Tuesday's Friday's Tip for Flailing Writers

Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow has posted a great article on Locus Online titled, Writing in the Age of Distraction. In it, Doctorow lists six simple techniques to help writers write more effectively while still embracing the internet's many digital distractions. Dude knows what he's talking about, too -- he averages about a novel a year!

Recommended Viewing:Kids In The Hall's The Dr. Suess Bible

(A tip of the tall, stripey hat to Journalista for the link.)

Book News, In Brief

A new book, Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel, reveals Barbie's creator to be a gay boob fetishist who once dismantled Zsa Zsa Gabor's Rolls Royce in a fit of anger. Needless to say, Skipper's creator was decidedly less interesting.

Last year's phony holocaust love story may find new life -- as this year's hot fiction release! Via The NYTimes: Days after Berkley Books announced that it was canceling the publication of the memoir Angel at the Fence, after its author, Herman Rosenblat, acknowledged that he had falsified parts of his story, an independent publisher said it was negotiating to release the book as a work of fiction.

Coming soon: Dave Eggers' Where The Wild Things Are. It's a book based on a movie based on a book. Did I lose you? Then allow The Guardian UK to explain: A new book from Eggers is always an event, and here he attempts a novelization of Maurice Sendak's children's classic Where the Wild Things Are, in a collaboration with the film-maker Spike Jonze. I hope this means that novelizations are back in vogue. When I was in the sixth grade, The Goonies by James Kahn was one of my favorite books.

Go, Read: Afrodisiac

Jim Rugg is one of the funnest cartoonists to emerge in the past ten years. Lucky us, he's posted a complete Afrodisiac mini-comic on his LJ. Click here to read.

Book News, In Brief(The Extra Depressing Bookselling Edition)

I turned on my computer yesterday to see this AP headline: After Sales, Will Shoppers Pay Full Price Again? According to the accompanying article, once you go Black Friday, you never go back.

Hell, even the once invincible porn magazine industry is on its knees, begging for a handout. The AFP reports: Porn Industry, Citing Limp Economy, Seeks its Own US Bailout. (Okay, so the italics were mine, but you can't tell me they weren't giggling when they wrote that.)

But wait. There's hope! Via NewsWise.com: A new study suggests that if they just touch an item for more than a few seconds, they may also end up buying it. Researchers from Ohio State University and Illinois State University tested how touching an item before buying affects how much they are willing to pay for an item. A simple experiment with an inexpensive coffee mug revealed that in many cases, simply touching the coffee mug for a few seconds created an attachment that led people to pay more for the item. So if what the scientists are saying is true, all we as booksellers need to do is physically/forcefully place the books in people's hands, and viola -- browsers become buyers. Buyers willing to pay cover price, no less! Even if this turns out to be b.s., it's just the sort of false hope that makes our war against Amazon.com seem a li'l less hopeless. Thank you, science. I forgive you for creating cosmetic Botox injections.

All Work And No Play...

Artist and self-described "big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King," Phil Buehler, has self-published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining.

From The Guardian UK: "The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

To read the Guardian UK's article in its entirety, click here.

Book News, In Brief

Sherry Jones, author of last year's controversial novel, The Jewel of Medina, has found a unique excuse for why her book bombed: She picked the wrong person to pen her blurb.

For years, folks caught with a copy of Playboy under their mattress have used the excuse, "I only read it for the articles." Still, it's surprising to hear Hugh Hefner claim he only published it for the cartoons.

Pop Quiz! What part of a book's publication causes the most conflict? (Go on, take a guess.) If you said, 'the editing,' you're WRONG! But if you said, 'designing the book jacket,' pat yourself on the back, then head on over to AlanRinzler.com for an insider's look at the contentious world of cover art creation.

First there was The Buena Vista Social Club, then Guantanamo Bay. Now there's a third reason to visit sunny, commie Cuba: Thousands of digitized documents, photographs and books that belonged to writer Ernest Hemingway have been made available to scholars and snoops alike. Oh, and unlike Florida's Hemingway archives, this one doesn't smell like cat pee!

The Best Comic Book Covers of 2008

We already linked to The Best Book Covers of 2008, so it only seemed fair that we link to Super Punch's The Best Comic Book Covers of 2008...and Robot 6's alternate list.

Tuesday's Tip for Flailing Writers:Words of Wisdom from Dennis Lehane

Boston-based crime author Dennis Lehane offers a couple of self-help bon mots for all of you perspiring pencil chewers out there.
(Clip courtesy of AuthorMagazine.org)

This Next Set Of News Bits Is Like A Fox News Ménage à Trois

Ann Coulter's new book reveals that she is not a Michelle Obama fan. Now there's a shocker.

Laura Bush signed with Scribner for her White House memoirs. George's book still has no buyers.

Sarah Palin has a pin-up calendar (and it's a top seller on Amazon).

Wendell Edwards' 30 Second Book Review:Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

I just finished reading this book for the second time in six years, and I’ve found it even more rewarding. It could be called a coming-of-age love story, with its themes of emotional maturity explored through the protagonist’s relationships with the women in the book. It is set in Japan in the late 1960s, with the music of the time playing a key role, and some commentary on the unrest of the time added. Like Murakami’s other earlier works, the protagonist considers himself (his early protagonists were always male) an average sort of guy, though through chance occurrences he meets up with unique characters who can see his uniqueness and special qualities when he still can’t recognize them. Unlike Murakami’s other earlier works, Norwegian Wood aims to be a human story, focusing on the human dramas instead of the usual supernatural, magical-realist themes. For the author, it was a challenge, and it turned out to be an incredibly successful venture, exploding his readership in his home country of Japan to such a degree that he felt the need to leave the country for a few years. Norwegian Wood is very much for adults, with dark themes running through it. Like his other books, there aren’t many resolutions, but it has a sense of momentum and even a glimmer of hope at the end, which, for the characters you’ve grown to care for, is all one could wish.

Book News, In Brief

The 'death of books' may have been proclaimed prematurely, but it's never too early to proclaim the collapse of the Kindle. Via Lifehacker: If recession budgeting meant choosing an iPhone/iPod touch over a Kindle when the dust cleared this holiday season, you're in luck: Stanza is a free and fantastic ebook reader for your iPhone.

In the old days (i.e: last week), if an author's life wasn't memorable enough to inspire a memoir, they simply embellished (i.e.: made sh*t up). Unfortunately, in the past few years (i.e.: post-James Frey), taking such liberties has become passe (i.e.: litigious and costly). That's why authors like Norah Vincent are a publisher's dream. From The Guardian UK: To expose the insanity of mental health institutions, Norah Vincent had herself committed. Twice.

Calling all cat burglars, crystal collectors and New Age nitwits! The Pilgrim's Way Bookstore in Carmel, CA is currently exhibiting the largest of the 13 legendary crystal skulls. The Monterey County Herald reports: The (book)store...will host today's 7p.m. lecture by the skull's owner, JoAnn Parks of Houston. The 18-pound, 2-ounce skull named Max is at least 10,000 years old by some estimates and purportedly was used by Mayan priests for healing and prayer...The skull spent its first 10 years in an old cosmetics case until, JoAnn said, it began speaking to her in her dreams... "And that's when he said to me, loudly and clearly in my head, 'By the way, my name is not Skull. It's Max.'"

Book News, In Brief

Harper Bibles has released a 'Green Bible' made from recycled paper and soy ink. Quite predictably, a small section of small-minded Christians are offended.

Ever the stage director, Harold Pinter even staged his own funeral. The rules were simple: No eulogies were to be read, but drinks were definitely to be drunk.

January 1st was J.D. Salinger's birthday, and you goddamn phonies better not try and pretend you remembered.

Go, Look!

The New York Times has an article about 'reading like a girl,' but they mean it as a compliment -- honest!

The sappy, love-starved suckers at The Australian have penned a paean to the femme fatale. Can't they see she's only using them?

The Los Angeles Times has a brief piece about Asian crime fiction, complete with recommendations. (And they even give the Charlie Chan novels a fair shake!)

For your time-killing pleasure, The Guardian UK has prepared a Books Quiz of 2008. Or, as they put it: As a busy year in books closes, it's time to check whether you have absorbed its contents.

Are You Contemplating Suicide But Need That Final Push?

Then tighten your noose and read these:

Via AP: December Consumer Confidence Drops to All-Time Low
NEW YORK – Consumer confidence hit an all-time low in December, dropping unexpectedly in the face of layoffs and deteriorating markets for housing, stocks and other investments..."Deepening job insecurity and falling asset prices are outweighing any optimism consumers may have derived from falling gas prices," said Dana Saporta, U.S. economist at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort.
(To read the entire article, click here.)

Via Bloomberg.com: Holiday Sales Drop to Force Bankruptcies, Closings
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. retailers face a wave of store closings, bankruptcies and takeovers starting next month as holiday sales are shaping up to be the worst in 40 years. Retailers may close 73,000 stores in the first half of 2009, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
(My, you really are hungry for the sweet smell of formaldehyde, aren't you? Go on, then. Click here for the whole thing.)

Book News, In Brief

2009 marks Edgar Allan Poe's bicentennial, and cities up and down the east coast are hosting celebrations in honor of the notoriously anti-social artist. To see what sorts of unintentionally ironic events are taking place in your area, click here.

The holidays are the busiest time of year for newspaper obituary writers, but ego-stroking technologies are beginning to lighten their workload. Inspired by Art Buchwald's "I'm Art Buchwald and I just died" video and Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, homemade, online obits are quickly becoming The Next Big Thing. Sandra Martin, obituarist for The Boston Globe, has written an article about these D.I.Y. R.I.P.s.

Barack Obama will use Abraham Lincoln's Bible for his swearing in. According to BlackVoices.com, this is big news, as "the Lincoln Inaugural Bible has not been used in any other inauguration. It is a powerful symbol of Lincoln's strength and wisdom during a time when the survival of the United States of America was at stake." But over at the U.S. News & World Report, Clark Evans of the Library of Congress takes a more Antiques Roadshow approach: "This Bible is not distinguished unto itself. It's not a rare-edition Bible. An 1853 Oxford Bible with no historical associations would get $30 or $40 today. But by association, it becomes priceless. There is no way to put a dollar sign on it." (Thanks to RareBookNews.com for the links!)

Book Review: The Kiss Murder

Rambling, One Sentence Pitch: A thriller by genre, a character piece at heart, Mehmet Murat Somer's The Kiss Murder is a week in the life of an unnamed drag queen who looks like Audrey Hepburn and kickboxes like Tony Ja.
A Second Rambling Sentence, This One Attempting To Act As Plot Summation: When one of the girls at 'Audrey's' nightclub goes missing, our hero/ine finds him/herself thrust into a mystery involving right wing politicians, bored housewives, catty co-workers and lustful cabbies.
More Rambling, Only Now It's Being Used To Try And Convince You To Buy This Book Instead Of The Millions Of Others Vying For Your Recession Era Dollars: There's murder, of course. And sex. These are the stock and trade of mysteries, after all. But where The Kiss Murder subverts the genre is in its exploration of the Cinderella-like lives of the club queens who must make it home before sunrise lest their facial hair grow too thick. Somer has created a diverse community of outlandish outcasts who, when not fighting against their repressive society, are cat-fighting mercilessly amongst themselves. So bitchy are these bitches that even the sudden disappearance of their cross-dressing co-worker fails to unite them. In fact, it makes things worse. Old rivalries re-arise, dead drama is resurrected, and what might have been a simple whodunit becomes a labyrinthine journey through the backstreets and bachelor pads of Istanbul.
In Closing: In Turkey, Somer's anonymous, Audrey Hepburn lookalike is already the star of her own series of books. Reading The Kiss Murder, it's easy to see why. Not only is she the classic, accidental action hero, but she's got enough emotional baggage and quirky acquaintances to fill a dozen novels. And then there's the cross-over appeal. Beneath 'Audrey's' fantastic facade of witty one liners and stylish ensembles, she's all of us, male and female.

Book News, In Brief

Why does this New England resident regularly read The Sydney Morning Herald's Books section? Because The Boston Globe would never open an article on poet Robert Burns with a line like this: His love might have been like a red, red rose but it turns out that Robert Burns may have been suffering from a rather nasty STD, according to a collection of explicit writing apparently by Scotland's national bard, due to go on sale in January. (To read the entire article, click here.)

Semi-related (in that it mentions a poem by Burns) is The Guardian UK's piece on the various New Year's traditions that have been immortalized in verse. Everything from leaving a lump of coal at your neighbors' doors to feeding an ear of corn to your horse is included.

The NYTimes blames the buying and selling of used books online for the the deaths of neighborhood bookstores, publisher's backlists and author's paychecks. (Yet this doesn't stop the article's author from making repeated plugs for the wonderful world of one cent books. Weird.)

Last but not least, a killer time killer: Links to hundreds of audio recordings of authors reading their own works.

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Killer Kwanzaa! Freakin' Awesome Festivus, Etc., Etc...

We've gone into holiday hibernation and won't be posting again until Monday the 29th. In the interim, feel free to fill the comments section of this "post" with random thoughts, deliberated diatribes, and ways you think we could improve our bookstore's blog.
Happy Everything Involving Presents, Friends & Family!

Book News, In Brief

O...M...G. The next generation of hard SF writers is honing their craft the old fashioned way: In the pages of Teen Ink Magazine.

A new study finds that of the 13 million songs available for purchase on iTunes, 10 million weren't downloaded once. Needless to say, this doesn't bode well for publishers hoping e-books will breathe new life into niche titles.

Then again, perhaps "niche titles" weren't what Apple was planning on pimping. At least not "niche titles" with "objectionable content." Via iLounge: Apple recently rejected an iPhone-based version of a book because it contained foul language. Citing a clause in the iPhone SDK that states “applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement (sic) may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users. For something so wordy, it sure is vague.