Book News, In Brief

The pompous PR pitch: "Book retailing giant Waterstone's will be offering personal shoppers to help you find just the right book for everyone on your gift list." The sad reality: This used to be referred to as basic customer service.

List-making and sh*t-talking are the meat and potatoes of the blogosphere. So how brilliant was it of Entertainment Weekly to mix the two, making a Shepherd's Pie they dubbed The 23 Most Disappointing Movie Adaptations? Answer: mildly brilliant.

Just in time for the holidays! Bonhams US is holding a rare books auction. Items up for bid include a first issue of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird which includes a photograph of the author credited to Truman Capote (est. $6/9,000), first editions of the various Winnie the Pooh books with hand drawn illustrations by E.H. Shepard (est. $6/12,000), and a first edition copy of Moby Dick in what is being described as "exceptionally fine condition" ($60/80,000).

Blog-Jacking: io9

Science Fiction Novelists Reveal Their Daily Writing Routines
Originally posted by Lauren Davis on 12/10/08
Isaac Asimov awoke each morning 6 AM and worked well into the night, sometimes churning out entire books in a matter of days. Kingsley Amis’ writing binges were fueled by nicotine, alcohol, and numerous cups of tea, while surrealist Haruki Murakami claims to work himself into a routine-induced trance. Take a gander at how some of science fiction’s most famous writers have organized their days and kept their creative juices flowing.
To read the rest, click here.

Book News, In Brief

This should come as a surprise to no one but newborn babies and recently lapsed Amish: JK Rowling's latest offering, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, has broken all records to become the fastest selling book of 2008.

Abdulkarim Soroush must have a death wish, a fatal disease, or both. Why else would "Iran's leading public intellectual" publicly challenge the divinity of the Koran? Didn't he learn anything from those Danish dudes and their inflammatory (as in: houses catching fire, cars exploding, etc.) cartoons?

A graduation speech that David Foster Wallace gave in 2005 is going to be published posthumously as a book next year. The speech, which Wallace delivered to the graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio, runs approximately 150 pages and will be titled, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered On a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life. (No jokes on this one. I loved dude.)

Recommended Viewing:Michael Pollan @ Google HQ

The author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals talks with his mouth full.

Book News, In Brief

It's a scientific fact that even the Religious Right won't refute: Famous people's opinions are more interesting than non-famous people's. That's why Salon.com has asked a slew of A-list authors -- Chuck Klosterman, Daniel Handler and Michael Pollan, among others -- to list their favorite books of '08. Regular people can pretend to participate in the comments section.

Having just dropped $125 million dollars to keep their Book Search up and running, Google is ready to move on to magazines. Not counting the time that The Walt Disney Corporation bought the rights to The Muppets, this is the first time I've agreed with a publicly traded company about anything. After all, if you've ever worked in a bookstore, you know that this is where the average 'customer' does the bulk of their browsing.

We warned our fellow booksellers about this growing menace, but they wouldn't listen. Via E-Commerce.com: Gary Bacon II had bargain-hunting on the brain when he visited his local Barnes & Noble...but he didn't make any purchases. Instead, the Web designer whipped out his smartphone, snapped a few photos, and headed for the exit. Bacon was using a new feature, released by Amazon.com, that lets users take photos of items they want to buy, store them in an online shopping cart, and purchase them whenever they want -- typically at a discount -- via the online retailer. Our only hope now? Treat these Twitterers like the paparazzi and punch the cell phones out of their hands.

Blog-Jacking: The Guardian UK

The Digested Read: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Originally posted by John Crace on 12/9/8
'There was once a not very good writer who got lucky. In the beginning, she realised her limitations, but then she began to take herself very seriously indeed.'
To read Crace's crushing critique in its entirety, click here.

Book News, In Brief

And the recession continues: Last week, the media was buzzing about a $126,000 Michelangelo book. This week, it's a $700 coffee table book on the making of The Godfather. At this rate, they'll be back to talking about $5 paperbacks in...three days!

What is a book dedication? The ultimate expression of an author's gratitude? A private venue for a public display of affection? The one part of a book that pretty much everybody reads? According to The Wilton Villager, it's all of these and more.

Remember the good ol' days, when brick and mortar bookstores only had to fear Amazon and the Kindle? Well, there's a new threat on the horizon, and it's-- BRRRRRRRRRRRRING! Oh, no. BRRRRRRRRRRRRING! Oh, god, no! BRRRRRRRRRRRRING! I'm too late! It's already--BRRRRRRRRRRRRING!

Your Rejection Letter Has Been Accepted For Publication!

Rejection letters. Even the kindest ones are a slap in face, a kick to the heart, a set of sweaty testicles dangled on the sleeping face of your tender ego. Until now. The voyeurs who brought you the Oprah-approved Other People's Love Letters are currently collecting rejection letters for a book -- Other People's Rejection Letters -- to be released in 2010. Don't delay. This is probably the only time you'll see your name in a book that wasn't self-published.
To share your shame, click here.

Do your masochistic tendencies have you craving more? Check out The Guardian UK's The Fine Art of Literary Rejection Letters.

Quote of the Day

"I never wanna write short stories again. They suck. They’re incredibly demanding. A story can be perfect. No novel can be perfect. Novels are awesome. Novels are like us."

That's Juno Diaz, author of the fun, factoid filled novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, from an 11/12/08 interview with the CBC.

Book News, In Brief

When it comes to quote/unquote "serious literature," the subject of love has always had its critics. Is the capital-L simply too saccharine a topic for intelligent, relevant discourse, or do the critics just need to get laid? The Australian investigates.

Quick, before he breaks them! The Washington Post's Michael Dirda has outlined the The 10 Commandments of Book Giving. Even if the list seems sorta obvious to you, forwarding it to your friends and family might make the difference between a good gift...and the kind of gift you have to fake a smile over.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink, has a new book out, Outliers. In it, Gladwell attempts to figure out what makes some people success stories, and the rest of us bums. His basic finding: Outliers are those given opportunities who have the strength and presence of mind to seize them. For an interview with the afro-ed author -- and to read what "opportunities" Bill Gates and Canadian hockey players took advantage of -- click here, ya bums.

Go, Look!

We're two days late to the party on this one, but it's so darned good we didn't want to let it pass you by. Robin in the Rye by Penrod Pulaski. Read it here.

(A special tip of the hat to The Beat for the link & image.)

Book News, In Brief

They were racially insensitive and demeaning to women, but goddamn those old romance covers sure were gorgeous. Well, until the 80's, anyway. The art wasn't much better in the 90's, but at least they'd finally gotten around to objectifying White males.

You have to commend Penguin. When it came time to freeze pay raises, they started at the top. On behalf of low income, low on the totem employees everywhere, allow me to say: I hope this ends before I become a high income, high on the totem employee!

The New York Public Library is going to make some lucky book thief very happy. In addition to the $100,000 Michelangelo book that the library unveiled last week, they'll soon be housing one of the seven, original editions of J.K. Rowling's most recent PotterWorld book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. 'Bard's current value? A cool $4 million.

Inkwell Michelle's 30 Second Book Review

Doctor Olaf van Schuler’s Brain
by Kirsten Menger-Anderson
This fantastic debut by Kirsten Menger-Anderson is the best book I’ve read in the past few months. In addition to using language to potent effect, the author plays with an unusual format of linked short stories: each chapter delves into the life of a different member of the Steenwyck family tree starting in the 1600s and progressing to the modern day. By pursuing the medical profession, each generation carries on the legacy of the original patriarch, the doomed doctor Olaf van Schuler. Odd lore from the history of medicine (from phrenology to spontaneous combustion) adds to the rich story of the family’s madness and passion.

...is thirty seconds up yet?

Book News, In Brief

Random House...of cards? Okay, so maybe that's being a bit dramatic, but the publishing house did just consolidate several of their publishing groups, eliminating jobs and ruining Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa for quite a few people.

Oh, f**k. There's more. Simon & Schuster announced today that it has eliminated 35 positions. According to a memo from their CEO, the cuts came in all areas, including S&S’s publishing divisions, operations and sales departments and international division.

Well, at least someone's smiling. Tina Fey's book deal? It net her a reported $6.9 million. And this is post-Palin impressions. Can you imagine how much she would've gotten had McCain been elected president? On second thought, don't imagine any such thing. I don't want to be responsible for the suicides.

Gift Tips for the Bookish

From now until Christmas, I'm going to be offering up little gift ideas at random. But unlike most bookstore blogs, I'm not going to try to recommend any actual books to you. From what I've gathered, most of our readers are in the book industry in one way or another, and between catalogs, sales reps and well-meaning/poorly-read friends/family/customers, have had all of the unsolicited book recommendations that they can handle for one lifetime. That's why these are going to be book-related items, book-themed apparel, and book-ish doo-dads. Stuff I'd like to receive (hint, hint).

Today's tip: two t-shirts. Click the pics to enlarge.










The 'Will Work For Books' Tee is available here.
The 'Read Books Not Shirts' Tee is available here.

Book News, In Brief

An unusually large, unusually old fragment of the Gospel of John will go on sale next month. Despite being available in better condition -- and for free! -- in the bedside table of every hotel and motel in the world, this battered bit of Bible is expected to fetch upwards of $460,000. Now I'm no scholar, but wouldn't your Jesus want you to give that money to the poor? (Editor's note: According to papal cannon, indie bookstores count as paupers.)

No matter how hard Britney Spears tries to save face with the media, embarrassing in-house drama inevitably gets leaked to the press, making things worse. A similar thing is currently happening to publisher Houghton Mifflin. Last week, a rumor got out that H.M. were putting a temporary hold on new acquisitions. This week, Günter Grass (the publisher of the company’s adult trade division) has resigned. Next week, who knows? A shaved head, maybe?

Were you selling newspapers on November 5th? Then surely you remember the chaos. Excited by Obama's win, folks who hadn't bought a newspaper in years were suddenly scouring their local bookstores and corner stores, looking for any remaining copies of their local fishwrap. Well, if American publisher Andrews McMeel gets their Christmas wish, December 16th will be equally insane. That's when they're releasing President Obama Election 2008: A Collection of Newspaper Front Pages Selected by The Poynter Institute, a blatant cash-in which reprints the front pages of some 70+ newspapers from around the world -- all of them announcing Obama's ascendancy.

Tuesday's Tip for Flailing Writers:Inappropriate Flair

Big Bad Book Blog offers three rules to remember regarding superfluous stylistic flourishes for the aspiring author:

1. Less is more. Like loud fabrics, loud literary devices are hard to mix and match. If you’re going to narrate in stream-of-consciousness, do not also use screenplay-style stage directions and scene breaks. Pick the device that means the most to you. Once you’ve chosen your gimmick, don’t overdo it. Think of that guy you saw last weekend wearing all hot pink plaid. Did you say, “Wow, I admire his consistency to his theme”?

2. Make sure someone gets it. Kurt Vonnegut recommended writing with an audience of one in mind. Whoever you’re writing for, test it out. If your audience doesn’t like your device, you may want to consider toning it down. Even if you’re not thinking of a specific person as you compose, a suitably sympathetic, unbiased reader ought to be able to get through the device without trouble. I’m thinking your editor here.

3. Most important, make sure it’s crucial and authentic to the work, not just something you’re doing to show off. Christopher Bachelder’s Bear v. Shark uses stream-of-consciousness narration with two-page chapters and commercial breaks as its main style—a highly disruptive format. But the book is a satire about a near future in which television screens have taken over all four walls of the room and no longer turn off, where advertising invades our thoughts and the attention span is a thing of the past. The method is the message—so Bachelder’s outré style doesn’t distract from his point. (Also, the book is short—the author doesn’t expect us to get through three hundred pages of this bizarre prose.) If your device isn’t integral to your work, you’re probably better off without it.

To read the whole kit-n-kaboodle, click here.

Recommended Viewing:Stan Lee & Grant Morrison

To see Grant chat with Deepak Chopra(!), click here.
(Both videos were done by Tone Milazzo.)

Blog-Jacking: Boing Boing

Best Book Covers of 2008
Originally posted 12/1/8 by Cory Doctorow
The Book Design Review blog's top book covers for 2008 are up. This is one of my favorite annual features -- and this year's includes some drop-dead gorgeous designs. I'm insanely jealous of Austin Grossman for getting that brilliant cover for his excellent book Soon I Will Be Invincible. I've mentioned Jordan Crane's wonderful cover for Chabon's Maps and Legends and the new edition of Harry Harrison's Make Room, Make Room, but why did no one tell me about the beauty that is the cover for Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me?


Want to see more? My Favorite Book Covers of 2008 (via Kottke)

Previously: Best book covers of 2007 - Boing Boing

Original Boing Boing post
(Give Boing Boing a look if you haven't already. You'll soon be blog-jacking them too!)

Tom Cruise: Either He's Censoring Free Speech, Or Nobody's Got Anything Bad To Say About Him & Scientology

Last April, we linked to an article describing Tom Cruise and The Church of Scientology's legal bullying of British publisher, Macmillan. Macmillan had been planning to release Andrew Morton's unauthorized biography of Cruise, but canceled these plans after they'd been informed of the lengthy and expensive libel lawsuits that would follow. A similar fate awaited the Morton publishers in Australia, where the book's release was called off at the zero hour.
Well, it looks like Cruise and co. might be at it again. From Rush & Molloy:
'The Complex' author John Duignan cites Tom Cruise control
Tom Cruise is denying that he pressured Amazon to stop selling a book critical of the Church of Scientology.
On Oct. 31, Irish publisher Merlin released “The Complex,” in which John Duignan, identified as “a former high-ranking member” of the church in Britain, describes his “dramatic escape” from its “elite para-military group,” the Sea Organization. Five days later, Cruise dropped by Amazon’s Seattle headquarters to glad-hand staffers and host a sneak peek at his new movie, “Valkyrie.”
A few days later, Amazon’s British Web site stopped selling “The Complex,” explaining to customers that someone mentioned in the book had alleged it defamed him with “false claims.”
“U.K. law gives us no choice but to remove the title from our catalogue,” Amazon said in a statement.
“I believe Tom Cruise influenced them,” Duignan tells us.
To read the whole article, click here.