Just the other day, Chip Kidd was in Pennsylvania where he was a guest on TAKE NOTE RADIO – WPSU, the official radio show of Penn State University. This was where Chip had gone to school. The Radio Talk Show Host was Patty Satalia and they talked about Graphic Design, Creating Book Covers, What it’s like to write your own books (The Cheese Monkeys, The Learners, and his new book, GO: A Kidd’s Guide To Graphic Design) and much much more! Mrs. Satalia’s questions were very well-researched & also pretty clever. Whew!

You can hear the complete interview, right here in it’s entirety, but we also suggest visiting their website for more broadcasts.

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On May 9th, 2013, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show interviewed David Sedaris, the author of “LET’S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS” (Little, Brown and Company). Check out the video, it’s pretty funny!

The entire Book Publishing Industry is getting totally geared-up for the next BOOK EXPO AMERICA 2013 event happening later this week in New York City. It opens on Thursday, May 30th and runs to Sunday, June 1st.

Random House, and all of it’s subsidiaries (Pantheon, Knopf, Doubleday, Vintage, Crown, etc…) will all be there and it looks like they have a great line up! There will be multiple Authors, live and in person, there to autograph books and the event also has a ton of great things to do. In fact, there is so much going on within this event that we can’t possibly list it all here.

So, for a complete list of what’s going on and who will be there please be sure to visit the text links down below. Hey, it’s gonna be fun and we hope to see you there!

Official RANDOM HOUSE Books and Author Event List, CLICK HERE!

Official 2013 BOOK EXPO AMERICA Website, CLICK HERE!

The LIBRARY JOURNAL : Librarian’s Guide to the 2013 B.E.A., CLICK HERE!

Also, as a fun and friendly side-note, we would like to mention that our good friend, Author Neil Gaiman, will be there for a special lecture titled, “Why Fiction is Dangerous”. For more information please read the graphic down below & also visit the 2013 BEA website (link up above).

If you have been anywhere near a television set or the Internet lately then you have heard about the tragic event that recently occurred in Oklahoma. On May 20th, 2013 the city of Moore, and other outlining areas, experienced an extreme tornado that wiped out many homes and businesses. It not only destroyed people cars but their lives as well. They still need our help.

Please visit the Official AMERICAN RED CROSS website and make any donation you can, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

You can also text “REDCROSS” to 90999 and automatically give 10 dollars!

Thank you!

Also, for our friends in Oklahoma who have lost their pets, a special Facebook page has been created to help you:
The Facebook OKLAHOMA TORNADO LOST PETS website, CLICK HERE!

This week Neil Gaiman’s MAKE GOOD ART Book came out (which was designed by Chip Kidd) and one cool thing to happen is that the Philadelphia Weekly not only did a great interview all about the creation of this book, but they put Neil’s face on the cover! Oddly, this is only the second time that has happened (the first was on WIRED Magazine).

Neil Gaiman was interviewed by Kyle Cassidy. The article covers many topics all related to the new MAKE GOOD ART book like how did the, now famous, graduation Speech even come about and what prompted the creation of this book. It’s a great interview with this fun Author. Here’s a LINK to check it out, just CLICK HERE!

Author James Ellroy joins Walter Kirn on BylinerTV for a conversation where nothing is restrained and the boundaries of polite conversation are obliterated.

Ellroy testifies to the vile and glorious corners of L.A., and shares his visions of history without refracting the present day. With all the confidence of a shotgun blast, he tears through the politically correct limits on discussion and breathes fire with each admission and opinion. From his roots in writing, crime, fame fascination and current events, it’s an interview that could be measured on the Richter scale.

NPR Radio’s Talk of the Nation recently interviewed Neil Gaiman about his latest Graduation Gift book titled, “Neil Gaiman’s MAKE GOOD ART Speech”. The new book, designed by Chip Kidd and published by Harper Collins, is set to be released on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013.

Click here to listen to the NPR Radio Interview with Neil Gaiman:

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Chip Kidd, Associate Art Director at Knopf Books, Peter Mendelsund, Art Director for Pantheon Press, and Stephen Doyle, Creative Director, Doyle Partners; Design Contributor, New York Times and Wired, discuss whether cutting edge visual design can save the print industry. The talk is moderated by Darhil Crooks, Creative Director for the Atlantic, and way down below is the video-taped footage of the event.

Date: Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Location: New York Historical Society, NYC

The first Speaker is Chip Kidd and he starts out talking a little bit about working with Neil Gaiman on Neil’s new book, MAKE GOOD ART : Neil Gaiman’s Speech Book. Which, by the way, is coming out on Wednesday, May 15th. Yes, that’s tomorrow! Very quickly, Chip Kidd gives a preview of what the book will look like, discusses some of the design ideas and concepts, and then (in a very sneaky way) he shamelessly plugs his own book that is coming out in October of 2013. We’re talking about his “Teaching Graphic Art to Kids” Book which is titled, “GO! A KIDD’S GUIDE TO GRAPHIC DESIGN“.

Then, next-up is Peter Mendelsund who quickly shares an amazing assortment of some of his work. Like Chip, he mainly designs book covers. But his graphic art has an interesting twist. He designs jackets for new books that are expected to be bestsellers AND he creates new covers for old classics, what they call the “back list”, and it’s all really great stuff like: Franz Kafka, Dante, Plato, Simone De Beauyoir, James Joyce, etc…

Peter also makes a shameless plug for his brand-new Design Book coming out in the Spring of 2014 titled, “COVER” by Peter Mendelsund. It looks pretty cool!

Then, the last guest (last, but NOT least) is Stephen Doyle who shares an amazing art-concept movie he created called CIPHER. This was a project he worked on with some Students and the end result is pretty interesting. He also discusses recent trends in publishing & print media.

Design for change. Design for good. Design for a better world.

These are the premises that fuel DESIGN INDABA. Their goal is for a better world through design, creativity and innovation.

Chip Kidd spoke at their 2011 event and while in Barcelona he stumbled across a caf decorated with book covers that he had designed. He found this both strange… and rather great!

BOOKSCOUT provides readers with personalized book recommendations based on people's Facebook timelines. The app also recommends popular titles - published by both Random House, Inc. and non Random House, Inc. imprints — readers are Liking, sharing, and adding to their bookshelves within the app. It also presents bestsellers from all publishers broken out by category, based on industry sales data.

Information about people's interests from their Facebook timelines is incorporated into the personal recommendations, and Liking books via the app helps create more tailored suggestions - the more books and interests users Like, the better the recommendations will be. Recommendations feature titles from all publishers, and include links to major retailers so people can easily purchase print books and eBooks they're interested in.

Readers can create and organize their own digital bookshelves, sharing what they're currently reading with their Facebook friends, tagging books they'd like to read, and keeping track of books they've read. People can also see what their friends are reading, encouraging organic word-of-mouth recommendations.

"Word of mouth is the number one way readers learn and get enthusiastic about books they want to read," says Amanda Close, Random House's Senior Vice President, Digital Marketplace Development. "By creating BookScout, Random House is helping to encourage conversations about books on Facebook, and broaden the social discovery of books in the digital space."

BOOKSCOUT is the latest initiative in Random House's in-house-developed efforts to guide readers in book discovery, including web verticals like Word & Film, Everyday eBook, Biographile and Suvudu, each of which feature interviews, news and reviews of books in their respective categories, and partnerships with Politico, Epicurious and Publishers Lunch to integrate books and authors onto their sites.

For more information about BookScout and to install the app, please CLICK HERE!