Unless you’re a dog person, that is.
Check out this feature at the San Francisco Gate about bookstore cats.
The first bookstore I worked in had a cat named Euripides, but his friends got to call him Rip. I’m sure he’s passed on by now, but he was a very gracious kitty. Even if he did aggravate my allergies.
There is a great blog called Picture Book Report, which is basically illustrated book reports drawn from books that are frequently assigned in middle/high school, such as Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of Nimh, and A Wrinkle in Time (as well as a few that were not, as I can’t imagine anything but a well-adjusted honors program assigning Geek Love).
Even books as benign and banal as Where the Red Fern Grows (below) takes on new life with these illustrations.
(via io9)
It seems odd that Slate would run a piece on William Paul Young’s 2007 hit novel The Shack three years after it was first published. Was it too late to write an article on The Da Vinci Code?
While I wish this piece would have explored more on how exactly this book has gone on to sell over ten million copies, it does have an interesting perspective on how this book fits into America’s relationship with faith.
One thing did stand out for me, however, and that was the fact that The Shack is the most highlighted book on Kindle reading devices (bet you didn’t know that Amazon was tracking that sort of thing, did you?). This totally makes sense to me, and reminds me of a time a few years ago,where a guy sitting next to me in a waffle house was highlighting furiously his copy of The Shack. I’d say pretty much the only thing he didn’t underline was the copyright information.
Book Expo 2010 ended in a haze of publisher-provided booze and vey sore feet Thursday.
Aside from the raging anger at not getting invited to Hatchette’s blood-swap party with Keith Richards on Wednesday evening, I found this year’s show much more invigorating, with misguided optimism replacing the moribund atmosphere that was ubiquitious last year.
A few observations:
Nobody really has a clue about publishing’s digital future. It’s here tostay, but printed books are not, as one ICM literary agent put it, “going to go bye-bye”. The music industry gives us a good cautionary tale with regards to pricing, but that’s about it.
My favorite galley, that I’m glad I made sure to snag as soon as I got there, is Washington author Jonathan Evison’s “West of Here” due early next year from Algonquin.
I think my favorite quote of the show was from a publisher who said, with regards to ebooks “So much is happening that we know nothing, but we know everything”.
Maybe BEA should have waited to get feedback on how attendees and exhibitors liked the two day format before announcing that next year’s show will return to a three-day schedule.
Found in the men’s room at the Javitz Center, due in November from NYU Press.
Is from Gavin Grant at Small Beer Press, who, when giving me a galley of “Under the Poppy”, described it as “a Victorian brothel novel, with sex and puppets…sometimes on the same page”.
I lied a bit on the title here, as I’m actually going to write about what happened yesterday, which was all about ebooks.
Most of the discussions were about ebooks being an ongoing area of growth for the publishing industry. And, true as this is, it seems like a lot of booksellers are still trying to get their heads around the fact that very thing that publishers are rushing to embrace for growth potential will be the very same thing that could eliminate the need for bookstores in the first plate.
Subsequently, there was also a lot of talk about how books and ebooks can coexist in the same bookstore.
Michael Norris from Simba Information gave a presentation called “I’ll Never Pay Over $9.99 For Ebooks”, which used research data to debunk certain ebook myths.
This presentation gave me my money quote for yesterday: “The $9.99 ebook is half bullsh!t”.
It’s BEA time again, and I’ll be sending updates from NYC. They may not have much in the way of proofreading department, as I’m writing from my phone, and there is only so much quality control you can exert when you’re typing with your thumbs.
I’m (not) sorry to say that I’m on the road and will be off the grid until Wednesday.
Nothing, not even the ash clouds from some volcano that nobody can pronounce, will keep me from my appointed rounds once I’m reconnected.
This week at Salon, Laura Miller has some great advice for readers, telling them to read a book they think they’ll hate in 2010.
Which is fine and dandy, except I barely have time to read the ones I think I’ll actually like.
I could say that I’ll try to read more genre novels (which I like but don’t read often), like urban fantasy or straight-up thrillers, but that’s like promising to eat dessert more often.
But, maybe I’ll try to read at least one book in a genre I never, ever read, like paranormal romance, sports or self-help.
Any suggestions?