The Paris Review

We were thrilled to run across this custom bike helmet, modeled on the 2666 cover designed by Charlotte Strick (who just happens to be The Paris Review’s art editor!). Says Ariel Abrahams, who commissioned the literary topper,

I chose my design because when I read the book 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, I was literally taken aback. I had to sit down, stop my life and just read. I really fell in love. I thought a bike helmet depicting the magical sea-life images from the cover of the third book of 2666 would commemorate these overwhelming, larger than life feelings somehow. If you have read the book, you know the importance of the sea creature images to the tone of the story.

Artist Ekaterina Panikanova paints on old books. As you can see, the results are extraordinary.

In Japan, arranging bookstore displays is an art form.

This series of infographics, illustrating how different parts of the country say different things, is fascinating. Below: mayonnaise.

Image via The Atlantic

This wee structure, one of ten scattered about downtown Manhattan this summer, is the work of architects Marcelo Ertorteguy and Sara Valente. It operates on the give a book/take a book principle, and is in the tradition of the original, Wisconsin-based Little Free Library movement. Read more about it here!

Deeply tragic, deeply instructive. Via Dangerous Minds.