howies®

I found “The Good Website Guide 2005″ while tidying up some books and looking for stuff from the howies library.

I’m always dubious of books about the internet. By the time you get them printed and on shelves, they’re in danger of being obsolete.

This book has a section for ‘Social Networking’ and it lists two main options – http://friendster.com and http://notfriendster.com

How times change…

Real books are great.

The ones you can scribble in, and tear pages out of.

The ones you can read under a tree in the sun.

The ones you can share with your friends.

The ones that make your bag heavy, reminding you they need reading.

The ones that smell great and wear out.

The ones that recharge your batteries.

howies has a library, you can borrow our books.

Thing is, they’re not easy to find on our site and so they end up sitting in a cupboard in the warehouse.

Our library has been neglected. Our books are not being read.

We need to fix that.

On the 21st of September a very resourceful group decided to set up thelondonpaperlibrary on the London Underground circle line.   As the London Paper free newspaper was forced to close on the 18th, the organisers saw this as an opportunity to inject another free choice for the London commuter to read. 

It was a mobile library- set up by the organisers and volunteer librarians.  Books were proped up along the windows; each with a library card inside, which read:

Welcome to thelondonpaperlibrary

Now that you have a book in your hands, it’s yours to enjoy on your commute from work or wherever.

Read it till the next stop.  Take it with you till the last page.  Return it so we can all do this again.

To continue enjoying free libraries and a different commute:

www.thelondonpaperlibrary.co.uk

The cards also had a list of links to websites for community events and other mobile libraries.  It was slightly tongue in cheek concept by the performer Shane Solanki, but It’s a great idea and hopefully there will be another event soon!

My friend Jessie Ford did the Geeks Corner mural for us in store a few months back.  Yesterday Eliza Williams wrote about it on the Creative Review Blog which is awesome!

It features along side a music video that her friend George Wu directed.  Thought I’d share it with you…made me smile :)

Here Comes Trouble by Ill Ease

I moved into a new place a couple of weeks ago, and there’s no broadband.

I wasn’t sure how I’d cope. I have quite an addiction to Google and eBay.

But it’s not so bad after all.

I’m reading instead of facebooking and getting on the bike more often instead of going on iPlayer.

5 hours on Sunday. An hour and a half this morning. An hour and a half tonight.

The fixed wheel is great for training. It forces me to put in the effort.

Not sure what I’m training for, though. But the aim is 20 hours/230 miles a week.

Until I break the bike or the bike breaks me.

The bookshops have more deals than you can shake a stick at.

Every talk show has a “book club”.

They have designed a big calculater-looking thing that is a book.  Well, actually it isn’t a book – it is just a big calculater-looking thing, but it is allegedly the future.  I don’t buy it.  Anyway…………………

I’d like to know what book you have a) just read, b) currently reading, and c) want to read next.

For me -

A – City of Thieves by David Benioff

B – Princess Bride by William Goldman

C- The Secret Life of Trees by Colin Tudge

Alastair Humphreys explorer/adventurer extraordinaire has very kindly sent us one of his books to add to our ever expanding ‘geeks corner’.

here’s a little bit about it from the man himself……

“I had so much time on the road to reflect on why I was doing my ride, what had motivated me to begin, what I was learning on the way, and what challenges I hope to take on in the future.
In this book I have broken down these lessons into 10 simple chapters, illustrated with experiences from my journey and stunning photography that is sure to inspire and encourage.
10 simple points that led to the accomplishment of the biggest adventure of my life (so far), an accomplishment that in the beginning I felt was beyond me.
Why only 10 lessons? Because we all have just one life, and the clock is ticking fast. We can’t spend too long theorising about how we are going to live our lives. Better that we get out and live them! So 10 lessons should be enough for now. Let’s get on and ride the roads we have always dreamed of riding, before it’s too late.”

and here’s his website… http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/

come and have a read!

We recently commisioned the wonderfully talentled Jessie Ford to do a mural in our library in store.  To check out her other commisions to go www.jessieford.co.uk

Pop in the shop, have a cuppa and check out our library.  Its full of books to inspire you.

The guys over at The Ride just gave us the word that issue 1 has just gone up on their site as a free download.

Go and check it out here.

And remember, we still have the very desierable printed copies of issue 2 available for sale here.

the Do lectures is taking its first steps into adulthood.

it has a bank account.

its a ltd company.

it’s purpose is to build a world class resource for doers to make a positive change.

it has to pay its way in the world but it is not here for profit.

it’s here to make people think, to inspire us to go do good things.

It has its own blog so if you want to know what is happening, go visit.

you can donate on the website to help make this years talks happen. (every pound helps)

it’s a moment, as they say.

and we got some amazing speakers lined up.

the speakers will be announced on May 1st. 

the 40 tickets that are going to be sold, will go on sale May 1st.

The 40 tickets that will be given to students will be awarded to those who write the best letters to the do lectures and tell us what they want to do.

So all good stuff.

But it does need your donations to keep on Do-ing, so if you can, please Do.

www.thedolectures.co.uk  twitter.com/dolectures