The new Using Books logo was designed by Phil Scroggs, a talented designer and illustrator whose work can be seen on his website, Phillustrations.

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So you’ve made your way through your 1,000+ volume set of the Complete Penguin Classics Library and you’re wondering what to read next. What about all of those Penguin Classics that aren’t part of the complete set — those that are are out-of-print? Anthologies are re-sequenced when an author’s oeuvre is reconsidered, publishing plans are revised, editor’s move on, and sometimes — in retrospect — that classic may not have withstood the test of time after all. A cursory glance through my inventory brings up a handful of forgotten Penguin Classics:

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Slate critic Bryan Curtis wants to reclaim Ray Bradbury from literary respectability:

To these eyes, many of Bradbury’s most garishly “literary” achievements are his least impressive. When the McCarthyite gloom of Fahrenheit 451 fades, it’s the pulpy, childlike terrors that stick. Bradbury nudging characters into his ingenious hells; Bradbury the fabulist of the Space Age (morals in 10 pages or less!); Bradbury the dinosaur nut who confessed an urge to “run and live” among giant reptiles.

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There was a benefit show for 826 Seattle at the Bumbershoot Arts Festival last night. 826 Seattle is a new organization that provides tutoring and creative writing classes for Seattle youth, an offshoot of Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia in San Francisco. The show featured readings by Dave Eggers and Sarah Vowell, and music from Mike Doughty and Death Cab for Cutie. The evening’s emcee was Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket).

The show culminated in this scene, Death Cab for Cutie playing Duran Duran’s hit song Hungry Like the Wolf with Mike Doughty on lead vocals and Lemony Snicket playing accordian and singing back-up vocals.

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The New York Times has a short interview with S. E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders. The occasion is the release of a new cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s film adaptation of the book.

Hinton has recently returned to writing and her new work seems a departure from her teen novels:

Last year . . . Ms. Hinton published her first adult novel, “Hawkes Harbor,” about an orphan raised by nuns who encounters pirates, gun runners and sharks while at sea, and is protected by a vampire.

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Guardian critic Tim Adams, goes in search of Scott Pack, who — as head buyer for UK bookselling giant Waterstone’s — seems to be spoken of in hushed tones:

I was talking to a few publishers in London about an idea I’d had for a book, partly, pointedly, about mid-life underachievement. Mostly, they liked the idea, but a single name seemed to dog my progress. ‘You have to understand,’ they said, ‘that whatever we think of it, we have to sell it to Scott Pack.’ Or: ‘I think Scott Pack is quite down on this kind of thing at the moment.’ When I asked around I discovered it wasn’t just me. Scott Pack was, it seemed, down on a few of my friends’ ideas, too.

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The New York Times and the Associated Press both got a preview of the Book Industry Study Group’s new report on the used book market. Used book sales rose eleven percent to 2.2 billion dollars in 2004. Three-quarters of that business was in textbooks, though non-textbooks sales have increased more than textbook sales.

The New York Times article touches on concerns about surging online sales’ affect on the health of bricks-and-mortar shops. I’d be curious if there are any statistics about what portion of online sales are made by booksellers with physical shops. The used and new markets and the online and offline markets are all more integrated than we think.

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