People are apparently reading less. I may have only read about six books so far this year, but I've not stopped paying attention to the covers in the store.

Three covers which caught my eye of late are those illustrated above. While I catch up on work—and this site—I've presented them here for you to admire too. As I have no clue what they're about*, I've given links to Amazon and their mini-sites for your perusal.

Left, Tana French's In The Woods (Viking)
Buy from Amazon / Publisher's Page

Middle, Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Buy from Amazon / Publisher's Page

Right, Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End: A Novel (Little, Brown and Company)
Buy from Amazon / Publisher's Page

What covers are you enjoying? And leave a comment if you've read any of the above.

* Trust me, if I had time to read a book review I'd have time to read more books.

Last night we attended the latest installment of Live at the New York Public Library for Miranda July & Friends. July read two stories from her recently published book of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, followed by three songs (and a sing-a-long) from Lavender Diamond singer Becky Stark.

Stark struck me as a quirky breakfast waitress from Denny's who could be learning guitar during cigarette breaks, but as soon as she began to sing the room was fixated. She has a delicate voice, with just the right "balance" of heartache and humor. I assume it's no small feat to get the entire NYPL audience to perform a hushed sing-a-long too, which she achieved with endearing force. Friday nights will do that to you.

After the delicious cheese and wine intermission July was interviewed by Talking Head David Byrne, armed with his trusty PowerPoint sidekick to dissect clips from July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Miranda joked that he didn't really have questions, rather statements which ended "what up?" While true, he picked up on some of beautiful subtleties of her film, web, and performance work. I wished there'd been an open floor of questions like last time we saw her at the NYPL.

Becky Stark then came out for one more number, with Byrne accompanying her on guitar, whom she directed authoritatively. Only she could do that!

Notable attendants included Dimitri Martin, Mike Mills, Jon Spencer, and Cristina Martinez. I wanted to pester Mike Mills to make a new record with Butter 08, but it probably wasn't the right time...

It's true, we do. We usually have over 100 magazines from all corners of the globe in our apartment each month. Andi even made part of her desk using stacks of them. We also love those who love magazines, which leads me to PingMag's excellent feature on the recently published We Love Magazines. They interview the book's art director Jeremy Leslie about the future of print, and about magazines in particular. I'm very excited to get a hold of this—it really seems to compliment the explorations of my colleague David Renead in his own The Last Magazine.

There's a ot to read, and many opinions in each direction, so I'll leave the exploration to you.

Buy We Love Magazines: Amazon.com | Die Gestalten
Buy The Last Magazine: Amazon.com
@ MagCulture Blog
@ Creative Review's State of Independents

We got a message today from Miranda July, director of the enchanting Me and You and Everyone We Know:

hello my friends,
i have this book of stories coming out next month, it's called No One Belongs Here More Than You. you might like it! or at very least, you might like to look at the website i just made for it, http://www.noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/
yours,
miranda

We're very excited about the book (which you can pre-order here), and I highly recommend catching her on her national book tour (details here), but definitely check our her book's website—it's a lot of fun. You can also read an excerpt on Simon & Schuster's page for the book, check it out here.

Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet: an alternative to "The Secret". Guaranteed to be mumbo jumbo marketing-free.

Buy: Amazon