Surprisingly, Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X is nowhere to be found on this list.

Still, I have to give credit to Details. It’s a magazine that has always been the awkward younger brother to such publications as Esquire and GQ, but the list they came up with is pretty broad, with fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels.

While I appreciate that the list reminds me that I haven’t read American Psycho yet, I don’t know if I would have included the Motley Crue autobiography The Dirt.

(via GalleyCat)

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The Espresso Book Machine, that is.

Yep, Chuck Robinson and Village Books have decided to lease one of these puppies (as has Third Place Books).

Future Perfect Publishing has an interview with Chuck and his Digital Marketing & Publishing Manager Lindsey McGuirk.

Bottom line: “We’re convinced that “the times they are a’changing” and that we need to be on board or we’ll be left behind”.

I’ll be very interested to see how much business they do with self-published authors. On one hand, it’ll be a handy local service for folks who want to, say, publish their family history.

On the other, it’ll be difficult for these booksellers to not carry a self-published author’s books for the various reasons that they may have used for not ordering them in the past.

And I promise that even if these booksellers make these books available on-demand for any who care to ask, it won’t matter to these authors, because it still lacks the prestige of being a book on the shelf. Or better yet, a pile on a table.

(No photo credit available, but isn’t Chuck just gorgeous?)

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Disney announced on August 31st that it intends to purchase Marvel Entertainment for $4 million cash.

This lead to some humorous speculation of possible Disney/Marvel mash-ups (my personal favorite is Gooflactus-below).

But one thing that hasn’t been speculated upon is the fate of Marvel’s trade paperback distribution that is currently set up with Diamond Book  Distributors.

Marvel, after several years of poor distribution through other outlets, finally hit their groove with Diamond and now, through their network of commission sales reps, buying their titles has never been easier or more pleasurable.

Currently, Disney’s books are distributed either through Random House (children’s titles) or Harpercollins (Disney’s Hyperion imprint).

Random House already handles sales and fulfillment for DC comics, Marvel’s biggest rival, which would make things very interesting.

Personally, I hope Marvel stays with Diamond. Their crew is top-notch, and Marvel got the shaft for so long, I’d hate to see them loose sales through a prolonged change in distribution.

(Gooflactus courtesy of Adam Koford, via The Beat)

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