Wednesday
July 31
BRITISH
LIBRARY CLOSED BY STRIKE: The British Library was closed for
the first time in its history by a strike Monday. "The 24-hour
closure was over the library's refusal to raise a 4% pay award
to staff. These include the library assistants - some of them
earning only £10,000 to £15,000 a year - who usually
bring the scholar his books from library stores." The
Guardian (UK) 07/30/02
MORE
BRITS READING TO KIDS: A new poll in the UK reports that the
number of parents reading to their children has more than doubled
in the past two years. "Ninety percent of those polled said
they regularly read to their child, compared with 40 percent when
the same question was asked in 2000." The popularity of Lord
of the Rings and Harry Potter is offered as a reason
for the jump. Atlanta Journal-Constitution
07/31/02
MORE
FALLOUT OF THE PECK AFFAIR: Dale Peck's scathing criticism
in The New Republic of Rick Moody's recent book continues to stir
debate in the literary world. "We can do with some controversy
in the staid world of literary criticism. Peck's literary antics
have generated all sorts of discussion not only about Moody's
novels, but about book reviewing in general. That's a good thing
in my view. I wish we had more of it in this country." But
there are few places where such criticism can be published. The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/31/02
Tuesday
July 30
MAINLY
MALE (AND EVIDENTLY THAT'S OK): Is it a problem that The
New Yorker publishes many more male writers than female writers?
Dennis Loy Johnson's survey of bylines so far this year revealed
an overwhelming number of male writers. But aside from a few letters
reacting to his research and a defensive letter from the New Yorker,
Johnson's surprised the issue hasn't touched more of a nerve.
MobyLives 07/29/02
BOWLING
FOR BOOKCLUBS: Now that Oprah's given up reading, it seems
every TV chat show is getting into the book club business. How
do they compare? Here's a survey. Boston Globe 07/29/02
LIFE
IMITATES ART: Novelist Madison Smartt Bell always wanted to
be a rock star, but you can't always get what you want, and Bell
was content to settle down as an accomplished writer with a guitar.
But when he began writing a new book about a songwriter last year,
the thought occurred to him to add a new layer of realism to the
project. Accordingly, the novel was released in conjunction with
a set of original songs on Bell's website. Gimmick? Maybe. But
it worked - Bell is cutting an album to be released next year.
Wired 07/30/02
Monday
July 29
LIFE
OF THE BOOK: "Most books go through catabolic and anabolic
cycles, just as foodstuffs are broken down to simple acids and
usable energy, before the nutritional Lego is remoulded nearer
to the heart's or liver's desire, using up some of the energy
from the first step. So books, their information consumed, pass
to charity shops, jumble sales, or through the hands of literate
dustmen, to the lowest rung of dealer; and from there, they start
an irregular climb, increasing in order, negative entropy, and
incidentally price, until they reach the top collector of Wodehouse
or Waugh, or the ultimate specialist in cheese or chess, concrete
or campanology." The Guardian
(UK) 07/27/02
WHAT'S
THE SECRET? Readers seem fascinated by the act of writing,
and they tend to ask writers detailed questions about their craft.
"Musicians tend not to face these questions because it is
not generally held that everyone has a symphony in him somewhere.
Language however belongs to us all. Is there a hint of resentment
in readers? 'We all speak English. We all write e-mails and letters
every day. What's your secret? Just give us enough detail, and
we can be inducted into the coterie, too.' It is almost as if
some people feel that they were off sick or at the dentist's the
day the rest of the class was told how to write a book, and that
it isn't fair of authors to keep the mystery to themselves."
The New York Times 07/29/02
Friday
July 26
WHAT
YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T TELL YOU? Authors are always complaining
that publishers shut them out of the book-making process: "They
don't tell you how much they are spending on promotion and advertising,
don't tell you how many copies have been sold, although they send
out so-called statements. They don't tell you that the editor
who acquired the book, who believes in it, has one foot out the
door and that your book is going to be handed off to an editor
who doesn't care about it. They don't tell you that the public-relations
person assigned to your book will be working with a celebrity
author and will have no time for you." The
New York Times 07/25/02
Thursday
July 25
WORSE
THAN BAD (AND A POX ON YOU ALL IF YOU DON'T THINK SO): Critic
Dale Peck's roasting review in The New Republic of Rick Moody's
new book was so shocking, it's got the literary world debating
critical writing. "Reactions from other book reviewers ranged
from dumbfounded horror to cringing respect to something like
exhilaration. What makes for good
criticism? Is the literary world too polite and clubby? Can a
novelist fairly review his more critically acclaimed rival? And
finally, what is the effect of this kind of skirmish on literary
culture at large?" Salon 07/24/02
MAGAZINE
OF THE MOMENT: The Atlantic's Michael Kelly has been in charge
of the magazine for two years. "With Kelly's foot on the
accelerator, The Atlantic can lay plausible claim to being the
magazine of the moment. It won three National Magazine Awards
in May, a harvest of honors matched only by The New Yorker. The
current double issue - called ''probably the best issue of any
magazine published in America this year'' by The Washington Post
- contains the first installment of the longest work of journalism
The Atlantic has ever published: William Langewiesche's 70,000-word
series on recovery efforts at the World Trade Center. Though it's
still losing money, The Atlantic's circulation has climbed from
463,000 to 598,000." Boston Globe
07/25/02
Wednesday
July 24
NOVEL
SPLITS GERMANY: Reaction in Germany to Martin Walser's new
book in Germany has been violent. The work has been called anti-semitic
and Walser has been been accused of attacking a prominent critic.
"The extraordinary controversy surrounding Tod eines Kritikers
demonstrates a considerable parochialism in the German literary
scene. Too many of its denizens appear to be obsessed with what
they see as the scandalous demonstration of anti-Semitism to read
the text without prejudice. If they did so, they would recognize
that the novels weaknesses do not lie in the savaging of
identifiable personalities or the authors private animosities."
Times Literary Spplement 07/17/02
TOO
FAMOUS TO WRITE: A bizarre trend is developing in the fraternity
of superstar fiction writers: big-time bestselling authors like
Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler are employing other writers to write
their books for them. This is not ghostwriting, per se - the 'real'
author's name usually appears on the front cover, albeit in much
smaller lettering than that spelling out the more famous name
of the 'creator' - but it does seem to call into question the
basic definition of an author. "In the marketing world such
profit-seeking forays are known as brand extensions -- like Pepsi
Twist or GapKids. In order to get away with such sleight of hand,
writers need three things: a fruitful imagination, a total lack
of personal style or voice, and a reputation as a rainmaker."
Washington Post 07/24/02
CHAIM
POTOK, 73: Novelist Chaim Potok, who had been ill with cancer
for some time, died at his home in Pennsylvania Tuesday. "Mr.
Potok came to international prominence in 1967 with his debut
novel, The Chosen (Simon & Schuster). Unlike the work
of the novelists Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, which dealt largely
with the neuroses of assimilated secular Jews, The Chosen
was the first American novel to make the fervent, insular Hasidic
world visible to a wide audience." The
New York Times 07/24/02
Tuesday
July 23
READ
AND RELEASE: That book you found at the theatre last week
was left on purpose. Each book carries a note beseeching "the
reader to 'read and release' and is part of a global sociology
experiment. Already boasting 18,000 members in North America,
the craze has begun to take hold in the UK, with more than 200
books now released across the country, proving that books and
the digital age can co-exist. Part book club, part message-in-a-bottle
experiment, the idea encourages people to register books on the
website and then deposit them in public places, such as coffee
shops and aeroplane seat pockets." The
Scotsman 07/23/02
SELFLESS
SUCCESS: The stigma of self-published books is disappearing.
As more self-published books rack up sales thanks to new distribution
channels, traditional publishers are paying attention. "It's
just smart business to pay attention to the self-publishing successes.
If an author, on her own, meets with reasonable success, a larger
company has reason to believe it can build on that success and
find a more significant audience." Wired
07/23/02
MORE
THAN COMIC BOOKS: "Graphic novels" are essentially
comic books for adults, and so far this year 1.5 million of them
have been sold in the US. "Publishers and comic connoisseurs
use the term 'illustrative literature' to describe the books,
which they say emerged from reader demand for more sophisticated
comic-driven storytelling. 'The thing about it is that everybody
understands the vocabulary of comics. ... The hope is that people
who see and like the movie will be interested enough to begin
to cross that perceived forbidden land into the world of comics
and graphic novels'." Raleigh
News & Observer (AP) 07/23/02
RETURN
ON INVESTMENT: Advances to authors have been soaring. Are
these books really worth millions of pound? "While the rewards
may be great if a title catches fire, a book that bombs not only
leaves a dent on the balance sheet, it leaves egg on the face
of the publisher." London Evening
Standard 07/22/02
GETTING
UP FOR POETRY: The Poetry Review has new editors for
the first time in 16 years. Their initial effort seems a bit...
discouraged. "It seems a little sad not to admit wanting
to bring new readers to poetry at the beginning of ones
editorship. What if you werent eagerly awaiting this issue?
Would you plunge in? Not, perhaps, if earlier issues had put you
off anyhow." The Times (UK) 07/23/02
Monday
July 22
UP
THE AMAZON: Amazon.ca has launched in Canada, despite protests
from the country's other booksellers. But vistors to the site
are reporting screwups in pricing (sometimes making books at the
Canadian Amazon more expensive than at the US site) and delivery
snafus that occasionally delay orders for weeks. The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/22/02
POWER
OF BOOKS (AND GOOD TEACHERS): "When I encountered Franklin
Lears, I was a high-school thug. I was a football player, a brawler,
who detested all things intellectual. The first time I saw this
meager guy with his thick swinging briefcase, I wanted to spit
on the floor. He was absurd, a joke. If you had told me that in
eight months I would have decided to live my life in a way that
was akin to his, I would have told you that you were crazy; I
would have spit, perhaps, at you. But that is exactly what took
place: I went on to become an incessant reader, a writer, a university
professor." Chronicle of Higher
Education 07/26/02
DO
IT TO ME BABY: Why is most writing about sex so dull? "There
is pornography, there is eroticism, but is there anything else?
D.H. Lawrence did it, Jilly Cooper does it, and everyone literary
from Julian Barnes to Anne Michaels to Chloe Hooper does it; but
have they actually written about it, or have they written about
the stuff that surrounds it, the emotions, the personal politics,
the sensuality, the awkwardness? Have they, in point of fact,
in the main avoided the act itself?" The
Economist 07/20/02
Sunday
July 21
MAKING
READING MASCULINE: Let's face it: book clubs are a largely
female phenomenon. And it's not that there's anything wrong with
that, but there are men in the world who like to read and discuss
books too, and some of them have apparently been having a hard
time finding forums to do so. Why book clubs seem to be required
to be single-gender affairs is anyone's guess, but a Canadian
library is on the verge of launching Men With Books, a club designed
to lure the y-chromosome crowd with "a stack of testosterone-fuelled
reading material chosen to help ease men into the chatty intimacy
of a book-club environment." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 07/20/02
Thursday
July 18
GET
A JOB! What happens when a society turns out too many writers
as writers? Their experience is narrow. How does one write cogently
about the world when one's world view is narrowly born? "That
these people dont know anything about how 80% of the world
gets along isnt important. Nor is it important that, one
suspects, they dont even know anyone who knows. What is
troubling is the fact they dont seem particularly interested.
The labouring classes certainly arent very interested in
contemporary fiction, and so contemporary writers in turn ignore
them. This has led to a great closing of the literary mind."
GoodReports 07/17/02
STEALING
TO THE BEAT: Not that it's scientific, but "the books
published can be examined as a sort of insight into a society's
psyche. So, too, can the choice of books stolen. Which means that
different categories of books are ripped off in different parts
of the country, and often neighborhoods within the same city can
be identified by the genre of books lifted." The
New York Times 07/18/02
Wednesday
July 17
A
FAME LESS FAVORED: Publishing for the scholarly world can
bring the satisfaction that your peers will see your ideas. But
it's a small audience and a limited fame. "Academics grumble
all the time about the public's neglect, the slow pace of scholarly
reviews, and the feeble publicity efforts of university presses.'
So you might think that a scholarly writer would be delighted
to be reviewed in the general press - the New York Review of Books,
or the New York Times, say. But not always. "Scholars are
justly indignant when, after spending five years mastering a subject,
five months formulating a thesis, two years writing a manuscript,
and another two years waiting for a press to accept and produce
the book, they read a review of their work by someone who has
never done research on the material." Chronicle
of Higher Education 07/19/02
WRITERS'
BLOAT: Writing programs have proliferated at American colleges.
"In 1992 there were 55 master's of fine arts graduate programs
in creative writing in American colleges. Now there are 99. The
number of universities offering creative writing degrees at the
undergraduate and graduate level is 330, up from 175 a decade
ago." Why so many? And do they really do much for the cause
of good writing? Chicago Tribune 07/14/02
WHERE
ARE THE WOMEN? The New Yorker is riding a crest of reinvigoration
since David Remnick took over as editor. There's no question the
magazine has improved under his tenure. But in one respect the
NYer is delinquent. Where are the women writers? "As it turns
out, there have even been issues of The New Yorker this year where
the magazine's table of contents featured no women at all, or
where the only contribution by a woman was a single poem."
Here's an issue-by-issue tally for the year. MobyLives
07/16/02
Tuesday
July 16
SOME
KIND OF SHOPLIFTER: Barnes & Noble keeps some books off
its shelves and behind the counter. Why? No it's not censorship.
Sometimes a book gets held behind the counter because it's just
so gosh darn popular, and the good folks at B&N know their
customers don't walk all the way to the far ends of the store
to find them. The other way books get behind the counter is if
they make the most-stolen list. But really - Martin Amis? JD Salinger?
That's some kind of shoplifter. MobyLives
07/15/02
LIBEL
LIABILITY: Insurance companies, hurting after large payouts
in the past year, have dramatically hiked premiums on libel and
copyright infringement insurance. As a result, some publishers
are passing on the costs to authors, and the National Writers
Union has dropped its libel insurance policy for writers. "There's
no doubt you're going to have authors thinking twice, and society
will be the poorer for it. The books that might not get written
are the ones that most need to see the light of day." Publishers
Weekly 07/15/02
Monday
July 15
BEYOND
MAGIC: Latin-American writers first came to the wide attention
of North Americans and Europeans with the magic realism novels
of the late 60s and 70s. But the new generation of writers has
turned away from magic realism. 'What has died is the dictatorship
of the 'boom' followers who imitated them ad nauseam and managed
to reduce their literature to a (mere) formula.'' The
Age (Melbourne) 07/15/02
Friday
July 12
THEN
THERE'S THE ONE ABOUT STALIN AND KRUSHCHEV... Russian police
are investigating a Russian writer for a 1999 book he wrote that
contains scenes of sex between the Soviet dictator Stalin and
Khrushchev, his successor. "The investigation alarms advocates
of freedom of expression, concerned about the possibility of a
return to censorship under President Vladimir Putin, a former
KGB officer who was elected in part on the strength of promises
to re-establish order." Nando
Times (AP) 07/11/02
HARRY
POTTER WASN'T AVAILABLE? "Fantasy author Terry Pratchett
has been named winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal for the
best children's book of 2001 - his first mainstream literary award,
despite being one of the UK's best-selling authors. Pratchett
was described as an "international publishing phenomenon" by the
prize organisers." BBC 07/12/02
FINAL
COPY: The head of Australia's largest university has been
forced to resign after multiple claims that he plagiarized. David
Robinson, the embattled vice-chancellor of Monash University,
quit after being summoned back from a trip to London. "He
could see he was creating damage for the university. The only
solution that he could see, and I could see, and we came to this
together, was to leave." The
Age (Melbourne) 07/12/02
Thursday
July 11
GENERAL
WRAPUP: In April, General and Stoddart, Canada's largest book
distributor, shocked the country's book industry by declaring
bankruptcy, owing $45 million to various creditors. This week
a court allowed the return of thousands of books to small publishers,
much to the relief of those publishers, but also a sign that the
company's reorganization attempts have failed. Toronto
Star 07/11/02
UP
THE CANADIAN AMAZON: The Canadian government has ruled that
Amazon should be allowed to set up in Canada. The govenment, examining
the deal to ensure the company met Canadian ownership quotas,
said that " Amazon.ca doesn't fall under majority Canadian
ownership rules because the investment doesn't involve the establishment
of a new Canadian business or the takeover of an existing domestic
business." The Globe & Mail
(Canada) 07/11/02
Tuesday
July 9
WHR4RTTHOU?
Study guides have been a lifeline for many a last-minute student.
For years CliffsNotes has been the go-to guide for the unprepared.
Now there's competition. SparkNotes promises a hipper, more irreverent
interpretation of the classics. How do they compare? "Either
way, a crutch, a crutch. You'll be fortune's fool to rely on these!
Beware." Washington Post 07/09/02
POETRY
WARS: Poetry Daily is a web phenomenon, with some 400,000
visitors coming to the site each month. Indeed, poetry is hot
on the web - listed in surveys as one of the top ten reasons people
use the web. So many were interested when Verse Daily recently
started up. But the site seems like a ripoff of PD, largely copying
its format and architecture. Further, the site asks for money
but its editors decline to reveal who they are. Just who is Verse
Daily? MobyLives 07/09/02
E-READ
VIABILITY: Many have been quick to write off e-book publishing
because it hasn't lived up to the hype of the internet bubble.
But quietly, e-book publishers have been building a business in
the past year. "We in the e-publishing industry are here
to stay. It's just going to take some time to build the industry,"
Sanders says. "But building it we are. No stopping us."
Wired 07/09/02
Monday
July 8
SUPERSIZE
IT: How many Barnes & Noble stores is too many? There
are 600 superstores in America now, and after several years of
expanding rapidly, the pace of expansion has slowed in the past
few years . But the company believes there is room for 1000 stores
and is beginning to grow quickly again. The
New York Times 07/08/02
GETTING
OFF THE WORLD: It's almost impossible to be a book reviewer
for any length of time and not be torn by conflicting feelings
when writing about a book. Maybe you know the author but hated
her book. Or maybe you know the author and you liked his book.
The literary world is small; it's difficult to stay aloof. Maybe
the only solution is to found an island where a critic would have
no contact with anyone who has anything to do with anything...
The Guardian (UK) 07/06/02
ALREADY
UP THE RIVER: Canadian nationalists have been objecting to
Amazon's entry into the Canadian book market. But Amazon's presence
is already a fact of life, writes Alex Good about the country's
already largest bookseller. The book business is changing in many
ways - and keeping Amazon at bay is a small matter compared to
those other issues. GoodReports 07/05/02
STUDYING
THE STUDIERS: Intellectual historians sometimes grumble that
their peers don't regard them as doing "real" history.
After all, they study books and ideas, rather than digging around
in archives to chart the course of wars and revolutions, or the
almost-unreconstructible life of, say, an Aztec peasant. Tony
Grafton works on old, dead classicists. How much less-sexy can
you get? And yet his work is read not only by medievalists and
Renaissance scholars, but by a general audience as well."
Chronicle of Higher Education 07/08/02
Friday
July 5
(FAKE)
HARRY IN CHINA: The new Harry Potter is out in China. Trouble
is - it's a fake An anonymous Chinese author penned a new Potter.
"While Rowlings name appears on the cover, the book
is hardly the prose style her readers have come to know and love.
Characters from the real Potter books have been resurrected and
new ones invented, and one reader said the plot could have been
borrowed from Tolkein." The book has become a big hit. The
Times (UK) 07/04/02
Thursday
July 4
BORDERS
TO RESTRUCTURE: Book superstore Borders has announced a restructuring
of its business. "But in large part because the plan is called
'category management,' some in the book world have reacted with
fear and suspicion, linking category management with such notorious
general retail practices as stores selling shelf space and stocking
control to suppliers, or big-box retailers dictating to suppliers.
Moreover, because part of the plan involves publisher contributions
to help fund consumer research and training and the institution
of 'lead'publisher partners in many categories, some have concluded
that the plan includes preferential payments, misuse of co-op,
and larger publishers blocking smaller publishers' access to Borders's
stores." Any foundation to the fears? Publishers
Weekly 07/03/02
Tuesday
July 2
NOT
WRITE: B.R. Myers, who got the literary world in an uproar
last year with an attack on the quality of contemporary literature,
is back. His critique is being published in book form. "In
A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness
in American Literary Prose (Melville House), one-time Atlantic
Monthly writer B.R. Myers claims that a vast conspiracy between
corporate publishing houses, mediocre writers and mindless reviewers
has robbed the nation of good, meaningful books." New
York Post 07/01/02
BOOKS
AS ART - WHAT A CONCEPT: As large publishing houses become
more and more focused on selling greater numbers of mainstream
books, a curious thing is happening - small publishers are taking
on classics and less-commercial books and finding they can be
profitable. Dalkey Archive Press has made a business for itself
with books the bigger presses won't touch. "A lot of interesting
things are becoming available because conglomerate publishers
treat books as a commodity, not as art objects."
MobyLives 07/02/02
Monday
July 1
I,
REVIEWER: Thousands of "book enthusiasts, freelance writers,
doctors, lawyers and other professionals" are writing reviews
of books for book sites on the internet. They don't get paid.
And yet, some of them have as much influence on book sales as
professional critics. Why do they write? And better yet - why
do readers pay attention to them? Wired
07/01/02
GOING
ALL LITERARY: The great literary supplements of the early
20th Century helped define intellectual life. The Times Literary
Supplement was one of the best. But what happened, wonders a new
book on the supplement. "The TLS's earlier pieces on fiction,
poetry, and literary criticismspecifically Eliot's and Woolf's
essaysare by far its most impressive achievements; but some
of its more recent ones, bloated and nearly incomprehensible,
undoubtedly represent the paper's nadir." The
Atlantic 07/02
RANDOM
BOREDOM: Phyllis Grann, who built Penguin Putnam into one
of modern publishing's strongest houses, but then left last fall
for a job as vice chairwoman of Random House, is leaving Random
House after only six months, complaining of boredom. "Ms.
Grann had no clear territory within the company's many rival fiefs,
and she complained that the company's many publishers seldom sought
her advice." The New York Times
07/01/02
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