while trying to capture a rather portly Florida ninja

-Publishers got a stern talking to
-Chip lamented musically diffused moments
-Karl Rove claimed some major reading by President Bush and himself
-We asked if you believe Karl Rove‘s claims
-TechCrunch showed us some love
-After months of suggesting it, Xavier finally broke and is on Twitter
-We spilled our Top 10 Favorite Books of 2008
-I rolled my eyes at the term “whatev”

Have your say » | Tagged Week In Review

Anti Word of the Week: Whatev

Posted by Jack on 01.09.2009 at 4:32 pm

No, I did not forget to include the end of that word. Today’s anti word of the week is “whatev.” Sometimes you’ll hear it as “whatevs” or sometimes it will be merely represented on your phone as “wtvr.” Regardless of which version you encounter, you can be sure of a few things:

-You don’t want to hang out with the person who wrote it/said it if you’re looking for a real conversation
-Your Read more…

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, Anti Word of the Week

Top Ten Best Books of 2008

Posted by admin on 01.09.2009 at 2:49 pm

I sent out an email to my 200+ coworkers that read “What were the ten best books you read in 2008?” The question is not what the best books were that came out this year, but rather, what were the best books you read during the year. Considering we have 4 offices, are an international company, and are notably an eclectic group, we got some great responses. Read more…