Occasionally, a book will cross my path that I think will be very interesting to Well-Appointed Desk readers and I think Woman With A Blue Pencil by Gordon McApline is just such a book. The premise of the book sounds both strange and intriguing blending noir detective tale and WWII Japanese-American internment camps and the book publishing world and so much more. Every review I’ve read makes me scratch my head since no one seems to describe the book the same way. It makes it even more intriguing.
More information and reviews can be found on GoodReads.
The book is available in both hard copy and ebook formats but it seems appropriate to read this one in hard copy, though the choice is yours. If you do read it, please let me know what you think of it.
The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century by Richard Polt is a book about typewriter’s for the modern enthusiast. The books contains both the history of typewriters as well as how and why people are using typewriters in the 21st century. There’s information on cleaning on old typewriter, how to trouble shoot why your machine might not work and how to “gussy it up”. There’s lots of photos of typewriters throughout history both machines that you’ll recognize and others that are strange and marvelous devices. One of the coolest touches of this book is the bookmark ribbon which is, of course, a red and black ribbon like a typewriter ribbon.
While I’m talking about typewriter books, I must include The Typewriter: A Graphic History of the Beloved Machine from Uppercase. This is a huge coffee table tome that was exquisitely and lovingly produced by Janine Vangool of Uppercase magazine. The book includes hundreds of photos of typewriters, advertisements and ephemera in 300+ pages and organized by decade from the turn of the century through the 1980s. Often with Uppercase publications, once the book sells out, it is not reprinted so if this is something that might be of interest to you, I’d order it now. I pre-ordered my copy last year and I’m so glad I did.
For an inside peek, check out this video included on the web site.
Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey is the latest selection chosen for the Letter Writers Alliance online book club. The live video chat will be Sunday January 10 at 12:30 CST so there’s plenty of time to pick this up and read it, especially with the holidays approaching. I just got a copy from my local library so I’ll be reading it by my non-working fireplace with a blanket, a cat on my lap and a cup of tea between now and New Year’s Day. And this book sounds tailor-made for me. An epistolary tale about World War II? Sign me up!
Do you have any pen-related books to recommend? Leave a comment and maybe I’ll start a regular series with books for the pen & paper set!
I’m thinking you might want to check out The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson and/or A Sense of Paper by Wendy Holden. Both are more paper than pen related but good read novels!
And of course all the paper love (and book love) in Audrey Niffenengger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.