Book News, In Brief

Wanna know how I made myself feel even worse about wasting a week's vacation at a sister-of-a-friend's wedding in rural WI? I read the LATimes' Literary Tour of Manhattan.


Book thieves take note: Yesterday's NYTimes printed a veritable shopping list of libraries where rare and expensive books are kept out in the open for public perusal. Think I'm exaggerating? Then why was the article in the Travel section and not the Books section?


A survey of more than 700 UK "town centres" found that 731 indie bookstores closed their doors in the first nine months of 2009. Apparently the funerals held for these stores were wreath-free affairs, as the same survey reports similarly sh*tty statistics for "town centre" florists.


More bad news. Indie bookshops hoping to take advantage of Amazon's deep discounts (many of which offer a better price than the publishers!) will want to start opening up alternate accounts today. PW reports that the online behemoth is limiting customers to three copies per title.


Edan Lepucki's About the Author is exactly the type of bookish blog post I love to read. It starts off conversational, morphs into the educational, and then, just when you're feeling relaxed, it smacks you upside the head with a razor sharp critique that forever changes the way you think of the subject being blogged about. I mean, it takes a touch genius to verbalize the ridiculousness of the 'I love my dog!' author photo, not to mention the corny cliche that is the 'Trench Coat Club.'