Blimey. You cut one day of work a week and suddenly you have no time at all to blog! I have been busy keeping the Amsterdam Children’s section tidy (there’s a full day’s work right there!) compiling ABC’s monthly e-mail, and writing our book reviews in The Xpat Journal. All lovely jobs which I enjoy very much (well apart from the tidying) but I have missed Do You Read Me?

Here are just a few of the great tips and links sent to the blog mistresses in my absence.

1. One of Jitse’s all time favorite sites is Strangemaps, a blog devoted to weird and awkward maps. One of the most recent entries deals with a map of the land of books.  The map is in German, and features a lot witty wordplay - thankfully, explained in the comments for those of us who don’t do German.

2. Sophie is trying very hard not to buy Boutique Knits – she’s pillaged enough of her knitting books in the Crafts section as it is! 

3. Chronicle Books is a publisher of what I like to think of as Book Candy: Irresistable, attractive, arty, creative, fun books on all sorts of subjects in all sorts of sizes. We’d love to be in charge of sorting through their mail bag!  

4. Femke found this video of Elizabeth Gilbert  (author of Eat, Pray, Love) talking about creativity on the ever wonderful TED website.

5. And finally, one from me: books that appear to be figments of a funny photoshopper’s  imagination…. but are actually real. We’ve even had a few of them in stock in our stores! Click on the the cover on the right if you don’t believe me.