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Via the Book Oven Blog, an nifty little French video by Editis:

I mostly agree with what I’m seeing here, and it gets me excited. Except for two things:

1) When they get to the museum and scan the art book into their reader. I call bullshit. Art books are objects you own. They go on your coffee table, or on your bookshelf in a place of pride.

2) In the bookstore, again, replace all those trade paperbacks with really nice quality, upscale, finely printed and bound codices.

Quality, upscale, finely printed and bound codices will still have a place in our lives. Even more so than things like vinyl records. It’s the cheaply-made mass market (and to a lesser degree, trade paperback) editions whose days are numbered.

Just a quick update via the WordPress iPhone app. I’m travelling to San Diego for Comic Con, and on a lark (and bOINGbOING’s recommendation) I decided to fly Virgin American. Ho-lee shit. How do I love thee, let me count the ways:
1) In seat AC adapters, so my laptop never ran out of juice.
2) In flight WiFi. Nuff said.
3) Brand spanking new planes.
4) In seat meal ordering via their onboard LAN. I didn’t try this one, because I wasn’t hungry, but I sure will on the flight back.
5) $300 round trip from JFK.

And to top it all off, great, foggy, 60-degree weather on my smoke break during a two-hour layover in San Francisco (few direct flights and the cramped seating that is endemic to all airlines are the only downsides so far, but honestly, I’m not really minding too much). In all, a fantastic flying experience all around. This cranky traveller is very impressed, and not so cranky this time around. Well done, Sir Richard Branson.

Last month I was bamboozled asked nicely by my colleagues at Macmillan, Ryan Chapman and Ami Greko, to participate in a group talk at BEA (Book Expo America). The participants, Debbie Stier (Harper Studio), Jeff Yamaguchi (Knopf Doubleday and 52 Projects), Matt Supko (ABA/Indiebound and creator of the Indiebound iPhone app), Chris Jackson (Spiegel and Grau), Richard Nash (formerly of Soft Skull Press), and Lauren Cerand (independent public relations representative), were an engaging and lively bunch, and the event was a success. BEA has finally posted the videos for each of our presentations here. Here’s mine:

It’s a damned shame that the camera had to focus on my ugly mug instead of the slides, which add information (and most of the punchlines) to my speech. Here‘s a PDF of the slides that accompany the talk, in case you’re inclined to follow along at home.