Acme Ideas

A quite intense week as I was home alone in charge of two surly children (lots of whisky was drunk and I only told them I hated them once - yay me!). Also the last weeknotes for a while since this time next week I will be here.

But that is not to say that the week just gone has been uneventful. The news of my departure from Penguin after 13 top years has spread internally and externally and the list of stuff I have to take care of before I move is developing scarily. There will be a post about Penguin, publishing and 'the change' nearer the hour of departure. I'm still getting my head round the fact that in a few weeks I'll be doing a different job in a different office in a whole different industry.

I'm hoping to leave Penguin and publishing by delivering something audacious and have been working hard with some smart and nice folk to ensure that it will get done in time. Not sure that I will have succeeded in reinventing the book before I head off for Ad-land, but hopefully over the last few years I'll have left behind some work that in the words of a literary agent I pitched to this week, is remembered as being 'a bit mad and a bit clever'. That's good enough, no?

I might come across as all about the ones and zeros but I'm still of a generation who have an emotional connection to print and paper. I own one or two books and spend a fair amount of time visiting stationery shops online and offline in search of interesting notebooks. And my new thirst for graph paper needs constant slating.

So it was great to discover Present & Correct - a delicious online stationery emporium. I could have bought everything but restricted myself to a modest first order of four notepads which arrived today. Lovely stuff.

Equally exciting was the arrival of Art Space Tokyo, the beautifully designed guide to the hidden galleries of Tokyo. I became aware of this book after reading Craig mod's provocations on books and reading in the digital age. Craig then used Kickstarter to fund a new print run of Art Space Tokyo and while I am delighted with the print edition I am really looking forward to getting hold of the ipad version and seeing Craig's ideas put into practice. Flicking through this book has done nothing to quash my desire to visit Tokyo. I need to make it so.

Interesting difference in how The Economist's Intelligent Life and Wired magazine present their contributors list.

Wired's is infographic styled while the Economist presents a shelf of 'Books by our contributors' - does this reflect an emphasis in gravitas of the contributors or something about the sensibilities of the audiences.

Intelligent Life's contributors are *serious*Wired's contributors are *hip*   

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