I have a $50 Barnes and Noble Gift Card...

[General Ludd]

When did Barnes and Noble become a cafe?

[chequita guevara]

About a decade ago.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Eh... I'd rather buy books with it rather than overpriced coffee, Slow . Though that is an idea if I have any left after my purchases .

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ok, so in my "Wish List"

Chronicles of Narnia - $13.99
A Game of Thrones (Ice and Fire 1) - $7.99
The Number's Game: Baseball's Lifelong Facination with Statisitcs - $12.55
American Gods - $7.99
Freakanomics - $15.57
Renaissance Bazaar - $14.95

Now the first 3 are almost definite (so don't try to talk me out of the baseball book ). That's $34.53.

$15.47 left (though I can spend a few cents more if I decide on Freakanomics). Any suggestions on what to pick? Or another that I've forgotten about? Maybe a Harry Potter compendium?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, and before I forget... another on the Wish List.

Fever Pitch - $12.60

Oh, and before you think I've gone and become some wierd Red Sox fanatic, it's about soccer. More accuratly, it's about obsession with Hornby's favorite, Arsenal.

[snoopy369]

Mass Market paperbacks, in addition to the Wiki info, are printed in a much less durable binding and on much cheaper paper. It costs significantly less to print one than it does to print a TP... and they as a result last on average about 4 reads before falling apart.

MMs also yellow very quickly, while (many) trade paperbacks are printed on low-acid or acid-free paper (and thus don't yellow).

Finally, MMs are (rarely) pulped. Usually they are dumpstered... remember, bookstores don't print books so there's no need to make new paper, and it would be a huge waste of money to try and recycle the books (transportation costs, same reason you strip them in the first place).

In fact, books are almost never pulped ... Trade PBs and especially hardcovers are 'remaindered' first, ie sent to a bargain wholesaler who then resells them to bookstores for pennies on the dollar.

Ultimately, MMs are most similar to magazines. You buy them to read them once - not to save them (unless you're me, and I rarely reread them anyway) ...

---

Song of Ice and Fire #4.1 is coming out soon. Really. It's at the publisher and will really be out when they say, THIS time. GM decided to write too long of a book (1500 pages according to some sources) and they refused to publish it all, so they just stopped about halfway through and will publish the half as #4 and the other as #5 (or #4.2?). Similar to Steven Brust's recent trilogy-inside-a-trilogy, where he wanted the third book(s) in his Phoenix Guards series to be 1 book, but it was way too long so they made him cut it up (into 3). But you can finally take heart that this publication date is for real

---

Barnes and Noble operates Starbucks Cafés in the far majority of their stores. Most book superstores nowadays have cafés; they don't make them a ton of money, but they tend to draw shoppers in to buy more books, and make the store a "destination". Borders currently operates mostly Borders Cafés, but in a growing number of stores is rebranding as Seattle's Best (SBC). I work in a Café Borders branded store (which has not yet converted), and I have to say we make MUCH better drinks than Starbucks-B&N. Republic of Tea, Kahlua Mudslide Freezes, fresh made espresso frozen drinks (not that Frappuccino pre-made crud) ... and we don't pretend that you can ice a cappuccino

Edit: For the Brit/Aussi/NZ/Singapore crowd, I believe Borders uses Starbucks in its International stores. Not sure why - perhaps B&N only has exclusive rights in the US? Not sure about Borders-owned subsidiary branded stores in other countries ... we don't have any with Cafés in the US i don't think, not Waldens or Brentanos anyway

---

Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, is a great book. Levitt was my favorite Econ professor in college, and an incredibly engaging teacher. He has some great ideas in there ... sadly I didn't learn much from the book due to having already taken his class a few years ago and thus learned much of it there, but it is still a great read with some interesting challenges to 'common knowledge' and some very apolitical views on things... Definitely read it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah, well it's cool that your prof wrote the Economics book of the day . Must love to drop that nugget from time to time .

Interesting about the Starbucks with Borders elsewhere. Never would have thought they had seperate deals in other countries.

I don't particularly re-read too many books, so I think I may be safe with the MMP of the Ice and Fire book. Well, if not, it's free .

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Song of Ice and Fire #4.1 is coming out soon. Really. It's at the publisher and will really be out when they say, THIS time. GM decided to write too long of a book (1500 pages according to some sources) and they refused to publish it all, so they just stopped about halfway through and will publish the half as #4 and the other as #5 (or #4.2?). Similar to Steven Brust's recent trilogy-inside-a-trilogy, where he wanted the third book(s) in his Phoenix Guards series to be 1 book, but it was way too long so they made him cut it up (into 3). But you can finally take heart that this publication date is for real

No, what they did is have #4 include only a particular set of PoVs (IIRC the southern ones). #5 will include the rest (northern ones and Dany). They're concurrent in time.

[Richelieu]

My suggestion: (and you'll still have lots of $ left for something else)

On Bull****

Product Details:
ISBN: 0691122946
Format: Hardcover, 80pp
Pub. Date: January 2005
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 523

ABOUT THE BOOK

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bull****. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bull**** and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bull**** is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bull**** and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bull****ters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bull**** need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bull****ters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bull**** can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bull**** is a greater enemy of the truth thanlies are.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, I saw that... it looks interesting .

How did it read?