Editor, Levenger Press

Steve’s Top 10 Picks for Holiday Gifts

December 8, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press 1 Comment

Steve Leveen, CEO of Levenger Levenger CEO and co-founder Steve Leveen
shares some of his favorites for holiday giving.

Long Remembered: Lincoln and His Five Versions of the Gettysburg Address

1. Long Remembered: Lincoln and His Five Versions of the Gettysburg Address.

What an honor to give readers the inside story of an American masterpiece, thanks to our collaboration with the Library of Congress. It’s our way of conveying history, as David McCullough says, as interesting as it actually was. More inside scoop for you: our JFK book is the same size as Lincoln. Pair them and give the backstory of two of America’s most iconic speeches.

St. Tropez iPad Tote

2. St. Tropez iPad Tote

In this era of high technology, we bring you the heritage technologies—paper, wood, and in this case, leather—that make tablets and other marvels ever more pleasurable to use. There’s lots of room in this leather bag to keep your iPad in its cover, plus pockets for chargers and earbuds.

Circa Mezzo Foldover Notebook

3. Circa Mezzo Foldover Notebook

In the future, will paper notebooks be obsolete? As I learned reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, the easiest way to predict the future is to create it. So we are creating the future of notebooks by designing them to be more functional and beautiful than ever before. Give the joy of heritage technology from Levenger.

Levenger Staff iPad Tote

4. Levenger Staff iPad Tote

Economical, yet the quality is still there. We wouldn’t offer it any other way.

Proust's Questionnaire Board Game

5. Proust’s Questionnaire Board Game

Speaking of staff, our resident game testers hooted and hollered so loudly the day they played Proust, we knew we had a winner. Think you know your friends well? Maybe not—and you’ll get lots of laughs finding out. (No prior knowledge of Proust required, thank goodness for me.)

Cambridge 7" Tablet Case

6. Cambridge Tablet Case by Tusting

One glance and you just know this classic tobacco leather is going to gain character over the years. Tablets will come and go. This case will go on getting better. Beautifully made in England.

SoHo 10" Tech Protector

7. SoHo Tech Protector

We may work in the cloud, but we still work on tablets and other gravity-grounded devices. This cushy microfiber saves your electronic cargo from hard knocks. A cool way to show you care.

Leather iPad Pillow

8. Leather iPad Pillow

It’s the lap of leather luxury and right now, at a price as irresistible as this soft leather. Here’s how to curl up and read with your e-reader.

E.B. White Dog Pillow

9. E. B. White Dog Pillow

It’s not just tablets that get pillow pampering at Levenger. This bolster pillow is for the humans, especially the breed that loves dogs. I smile every time I read this poochly poem that E.B. White wrote. Who knew that the beloved author of pigs, spiders and little mice also loved dogs?

Tusting English Messenger

10. Tusting Messenger Bag

British tradition at its best—a nubuck leather made for the ages, and made to hold up to the needs of the age. It’s as much briefbag as messenger, as much investment as purchase. Score major points in your gift giving with this one. And while there will always be an England, where this is made, there won’t always be a supply of this limited-edition bag.

True Writer® Fountain Pen, Kyoto

10 + 1. True Writer Kyoto

How can it be a Levenger List without a fine pen? This is my favorite True Writer at the moment. What’s yours? http://www.flickr.com/photos/15939353@N00/sets/72157619749511075/

–Steve

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Circa notebooks, E.B. White, E.B.White poem on pillow, exclusive books, family board game, Gettysburg Address, gift books, iPad bags, iPad cases, iPad pillow, Levenger True Writer pen, Lincoln, Proust's Questionnaire, Tusting leather

Game on! Find family games and educational toys right here at Levenger—and forgo the shopping stress

December 1, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press Leave a Comment

Sure, you can go get malled in the stores, hunting for smart games and children’s toys. But why stress when you can find just the right assortment of family games, children’s games and educational toys at Levenger?

We’ve curated a selection for you, and tested these toys and games ourselves. Our staff members fall into every range of parenthood, from raising toddlers, tweens and teens to doting on grandchildren. They’ve tested all our games—as have many of their kids. So let us help you check off your list:

√ Classic wooden games for family night. We have beautiful wooden versions of dominoes and marble solitaire, plus three different versions of Sudoku.

√ Classic board games. Check out the Library Classics editions of Monopoly, Clue and Scrabble.

RC Snap Rover

√ Science projects. Electronic Snap Circuits for little engineers come in four choices.

√ Children’s art supplies. Have young artists draw, paint and chalk to their heart’s content. We offer both the art supplies, such as Art Essentials, plus some charming children’s furniture such as the Chalk Table with benches.

Owl Organic Storage Caddy

√ Eco-friendly toy storage. The Zebra Organic Storage Bin, Alligator Wall Organizer and Owl Organic Storage Caddy are all made with recycled materials. And the storage caddy comes stocked with our own selection of activity sets.

√ Bilingual learning games. How about some American-made alphabet blocks featuring the Hebrew, Greek and Chinese alphabets? Our very own Crossword Picante is an English-Spanish crosswords game.

Proust's Questionnaire Board Game

√ Smart party games. Try Literary Charades, with famous books as clues, andOrijinz Quotations, with quotes by famous people. Proust’s Questionnaire Board Game is great to play with either good friends or new friends. We guarantee you’ll have each other laughing with your answers.

√ Woodcut puzzles. The perfect pastime for a cold winter’s night: our laser-cut, all-wood, American-made jigsaw puzzles, with images you’ll find only from Levenger. Check out this one from the Bodleian Library.

Need more? Browse through our full selection of educational toys and smart games. Just click on the TOYS button on Levenger.com. And enjoy some stressless shopping.

Mim Harrison

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: American-made games, bilingual learning games, board games, card games, childrens' toys, educational toys, family games, Scrabble, sudoku, woodcut puzzles, wooden games

Levenger goes—gleefully—to the dogs

November 18, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press Leave a Comment

Lounge Hound Double Donut Dog Bed

So…what’s the company that’s the curator of the Well-Read Life doing selling dog products? We have a hunch that many Levenger customers answer to the call of the canine. So this holiday season, we’re proud to introduce (drum roll, tail thump) our first products for the Well-Bred Life.

If you have a dog, we hope to tempt you with some outstanding dog products. If you’re buying gifts this season for dog lovers, here are the dog products that we think will win wags of approval.

E.B. White Dog Pillow

Our muse for this line of dog products was none other than E.B. White—himself a dachshund lover (check out his dachshund, immortalized on our bookend) and a poet of poochdom as well. Once we discovered his delightful “Dog Around the Block” poem, with its sniff refrain, we knew we had to create a bolster pillowthat featured it.

End caps of pillow feature the Levenger “Well-Bred Life” motif

Don’t bother sniffing around anywhere else for this pillow—it’s our very own creation, and we convinced premier pillow designer Kevin O’Brien to find the comfiest fabric for it.

You’ll find lots of other gift ideas for dog lovers, too. Try the leather picture frame shaped like a dog bone… the leather key rings that hold a photo of the favored one…super-plush dog beds, dog throws and dog floor pillows…and dog leads and dog collars, both fabric and leather. (We can personalize the leather collars for you.)

Bow Wow Doggie Photo Frame

The dog models you see in the photos all belong to Levenger staffers. We’re the first to admit that we’ve gone, happily, to the dogs. We hope fellow dog lovers will enjoy our Well-Bred Life selection.

Mim Harrison

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: dog collars, dog leads, dog leashes, dog photo keyrings, dog picture frames, E.B. White dog poem pillow, leather dog collars, leather dog leads, personalized dog collars, Well-Bred Life

Message from Steve Leveen: 100 signed copies of Steve Jobs’s biography by Walter Isaacson

November 2, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press Leave a Comment

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The death of Steve Jobs hit us hard at Levenger. Not only do we have more than our fair share of Apple groupies (including me), and loads of Apple equipment, but we sell lots of Levenger products designed to accommodate Apple gear. You’ll find iPhones, MacBooks and iPads all through the pages of our catalogs and website.

Even more, we consider ourselves innovators in product design, and for any company that holds innovation aloft, Steve Jobs and the company he founded, are role models.

So how to pay tribute?

Our editor of Levenger Press, Mim Harrison, had an idea.

By way of background, what you probably don’t know about Mim is that in addition to being our founding editor, an author of her own pantheon of word books and a dachshund lover, she is probably the best introducer who ever walked the planet. That is, she introduces authors.

She’s introduced many at the nation’s biggest book festival, the Miami Book Fair, and at other venues. Mim does such a good job that the authors who are fortunate enough to get introduced by her—even famous ones—frequently become rather stunned and even momentarily speechless, which can be awkward just as they are taking the podium to speak. Several have asked her for the transcripts so they can send them to their mothers, and Mim graciously provides.

One such author to get the Mimster treatment was Walter Isaacson, when Mim introduced him for Books & Books in Miami while he was on book tour with his last biography, Einstein.

Since we had just sold out of the 300 signed copies of David McCullough’s The Greater Journey, which Levenger sold in conjunction with his miniaturized typewriter, Mim thought about calling her contact at Simon & Schuster to see if we might be able to snare 100 signed copies of Walter’s Steve Jobs. So in between his interviews for 60 Minutes and myriad other media, Walter dropped by the S&S offices on 6^th Avenue and wore his wrist out signing our books.

I took this snapshot of Mim holding her trophy

I took this snapshot of Mim holding her trophy. These signed, first edition, physical books will, in my estimation, become collector’s items of special value to lovers of creativity and innovation.

Please go ahead and download Walter’s biography onto your iPhone and iPad (which would have pleased Steve Jobs), but buy the print version too.

Signed by Walter Isaacson

From the hands of Walter Isaacson and the hands at Simon & Schuster, to the hands of Levenger staff members at our distribution center in Memphis, to your hands at home, this physical book deserves its place on your shelf. And someday, in the hands of someone you love.

Steve Leveen
Levenger CEO and Co-founder

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: signed first edition, Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson

Steve Leveen on heritage technologies: or why paper can still be cool

October 28, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press Leave a Comment

Levenger CEO and co-founder Steve Leveen had an intriguing conversation with Tribe magazine recently on why paper (and pens, and leather and wood) can make smartphones smarter and tablets even better tools. We call these the heritage technologies, and find that thought-catchers like our Circa and Shirt Pocket Briefcases still have a place alongside high technology in helping people be even more productive.

Have a read at what Steve has to say on Tribe (page 11 of the PDF). Plus, you get to see what he keeps in his desk drawers. And feel free to tweet Steve with your take on heritage technologies.

Mim Harrison

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Circa, heritage technologies, leather, paper, pens, Shirt Pocket Briefcase, wood

Quick! Charles Dickens is on deadline for “A Christmas Carol”

October 25, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press 2 Comments

A Christmas Carol: The Original 1843 Manuscript

It was about this time in October 1843 that Charles Dickens had the “ghost of an idea,” as he would call it, of writing a little Christmas story that would make him a little money. Provided he could get it to the printer in time for Christmas. Even Charles Dickens, it seems, was dogged by deadlines.

Dickens was right about the money part (it was just a little), but A Christmas Carol became a huge hit. How did he write a major masterpiece in just six short weeks?

A Christmas Carol: The Original 1843 Manuscript, our new and exclusive Levenger Press book, shows just how Dickens composed his story—every word, each insertion, all the deletions, and even the few omissions. Dickens forgot one key element in his rush to get Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Fezziwig, and the rest of the Christmas Carol crew to the printer in time for the Christmas pudding. He neglected to tell readers what happened to Tiny Tim.

We know this, of course, because handwritten manuscripts reveal everything and gloss over nothing. If you want to know how Charles Dickens’s mind worked, watch how his hand wrote.

Dickens wrote only one manuscript of A Christmas Carol—even he didn’t have time to write two in time for his deadline. The Morgan Library & Museum in New York is the manuscript’s keeper, and the conservators there restored each page just for the Levenger facsimile book. As collector editions go, this one is a classic. Seeing the Ghost of Christmas Present and the rest of the gang take shape with Dickens’s pen, on his very fine paper, makes a terrific Christmas present.

And we can be grateful that Dickens met his deadlines.

Mim Harrison

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: A Christmas Carol, collector's edition, Dickens, exclusive book, facsimile book, FezziwThe Ghost of Christmas Present, Levenger Press, Scrooge, Tiny Tim

Hear David McCullough at the National Book Festival

October 18, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press 1 Comment

David McCullough's Typewriter Bookend

If you couldn’t be among the estimated 200,000 readers who flocked to the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., last month, you can still enjoy some of the speakers’ presentations, including the one by David McCullough. The Library of Congress, presenter of the Book Festival, has compiled a podcast.

Want to know David McCullough’s secret to writing books that win Pulitzer Prizes and end up on the New York Times bestseller lists? A used typewriter! That’s how he’s composed all his books, including his newest, “The Greater Journey.” At Levenger, we‘ve immortalized the McCullough typewriter by miniaturizing it into this bookend—which the author loves.

Mim Harrison

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: bookend, David McCullough, National Book Festival, typewriter

The new book “Long Remembered” reveals the real story of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

October 18, 2011 By Editor, Levenger Press Leave a Comment

Long Remembered: Lincoln and His Five Versions of the Gettysburg Address

For the first time in history, all five of Abraham Lincoln’s handwritten versions of the Gettysburg Address are presented in full color and at full size, in a new collector’s-edition book by Levenger Press.

Long Remembered: Lincoln and His Five Versions of the Gettysburg Address brings together the work of four Lincoln scholars and a curated selection of photographs, maps, telegrams and letters from the extensive Lincoln collections of the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress was Levenger’s publishing partner for the book, a coffee-table-size, linen-bound hardcover that incorporates archival paper and a Smythe-sewn binding for longevity.

Publication of “Long Remembered” was timed to coincide with the sesquicentennial of the start of the Civil War. It brings in the scholarship of three former Library of Congress librarians, Lloyd A. Dunlap, David C. Mearns and John R. Sellers.

Added to their commentary is new narrative by Douglas L. Wilson, the co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center in Illinois.

The book will appeal to both scholars and readers with a more general interest in Lincoln and the Civil War. “All the myths are debunked—and yet, there remain many mysteries surrounding the Gettysburg Address.” says Ralph Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress. “No one to this day, for example, knows exactly what Lincoln read from on the dais at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863.”

The Nicolay copy, the first version, is presented unbound, folded as Lincoln did

Levenger worked with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Cornell University, and the White House Historical Association to obtain full-color facsimiles of the version of the Gettysburg Address that each institution holds. The Library of Congress owns what are known as the Nicolay and Hay versions, the names referring to Lincoln’s private secretaries. In addition to being bound in the book, these two versions are reproduced as loose facsimiles, folded as Lincoln did. They are the closest that Americans can come to holding in their hands what Lincoln held in his when he delivered his famous remarks.

Excerpts of Long Remembered feature portion of each scholar’s narrative. The book is available exclusively through Levenger.

Mim Harrison

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Douglas L. Wilson, exclusive book, Gettysburg Address, Library of Congress

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