Book Chase

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I mentioned back on April 19 that her publisher has been kind enough to offer me three of Laura Lippman’s books as giveaway material here on Book Chase.  This is in celebration of the trade paperback release of Lippman’s I’d Know You Anywhere.


Well, today’s the day.  I am ready to take entries for two free copies of the new trade paperback and one copy of Life Sentences.  All you have to do to enter is to leave a comment to this post expressing your desire to win one of the books and choosing a number between one and twenty (please take care not to duplicate previously chosen numbers).  I will use my handy, dandy random number selector to choose three winners from the entrants.  The first and third winners chosen will receive copies of I’d Know You Anywhere and Life Sentences will go to the second randomly selected winner.


I do suspect that many of you are already familiar with Laura Lippman and her well written psychological crime novels, but those of you who are not might want to take a look here to get a feel for what her work is like:


HarperCollins Laura Lippman website

Book Description of I’d Know You Anywhere

 There was your photo, in a magazine. Of course, you are older now. Still, I’d know you anywhere.

Suburban wife and mother Eliza Benedict’s peaceful world falls off its axis when a letter arrives from Walter Bowman. In the summer of 1985, when Eliza was fifteen, she was kidnapped by this man and held hostage for almost six weeks. Now he’s on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, and Eliza wants nothing to do with him. Walter, however, is unpredictable when ignored—as Eliza knows only too well—and to shelter her children from the nightmare of her past, she’ll see him one last time.


But Walter is after something more than forgiveness: He wants Eliza to save his life . . . and he wants her to remember the truth about that long-ago summer and release the terrible secret she’s keeping buried inside.

Laura Lippman Biography


Browse Inside I’d Know You Anywhere

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I often find myself playing a little side-game while reading a novel with a less-than-obvious title: can I spot the exact reference, usually buried deep inside the novel, where the title’s origin and meaning will be revealed?

I was starting to give up with Pat Conroy’s 628-page Beach Music when it finally happened on page 475 in a scene in which Lucy is releasing a bunch of endangered loggerhead turtles so that they can make their run to the water:

“These are South Carolina turtles like my boys here,” Lucy said, smiling at us. “I think they listen to the waves. I think they just love beach music.”

Conroy did use the term a few other times in the book, such as on page 620 when quoting a “suicide letter” written by Shyla to her husband, Jack:

“I’ll listen for your knock and I’ll open the door and I’ll drag you up to that room where we danced to beach music and kissed while lying on the carpet and I dared you to fall in love with me.”

These references, however, pertain to the songs that Jack and his friends listened to on their transistor radios when partying on the beach together, or to the music played at Southern dance clubs in those days (sixties and early seventies).  I think that the book’s title is more fitting when considered in the context of the page 475 reference and have to believe that’s what Conroy had in mind.

I always get a little kick out of noticing the title references – but I usually forget to mark the page so that I can come back to it.  I can give one more recent example, though, this time from James Lee Burke’s Glass Rainbow (page 200):

“We’re all dust. At a moment like this, you get to look through a glass rainbow and everything becomes magical, but when all is said and done, we’re just dust. Like the people in those paintings. We don’t even know where their graves are.”

Maybe you play the same game?

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=boocha01-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0553381539&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

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That the old book-selling business model no longer works very well is old news.  Common sense, however, still dictates that every copy of a book a publisher sells to a consumer has to be a good thing.  But according to Linen Press (complete article on The Guardian Book Blog), common sense, in this case, is very wrong.  For every copy that this tiny U.K. publisher sells through Amazon, it loses the equivalent of three dollars.  Here’s why:

Amazon don’t tell their customers how much they take from a small publisher like me, nor do they advertise the fact that I have to pay the postage on the books sent to them.

[...]

Linen Press books cost £4 a copy to produce, for several reasons…The RRP is £11.99. The postage is £2.50. On my website I sell the books for £8.99, so I’m not ripping you off; I’m just trying to persuade you not to buy from Amazon.


Here are the scary sums:


Amazon takes 60% of my RRP (in the book trade, the bigger the sales outfit, the bigger the discount they demand from the publisher: Amazon 60%; Waterstones 50%; independent bookshop 35%). On a £11.99 book, Amazon’s takings are £7.20. Mine are £4.80.


Out of this comes £2.50 to pack and post the book to Amazon, and the author’s royalties on a heavily discounted book reduced to 50p. My writers lose out on an Amazon sale, too. That leaves 82p for Linen Press, but the book cost £4 to produce. So I lose £2.18 on every sale by Amazon.

All of this is bad enough (and, yes, the arithmetic shown above is a tad misstated although its bottom line is the same), but the scariest statement in the article is this one:

For all its vast catalogue, Amazon’s market domination is actually reducing choice by squeezing out small publishers who are prepared to take risks.

So for publishers with the per-book cost that is built in to small press runs, selling through Amazon is a whole lot like an individual selling something through eBay.  After paying postage fees to deliver an item and the advertising fees demanded by eBay, there’s very little left to claim as profit for the seller.  That’s why I no longer deal with eBay other than as a buyer.  I wonder how many small, independent booksellers will reach the same conclusion about dealing with Amazon.

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Comes word from ZippyCart, among others, that actor Nicolas Cage, once the proud owner of a pristine copy of Action Comics # 1, the book that introduced Superman to the world, is hoping to call it his own again. It seems that Cage’s copy of the comic, worth at least $1 million dollars, was stolen from him more than ten years ago, vanishing from sight until it turned up in an abandoned storage unit a few days ago.

The locker unit was auctioned off through Riverside-based American Auctioneers… about a month ago, where the comic book, carrying an estimated worth of $1 million was discovered. The locker’s new owner (who chooses to remain anonymous), unsure of the comic book’s value, was then connected with collectibles expert and New York dealer, Stephen Fishler. Fishler originally sold Cage Action Comics #1 back in 1990 and was able to positively ID and authenticate that the comic book was in fact, the one stolen from Cage.


[…]


The DC comic book, widely considered to be the most important one ever published for setting the precedent for superheroes to come, was one of three vintage comic books stolen from high security frames on a wall in Cage’s home back in 2000. The initial investigation received a break when days after the break-in, an L.A. area store owner informed Fishler about a phone call he received for pricing on two of the books Cage was missing. Several months later, the third missing comic book, Marvel Mystery #71, resurfaced on eBay…The investigation ending shortly thereafter, leaving a truly devastated Cage.

Ultimate ownership of the recovered comic book has been somewhat complicated by the fact that Cage reportedly received an insurance company settlement for its loss. Because the book is almost certainly worth more today than it was when it was stolen from Cage, this could get interesting.

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I love LibraryThing – no big surprise there, I’m sure, for most of you, and I’m willing to bet that many of you feel the same way.  (Those of you who are unfamiliar with the site might want to go here. I’ve been a member there since July 2006 and I can’t recommend it enough.)  What makes the site so much fun for me is the way that it blends two of my passions: books and statistics.  My love of books is probably obvious by now.  What might be less obvious, is how much pleasure I take in studying statistics, rankings, lists, and the like.

LibraryThing makes that easy to do.  For instance this is what I learned today in about five minutes of looking at the numbers there:

There are 1,315,207 members, as of this moment. 

Between them, the members have catalogued some 61,322,658 books. That’s an average of just under 47 books per user. 

Of those 61 million books, 6,004,201 of them are unique titles. 

Those same members have written a total of 476,510 book reviews and posted them to the site.

Those are the raw numbers. What really intrigues me, is the detail behind some of those numbers.

The Top 10 Most Collected Authors are: 

J.K. Rowling – 397,655 books
Stephen King – 281,299 books
Terry Pratchett – 234,221 books
J.R.R. Tolkien – 189,282 books
Neil Gaiman – 178,120 books
C.S. Lewis – 174,157 books
William Shakespeare – 150,435 books
Nora Roberts – 135,337 books
Jane Austen – 128,463 books
Agatha Christie – 126,783 books

While I’m not surprised by most of the names on the list, I do find it a bit strange to see Nora Roberts bracketed by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. It is, indeed, a strange old world in which we live.

One other tidbit worth sharing today: of the Top 10 books most collected, numbers 1-7 are the Harry Potter novels, followed by The Da Vinci Code, The Hobbit, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yes, we as a group, have one heck of a split personality – if not much taste.

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Bonobo Ape

Another weekend, this time a three-day one, has flown by and I’m trying to prepare myself mentally to return to the work-week grind before daybreak tomorrow morning.  It seems more and more often that I approach a weekend with big plans and end it with a bit of a confused whimper because so few of my big plans ever get tackled.

I did manage to get in a good bit of reading- finishing Gringos (Charles Portis) and reading over half of Ape House (Sara Gruen).  The first problem with this weekend’s reading is that I found Gringos to be a major disappointment considering how much I enjoyed reading his True Grit a few days ago.  There has been so much hype about the re-release of the man’s older novels that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of them.  Maybe they were out-of-print for a reason?

The second problem with my weekend reading is that I’m finding it hard to believe that the same woman who wrote Water for Elephants wrote Ape House.  This new one started off strongly and I was hooked by the book’s first dozen pages; then, it turned into a Romance Novel and the apes became minor, almost forgotten, characters.  Now, some 220 pages into the book, the apes are starting to take center stage again as “stars” of their own reality TV show.  Really, Sara?

Major distractions this weekend included a Saturday morning garage sale at my daughter’s house in which she and my granddaughter netted all of $150 in sales.  Those things are always fun (to me, anyway) but it was hot and muggy and everyone involved, including the customers, seemed kind of sluggish.  It was so slow at times that I sneaked in some reading of Ape House while waiting for the next customers to drive or walk up.  Thank goodness I remembered to put my iPad in the car before I drove to my daughter’s – my library copy of Ape House resting comfortably on the gadget.

The other major distraction is, of course, the start of baseball season – not that Houstonians will have anything much to cheer about this season, or most likely the next four or five.  Astros fans are enduring a complete rebuild of the team.  It is so bad that my most ambitious hope for the team this year is that it not humiliate itself by losing 100 games.  The Phillies made the Astros look like the Triple A team it really is, defeating us: 5-4, 9-4, and 7-2.  I’m trying to convince myself that I can still enjoy the season by admiring the skills on the opposing teams; after all, the pressure is off Astros fans for the foreseeable future.  Right?  Yeah, sure.

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Today’s mail delivery included a nice surprise: a new book from Oxford University Press.  This one has a publication date of April 14 and  is called How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts and it is authored by John Sutherland.

The first thing I noticed about the book is the feel of its cover.  This is a paperback but the book’s front and back covers feel as if they have been plasticized, giving them a slick texture that I could not help running my fingers across while trying to figure out how the publisher got this effect.  Too, the book’s turquoise color jumps out at you.  That’s about it for cosmetics, however.  As you can see from the picture, other than the color and texture of the cover, the book has a relatively generic look to it.

But, of course, it’s what’s inside the covers that really counts.  The book’s introduction describes it as a “toolkit,” one that ”the well-equipped reader will want to have.”  The 200-page book encompasses 50 “big ideas” about literature, each individual section presented in an easy-to-read format illustrated with offset quotes, timelines, and a one-paragraph summary/definition of its particular “big idea.”  The book is further organized into six major sections  (each containing a few of the 50 ideas): Basics, How It Works, Literature’s Devices, New Ideas, Word Crimes, and Literary Futures.

The very last piece in the book, Idea 50, is titled “Literary Inundation,” and it addresses the tsunami of the written word facing today’s readers.  It offers suggestions as to how to cope with the great deluge and notes the ironies of the situation – such as the fact that books are being published at a faster clip than at any time in world history just when more and more bookstores are closing their doors.

How Literature Works looks like fun, and I can’t resist delving into it despite the fact that I’m already reading four other books.  Some books just feel right from the second you pick them up.  For me, this is one of those.

>Here’s yet another idea that has me slapping my forehead in disgust because this kind of thing never occurs to me.  It’s clever, its simple, and it got published as a really cool children’s book.

Take a look.

>So what do you think?  This just might turn out to be one of the most controversial movies in a long while. Personally, the trailer does nothing much to get me excited about the film but it does appear to be well done…and this is just “Part I.”

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My review of Chinaberry Sidewalks

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One Florida third-grader got more than he bargained for when he checked out Tank Girl One from his school library.  According to television station WSVN, the graphic novel is filled with scantily clad women, drinking, smoking, and sexual situations that include women with women.  The young man only read the book six times before telling his mother what he had in his backpack (that’s a joke I just could not resist).

It seems that the school ordered a book called Tank Talbot, a Guide to Girls.  The book they received from the publisher did have two of the same words in its title, but that’s where the similarity ends.

WSVN-TV has video of how the station reported the story and a written piece for those who prefer reading their news over having someone do it for them.

What concerns me about this story is the number of incompetent people who had their hands on this book before it made it into the little hands of one lucky/unlucky third grade student.  Do you mean to tell me that no one noticed that this book had a different title, or a different cover…or that it was inappropriate for an elementary school library?  Really, Hebron Heights Elementary School?  Really?

>I decided to do one of those “Teaser Tuesday” things today because I’m running further and further behind on my formal reviews.  Toward the end of 2010, I got four or five reviews behind and I’ve never really caught up again.  Right now, for instance, I need to do two reviews on books I’ve already completed, and I’m 80% of the way through reading two others – and about 15% of the way through a really slow-going chunkster.

I finished the new Joyce Carol Oates memoir, A Widow’s Story, last week but I’m letting it settle a bit before I tackle a review.  Oates is one of the people I’ve been reading forever (since the mid-eighties, if I had to make a guess) and I have almost 90 of her titles on my shelves.  She, in fact, represents more than 10% of the books I display on my “keeper shelves.”  I am fascinated by her work, but I don’t know how to react to this one.  Many of you know that Ms. Oates lost her husband of 47 years, a while back.  A Widow’s Story is her very frank, emotional, hold-nothing-back reaction to being so suddenly thrust into the world of widowhood – all because the hospital treating her husband’s pneumonia allowed him to die from a secondary infection he picked up there.  I think what bothers me so much about the book comes from realizing how close Ms. Oates came to killing herself…and how long she considered doing the deed.  I’ll probably review this one in the next day or so.

Also finished is John Grisham’s Playing for Pizza, the story of a third-string NFL quarterback who has been run out of the league and is desperate enough to sign a contract with a team in Parma, Italy, that plays in the Italian version of the NFL.  This one is surprisingly lightweight in tone, plot and characters (even in number of pages) and I’m surprised that so many people seem to love it.  It’s the kind of story that had a lot of potential, but Grisham just does not seem to make the most of what he had to work with here.  It’s almost like he knocked this one off in between books he really wanted to take his time with.

I’m also reading Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won.  This one is chock full of stats and graphs that disprove many of the myths sports fans have come to believe over the years.  It explores the real meaning and effect of winning streaks, hot hands, icing the kicker, home field advantage, and the like, and is guaranteed to make the hardcore sports fan (no matter the sport) second guess even his most deeply held sports assumptions.  It’s fun, but a little dry.

I’m also listening to Scott Turow’s Innocent, a sequel to his smash hit of a long time ago, Presumed Innocent.  It revisits Rusty Savitch, now a judge, who finds himself facing the same prosecutor who failed to convict him all those years ago for the murder of Rusty’s mistress.  This time, Rusty’s wife rather mysteriously (and conveniently) dies and it looks like Rusty did it.  This is a 12-disc book, and I started the last disc on the way home this evening still unsure as to how Turow is going to wrap up everything he has going to this late point in the book.  Edward Hermann does a wonderful job handling about 90% of the book’s narration but, unfortunately, Orlagh Cassidy handles the voice of the main female character and her voice is too “old” for the character.  I find her “sound” to be a bit distracting, but her role is limited, thankfully.

I’m also slogging my way through To the End of the Land by David Grossman.  I don’t have the book with me in this room, but it must be at least 600 densely-packed pages and, at least for me, it reads very slowly.  I was intrigued by the plot: a mother in Israel refuses to sit at home after she sends her youngest son off to fight in Israel’s latest flash-war.  She believes that if authorities can’t find her to announce the death of her son, he will survive the war.  I’m not sure where this one is really heading – or if I will even finish it.  I just cannot get into its rhythm.

Now – I’m off to do my first real reading of the day.  It’s been another day of office drudgery and meeting with lawyers and VA clerks on behalf of my father for much of the evening.  I need a break…see you tomorrow.

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Photo courtesy of Ion Audio

Now, this is a new gadget I can’t wait to get my hands on.

According to cnet.com, a company called Ion Audio plans to get something on the market this summer that will change the e-book marketplace in ways that are likely to push book publishers into panic-mode.  That is exactly what makes me doubt that the “Book Saver” will make it to market as quickly as Ion hopes to have it there.

Ion said the Book Saver is capable of digitizing a 200-page book in 15 minutes. An owner of a Book Saver, which will likely sell for $150, places a book into the scanning cradle and the device makes color copies in seconds, thanks to two cameras hanging above the book.


“Once converted, the books can quickly be transferred to a computer or e-reader,” Ion said on its Web site. “Book Saver is the only device needed to quickly make all your books, comics, magazines, or other documents e-reader compatible.”

And that, of course, will make it as easy to share electronic books with friends and family as it is today to rip ten copies of the latest CD to trade with friends.

Of course, as the article does point out, ripping a book this way is much more labor intensive than ripping a CD on a home computer:

The scanning process on the device, while not as time consuming as the old way, is still nowhere as easy to use as a CD ripper. According to Engadget, there’s no automated way to turn pages and an owner needs to lift the device to turn every page.

Book publishers should know that eventually someone or some company, maybe even Ion, will streamline the process.

I am a notorious “early adopter” and I would happily pay $150 for a device that allows me to turn my entire personal library into a portable one – even a device requiring as much time and patience as this one is likely to require in its initial form.

 I’ll be anxiously watching for Book Saver.

 It is completely legal to market this device today, but I do suspect that publishing company lawyers will find a way to slow down its introduction. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, though, that I have new toy some time this summer.

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If nothing else, this proves that there is an “app” for everyone.

Penguin (in the U.K.) has just released a book app aimed at babies as young as three-months that can be used to “bring to life the popular Ladybird series of books on the touch screen.”  Babies, I suppose will learn a little about cause and effect as they touch the screen to make new characters appear.  I doubt that I would trust a $600 iPad in the hands of a six-month-old baby, however.


According to The Telegraph:

The app has been specifically designed for and tested on babies as young as three months so they are able to easily interact with the story on a touch screen device. 

Simple taps of the screen make different characters appear, in lots of bold colours with sound effects.

[...]

… the target age was from three to 12 months old and that babies as young as six months old would be able to operate the app without their parent’s help. The app also features an auto play tool – which allows parent to play the entire content of the app as a movie.

While this application is being sold based upon its positive effects on babies, I do have to wonder about the wisdom of getting children this young addicted to the same gadgets that already seem permanently attached to their older brothers and sisters.  With all of this electronic instant gratification being peddled, I’m starting to wonder if future generations will even be able to sit still long enough to read a long magazine or newspaper article, much less a whole book that is not embedded with pictures and sound effects.

What do you think?  Is this Penguin application cool, clever, or just disturbing as all get out?

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I downloaded my review copy of the soon-to-be-pulished Joyce Carol Oates memoir this morning and soon found myself totally engrossed by what Ms. Oates has to say about finding herself experiencing widowhood so suddenly.  It seems that more and more publishers are sending review copies this way, so I am happy to have my Sony Reader around even when I’m not traveling as much as I did in the past.  My only regret with this new process is that publishers are submitting files that expire within 60 days of the date they are downloaded.  For the most part, that doesn’t bother me because I am unlikely to want to read any of the books again anyway – but in the case of Ms. Oates, that is never the case.  I have about 80 of her books on my shelves now and will very likely want to revisit this one.  I’ll almost certainly be putting a hardcover version of A Widow’s Story on the shelf not long after its release date of February 15.

On a related topic, I stumbled across the fact that Amazon has just released another 131 free e-books for download to the Kindle – or any other gadget running the Kindle software.  Go to Ereader News Today where you will find the link (inside the article titled “Dozens of Free Books Today”) and a way to sign up there for regular announcements about free e-books for the Kindle.  Most of the newly-free books seem to be test preparation guidelines, medical-related nonfiction, and legal nonfiction.  This list should be particularly helpful to money-strapped high school and college students, but hurry up and get there if you are interested because free Kindle books do not always remain free for very long.  Be very careful not to download anything that does not show a price of $0.00 if you want it for free.  I made that mistake a while back by not noticing that one of Amazon’s freebies had reverted back to a purchase-book.

I hope you find something useful there.  Good luck.

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In another in a long string of absurd decisions based on political correctness and modern sensibilities, one publisher has decided that Mark Twain must be censored if it is to make any money placing copies of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in public schools.  Yes, the dreaded “N” word is sprinkled throughout the book and, yes, it is offensive to modern ears.  But taken in its context the use of that word in Huckleberry Finn adds depth and impact to what Twain was trying to portray about the people and the times.

NewSouth Books, an Alabama publisher explains itself this way:

NewSouth has been bombarded with emails and phone calls questioning the value of sanitising a classic work of 19th century literature for the sake of modern sensibilities.


But spokeswoman Suzanne La Rosa says the censorship allows the book to be read in schools, where it was becoming shunned.

[...]

Ms La Rosa says she understands the argument that the novel is social history as well as literature, but says censored text is not meant to replace the original.


“There are literally scores of editions of these Twain books out there on the marketplace for people who really place adherence to Twain’s original text on the top of their priority lists,” she said.


“We simply felt that there was room in the marketplace for a book that was a gentler read.


“This is hardly going to make a difference, really a ripple, even, in terms of what is available

A “gentler read” or a dumbed-down, neutered read? You decide.

Before you do decide, take a look what literary historian, and fellow blogger, D.G. Myers has to say on the subject over at A Commonplace Blog. Here is a taste of what Mr. Myers adds to the conversation:

So much for Twain’s irony. “I’m hoping that people will welcome this new option,” Gribben says, “but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified.”


Not only textual purists. What is far more horrifying to contemplate is how anyone who studies the novel in “the new classroom,” where Gribben says the author’s intended version is “really not acceptable,” can possibly hope to understand Huckleberry Finn. Twain’s point in the novel is that human “sivilization” (including the institution of slavery) is little more than legalized violence. The only true freedom lies outside “sivilization” altogether, which is why, in the last sentences of the book, Huck decides to “light out for the [Indian] Territory ahead of the rest”—that is, decides to flee human contact altogether.

Go here for the whole article I quote from and to a second, related one:

Hemingway Is Next


More Books to Gribbenize    - in which Myers has fun sanitizing a paragraph from Moby Dick


As for me, I smell a rat – and that rat is money.  This new simpleton’s version of Huck Finn is going to be sold to schools at $25 a pop when the real version can be found at bookstores in quality paperback format for about $7 – and downloaded free of charge at more than a dozen websites.

Just when I think I’ve seen it all…(famous last words).

>I’m having one of those weekends where I just cannot focus in long enough on any one activity to get it done.  That has been particularly frustrating since this was a rare three-day weekend for me because I have to use my last three vacation days before December 31 or lose them.  I really thought I would be able to do some catching up with that extra day – instead, I’ve accomplished less than I do in a normal weekend.

 I see now that my intentions were unrealistic from the start, but I didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed by what seems to be an unlimited list of little tasks that have to be done by the end of today.  Throw in all of life’s little unexpected bonuses and, well, you know what happens.  My wife has been away since October 1 and she is returning for the day on Tuesday.  Of course, I will be in Tulsa on Tuesday.  And, you guys can only imagine the amount of housecleaning I need to do today in order to get anywhere near a passing grade on my housekeeping efforts since she’s been away helping out at her mother’s. 

I’ve done some editing for a family member, flitted around between three or four books, spent some real quality time with two of my grandchildren, made a run to the cleaners, the bank, the rent-a-car location, the library, etc., but still have to get to the grocery store so that I don’t have to do that when I get home on Wednesday night.

But I do want to share a couple of bookish things with everyone before I start on the dreaded housecleaning routine:

Sean Scapellato sends word that Pat Conroy signed extra copies of My Reading Life when he was at Charleston’s Blue Bicycle Books -  and that signed copies are still available if anyone wants to order one by mail.  Here’s the link Sean provided for those interested (I certainly am).  Sean also mentioned that there’s a new Pat Conroy book in the mix for the fall of 2011.  As Sean said, three Pat Conroy books in three years is a new world’s record for Mr. Conroy.  I can’t wait, as this one sounds like another very personal memoir about the fascinating Conroy family.

…

I know that some of you are really into short stories and I’ve been meaning to mention that Library of America sends a classic short story each week (via direct email) to those who sign up for the service.The current “Story of the Week,” number 50 in the series, is All Parrots Speak, by Paul Bowles.  Last week it was I’ll Be Waiting, by Raymond Chandler.  I think you can sign up for the free emails here. 

 That’s it for the moment.  I’m hoping that my relatively quick toilet-scrubbing skills (and general lack of attention to the details of housecleaning) will allow me to get back here before I have to leave tomorrow morning for my drive to Tulsa.  Read on, guys.

Pat Conroy and Sean Scapellato

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Let me warn you guys right now.  Book Lust to Go is going to cost you some money, some research time, and hours of reading.  This little book of 271 pages will likely become one of your permanent desk companions, a book you will be mining for new reading material for years to come.

I am only half-way through the book right now – which brings me to the section on Liberia – so this is not meant to be a formal review.  But as I work my way through Nancy Pearl’s hundreds of title suggestions for “travelers, vagabonds, and dreamers” (arranged, for the most part, alphabetically by country) my TBR stack or, in this case “lust list” is growing by the dozen. 

Already this morning, I placed three titles on my hold list at the county library, two of them from Pearl’s Australia section: Chasing Kangaroos: A Continent, a Scientist, and a Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Creature (Tim Flannery) and The Broken Shore (a thriller by Peter Temple) and the other from the section on Arizona, Territory (a supernatural take on the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral by Emma Bull).  And those are just two of the “A” sections.  I’m afraid to count how many others I’ve already marked for future reading – and I’m having to force myself not to mark some others that are almost equally as tempting.

I’m probably going to be doing a formal review of Book Lust to Go one day next week.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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It is not often that I am blown away by the idea of a book before I have had the opportunity to page through it to see if it is really as has been described to me.  But an email I got last week from Da Capo Press got me very excited about a book of theirs titled Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book - and after receiving it in this afternoon’s mail, I am more excited about it than ever.

Why did I react the way I did?  Just read this blurb from the book’s back cover and you will, I am certain, understand:

In Bound to Last, an amazing array of authors comes to the passionate defense of the printed book with spirited, never-before-published essays celebrating the hardcover or paperback they hold most dear – not necessarily because of its contents, but because of its significance as a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable object.  Whether focusing on the circumstances behind how a particular book was acquired, or how it has become forever “bound up” with a specific person, time, or place, each piece collected here confirms – poignantly, delightfully, irrefutably – that every book tells a story far beyond the one found within its pages.

Does anyone really believe that an e-book will ever have this kind of an impact on its owner?  Yeah, sure.

The book is edited by Sean Manning, who has written a brilliant two-page Introduction, and it includes a Forward from Ray Bradbury.  Manning’s introduction, in fact, puts something about the attraction of a physical book into words that I have been struggling to express for some time.  It is a simple statement, so well put that I admire its clarity as much as the picture it paints in my mind:

It’s just that, to me, one of the best parts of reading, one of the things that hooked me…is the tactile sensation of turning a page, the sight of my bookmark inching along night after night, getting closer to the finish, then finally closing the book, hearing that whomp, turning it over in my hands, feeling the weight of it, the sense of accomplishment that brings.

Yes.

 That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say.  This one, without a doubt, is jumping to the very top of my TBR stack.

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Luann is on the right track…join her?

It’s not too late.  You can still give “Books for Treats” tomorrow night if you participate in the whole Halloween thing.  Now, I’m not saying that you will not have a record number of tricks pulled on you if you do hand out books rather than candy.  So, reader beware.

Take a look at this website and you’ll learn all you need to know about why so many people are starting to give books instead of candy.  Maybe not for you this year, but think about it for next year.

Books feed children’s minds, while candy only feeds their cavities. Books encourage children to read, and parents to read with them and/or ask them about their books. Many children rarely receive books as gifts, so even gently read books are special treats.

[...]

Do you recycle? If so, do you think it is a lot of work? No. You believe in supporting the planet by recycling materials so they don’t go into the landfill. Books For Treats takes a little more time than buying a giant bag of candy, but if you believe that you can help turn Halloween from a cavity-, obesity-, diabeties-contributing holiday into one that shows that society cares about our children, then it’s worth the extra effort.


Giving books instead of candy shows kids you care about them and are encouraging them to read. This not only helps raise their interest in reading, but raises their feeling that the community cares about their future.

I’m not kidding myself into believing that giving out books instead of candy on Halloween will ever become the new normal. But, if enough of us are willing to be a bit different, we can do some good.  Let’s help create a new generation of lifetime readers.

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I have to wonder a bit why famed author Anne Rice decided to sell 7,000 books from her personal library. I know that Rice has changed, both as an author and as a person, over the last two decades, so perhaps these are books she is simply no longer interested in having around her.

According to The Portland Business Journal,  Powell’s Books, based in Portland, made the purchase:

Powell’s has begun marketing the books online (http://www.powells.com/section/from-the-library-of-anne-rice/) and, after a spell, will distribute the titles to its stores for retail sales. The books will contain a sticker noting that they’re from Rice’s personal collection.

 Rice’s tastes apparently ran from philosophy film history to metaphysics and theology. Many of the books are either signed by or annotated by Rice herself.

The books don’t seem to be terribly overpriced (at least that’s the case with the ones on the first page of the link, noted above) and it would be interesting to have one of the books Rice annotated.  I might just do a little unplanned shopping in the next day or so.

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Remember picture books?  I am willing to bet that most avid readers can still recall images from some of the picture books they had when they were first learning to read.  If not, older readers can certainly remember some of the picture books they used to get their own children, or perhaps their grandchildren, interested in reading.

Now, according to this New York Time’s article, those old fashioned picture books are considered passé by modern parents who want to move their children into “chapter books” as soon as possible.  Some of the parents described in the article seem almost embarrassed to have their four-year-old seen reading a picture book when all his friends have moved on to those picture-less chapter books.

Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.


“Parents are saying, ‘My kid doesn’t need books with pictures anymore,’ ” said Justin Chanda, the publisher of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. “There’s a real push with parents and schools to have kids start reading big-kid books earlier. We’ve accelerated the graduation rate out of picture books.”

[...]

Literacy experts are quick to say that picture books are not for dummies. Publishers praise the picture book for the particular way it can develop a child’s critical thinking skills.


“To some degree, picture books force an analog way of thinking,” said Karen Lotz, the publisher of Candlewick Press in Somerville, Mass. “From picture to picture, as the reader interacts with the book, their imagination is filling in the missing themes.”


Many parents overlook the fact that chapter books, even though they have more text, full paragraphs and fewer pictures, are not necessarily more complex.

[...]

Still, many publishers have gradually reduced the number of picture books they produce for a market that had seen a glut of them, and in an age when very young children, like everyone else, have more options, a lot of them digital, to fill their entertainment hours.

Do read the whole article for a more complete feel for how this trend is impacting parents and their children.  I am no reading expert, and do not claim to be one, but the idea that picture books are being yanked from the hands of struggling young readers before they are ready to move on to something more difficult seems completely wrongheaded to me.  Child readers, especially those to whom reading does not come easily, need to feel good about their reading experiences.  If they are to become lifelong readers they need to gain some pleasure from the experience, not see reading as a chore or challenge that has to be overcome.

The problem, in my opinion, is overreaching parents, those who realize they cannot have a redo of their own lives and opt for the next best thing: pushing their children harder than they were pushed at the same age.  Picture books seem to be a critical part of the reading experience.  I suspect that children know when it is time to move from picture books to chapter books – even if their parents do not quite get it anymore.

>What a world we live in.  That thing called “reality”TV seems to have convinced every person on the face of the Earth that they, too, can be stars…talent not required.  There have always been accidental celebrities, those people who find themselves in the right place at the right time to be “discovered.”  Of course, many, if not most, of those discoveries were as phony as the Hollywood publicists spreading the stories, but they were rare enough at one time that we all wanted to believe them.

Now it is just the opposite.  People are no longer willing to wait for luck to tap them on the shoulder.  These days, they are  demanding their 15-minutes – and everyone had better pay attention, by gosh.  The Christian Science Monitor has the story of the woman whose hands appear on the cover of Twilight.  By now, everyone is familiar with the book’s cover shot:

Well, Kimbra Hickey wants you to know that those are her hands and she can prove it – and if you stand still long enough, she will:

“It was too big of a deal just to let it be,” Hickey told the New York Post of her quest for recognition, even as she admitted that she has become “a little goofy” about the whole thing. (“Goofy” may indeed be the best description for her habit of carrying a Gala apple in her purse at times so she can recreate the famous pose for anyone interested. Hickey told the Post that she also sometimes “hangs out near the cash register” at the Barnes & Noble near her apartment to help attract attention.)

I’m sorry, but I think this is just sad.

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Another Life Experience for Snooki’s Novel

Breaking news you have not been holding your breath to hear:

Snooki, the “breakout star” of MTV’s version of Italian-American reality, Jersey Shore, has found a publisher convinced that it can milk a nice profit from those gullible television viewers who actually watch that bit of tripe.

According to The Week:

Though Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, the diminutive breakout star of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” wouldn’t seem to be a natural writer — she recently told The New York Times she’s read only two books in her life, Twilight and Dear John — the poof-haired tanning aficionado’s first novel, tentatively titled A Shore Thing, is set to be published by Simon & Schuster this January.

So this airhead, who has read two books in her entire lifetime (neither of which will be remembered 20 years from now) is going to slap her “famous” name on a book written by some ghost writer desperate enough to write it on her behalf.  Now all the publisher needs to do is find a few thousand equally empty-headed people to donate their money to the cause.  Simon & Schuster, have you no shame?  I know that MTV has none, but I expected more from you.  Silly me.

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Guest Blogger Mark Shapiro

14 of the more than 450 books in Mark’s collection

Freda and Mark Shapiro

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1899 First Edition, First State

Almost four years ago (January 2007), I spotted a story about a collector of all things Wizard of Oz that absolutely fascinated me.  I posted about Mark Shapiro and his Oz books back then in what was only the 14th posting I had yet made here on Book Chase (Lions and Tigers and Books, Oh My).  Now, almost 1400 posts and four years later, I have the opportunity to update my original thoughts.

I’ve exchanged a few emails with Mark in the last couple of weeks, emails in which Mark was kind enough to include pictures of a tiny portion of his collection.  Based on what I’ve seen and on what I have read about Mark’s collection on the net, I have to believe that his personal collection of L. Frank Baum material has to rank as one of the finest of its type in the world.

Mark, 64 years of age, has been collecting L. Frank Baum books and related material for some 38 years now, but his collecting bug probably can be traced all the way back to the childhood days he spent with his mother touring museums and libraries.  As you can see from the pictures, Mark has combined the best of both those worlds by becoming a first rate collector of rare books and related material, and displaying his finds in a museum-like setting.  He is building his collection in the spirit of his mother, whom he lost in 1998 at age 83, and sees it as a way of continuing to honor her memory.

Mark now has over 450 first edition Baum books but he is particularly excited about his 1899 Wizard of Oz, “B” binding with “O” outside the “C” on the book’s spine.  Mark has 15 first edition, first state copies of Wizard and 5 of them are of the rarer “B” binding (out of only 2000 printed).

Despite the already massive size of his collection, Mark continues to find new items through private purchases, eBay auctions, garage sales and swap meets. The man is forever on the chase.

Illustration by William Wallace Denslow

Best Book Case Ever

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A year or so back, I wrote the “nastiest” book review I have ever written.  The review encompassed my reaction to a well known South African author’s latest novel – a reaction of horror,disgust and disbelief that something so bad could have been written by one of the supposedly blessed ones.  I caught some static because of the review, mainly from people who believed I hated the novel only because I disagreed with the politics expressed in it.  I did think I might have been too hard on the author and vowed to think twice before posting another review with the same tone.

Well, I have definitely been topped because Leon Wolf’s review of Dirty Sexy Politics, the new Meghan McCain memoir sets a standard that I can only dream of ever achieving.  Bottom line: Wolf hates the book and believes that Meghan McCain is a complete waste of oxygen.

I want to give you a feel for what is in the review (one of the longest book reviews I’ve read in a while) but you really need to read this one (follow the link, above) in order to fully appreciate how good it is.

It is impossible to read Dirty, Sexy Politics and come away with the impression that you have read anything other than the completely unedited ramblings of an idiot.

[...]

The most obvious problem with Dirty, Sexy Politics is that grammatically, the book appears to be the work of a high school sophomore. To be more accurate, it appears to be the first draft of an essay written for a high school English class; the one turned in before the teacher makes all the pretty red marks in the margin that helpfully keep students from turning in final papers riddled with comma abuse, sentence fragments, and incorrect punctuation. Each subsequent page of this book contains one grisly crime against the English language after another.

[...]

Were this a book from any other author, I might at this point be lamenting the fact that the author had an important message that would sadly be lost due to her horrible communication skills. Not so with Meghan McCain. Meghan’s primary goal in writing Dirty, Sexy Politics appears to have been to show off her encyclopedic knowledge of who was wearing what clothes on what occasion. From all appearances, it is physically impossible for Meghan McCain to describe a given scene or occurrence without describing in detail what everyone in the room was wearing (and how their hair was done), most especially including herself.

[...]

On the whole, I am simply not a talented enough writer to express how truly horrible this book was. The last line of the book implores readers not to let Meghan “pick up this torch alone.” I can honestly say that I was encouraged throughout to pick up a torch in order to burn my copy of Dirty, Sexy Politics, even though I was reading it on a Kindle. There is no reason that anyone who is not getting paid to review this book should ever, ever spend money on it.

These quotes are just the icing on the cake. Take it from me, the cake is even tastier than its icing.

(Here’s the link, again, so that you don’t have to scroll up the page to find it)

Thank you, Mr. Wolf for suffering through this one so that the rest of us don’t have to waste our time and money on it.  I’ve seen enough of Meghan McCain on political talk shows to know that she’s pretty much empty-headed and would not have been tempted to ever read this one- however, those who may have purchased it because of who she “is” should thank you for the thirty bucks you just saved them.

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Reverend Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center

>As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the Tony Blair book tour for A Journey, here’s a bit of news from The Sun.  It now appears that the twit protestors will follow Mr. Blair from bookstore to bookstore as he attempts to sign copies of his memoir for those who want to add signed copies to their libraries.  Blair, showing what I think is a proper level of concern for the safety of the general public and the amount of money being wasted on extra police security, has decided to cancel his London appearances.

I imagine this means the end of the tour, period, unless Blair wants to eventually test the waters in other countries.

Thanks, though, for the publicity, twit protestors.  I had not planned on buying a copy of the book before this happened, but I will be buying one now.  And I doubt that I am the only one feeling this way.  The proceeds go to a worthy cause and you should be ashamed of yourselves for trying to stop the sale of the book to those who admire the man – or to those just curious to hear what he has to say.  Shame on you.

(This one is filed under the “Opinion” category, obviously – as was yesterday’s post.)

>Former British PM Tony Blair’s new memoir, A Journey, has just hit U.K. bookstores and Mr. Blair has embarked on a book tour to publicize the release.  Keep in mind that Blair is donating all proceeds from the book, including his huge advance, to the World British Legion Centre for the Rehabilitation of British Soldiers.  We are talking about several million of pounds that will ease the longterm pain or British soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This Dublin bookstore appearance was the first stop on Blair’s book tour, but I doubt that he was much surprised by the crowd of university twits who showed up in the rain there to throw eggs and shoes at him.  In fact, he seems somewhat amused by their hysteria.  Good on him.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Blair is received in London and whether or not he will continue to be greeted the way he was in Dublin.

>There are only two novelists whose work I always buy just about as soon as it is published in hardcover: James Lee Burke and Elizabeth George. Not so coincidentally, both are still adding to a long series featuring a detective who has seen great change over the years. In the case of Burke, of course, I’m referring to Dave Robicheaux and, in the case of George, to Thomas Lynley. I have way too many years, and reading hours, invested in these characters not to care what happens to them next. It’s been a bit painful to be a Thomas Lynley fan during George’s last couple of books, but I’m told that he’s back in fine form in This Body of Death. James Lee Burke has to be one of the finest novelists writing today, a distinction he has held for many years now, and I always look forward to the next Dave Robicheaux adventure.

I finally got around to buying both This Body of Death and Burke’s new one, The Glass Rainbow, this morning. Normally, I would have grabbed each of them within days of their hitting the bookstores, but things have been so frantic around here since March that my bookstore visits have been limited – and, even during my few visits, I always forgot to look for the books.

Today I made a special trip to Barnes & Noble to see if I could afford to take both of them home with me. And it appears that my slow purchase paid off. The Elizabeth George book had a 50% off sticker on it and the James Lee Burke book has hit the bestseller list, meaning that it carries a 30% discount. Add my B&N membership discount to the scenario and I ended up getting 60% off on the George book and 40% off on the Burke one. Cover price on the two books totals $58.98 but I ended up getting both for a grand total of $28.63, plus tax.

So now I feel guilty for stiffing my area indie bookstores. But times are tough, my indie friends, and I simply could not resist this deal because, when I left the house this morning, I feared I was going to have to make the near impossible decision of choosing between the new Burke and the new George. I do promise to keep buying as much from you indie guys as possible, especially when it comes to new authors and backlists. Forgive me?

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Monaster/News, Thomas

Here we go again with another sad case of book trashing.  I realize that putting soon-to-be-junked books into the hands of readers who would really appreciate them is a lot easier said than done.  And, in this particular case, it appears that the folks just ran out of time to move the books to new, appreciative homes – or, at least, they claim they did.

According to the New York Daily News, this is what happened:

It was raining books outside St. Michael’s Academy in midtown Monday.


The Education Department not only threw out thousands of books left in the building it is leasing from the Archdiocese of New York – it tossed them out the windows.

[...]

A massive stack of textbooks and literary works such as “Death of a Salesman” and “Sophie’s Choice” sat piled more than 6 feet high on W. 33rd St. outside the building that will house the Clinton School for Writers and Artists in the fall. St. Michael’s closed in June.


Archdiocese officials said they gave away as many books as possible before moving, but they ran out of time.


“When you close a school, there’s an awful lot of work to do,” said Mike Radice, who was in charge of the closeout of St. Michael’s last spring.


The Education Department admitted to the trashing.


“There was no agreement with the archdiocese to save the books,” a spokeswoman said. “We are recycling them.” 

This does seem to be a combination of circumstances almost guaranteed to ensure that thousands of books would be destroyed rather than given away.  But, I still have to wonder why one or two people could not have stepped up and made all the difference, even in a situation where lack of time was the main culprit.  But was there really so little time?  Note the two words I’ve highlighted in red in the newspaper account of what happened.  These books apparently sat inside the school for several weeks before everyone “ran out” of the time needed to move them.

Just one guy from the Education Department willing to go the extra mile to coordinate with someone working with the Archdiocese of New York, or vice versa, could have made all the difference.
Where are book lovers when you need them?  Unfortunately, in this case, they were standing outside the school fence watching books fall from the sky.

>I made a nice haul at the library this morning and I’ve been flipping through the books and wondering what I was thinking when I grabbed so many at one time. I’ve decided to read the first sentence of each of them and choose my next book or two strictly on how those sentences strike me.

Here goes:

“After the show, they went back to the hotel room, and to bed, for the seventeenth time in three weeks.” – Memory by Donald E. Westlake (his “final never-before-published novel”)

“It was chillier than she expected that morning, and a stiff wind shuddered through the apple blossoms- penetrating even to the desk in the Lodge at Rodmell, where she preferred to write.” – The White Garden by Stephanie Barron (a novel about Virginia Woolf)

“In December of 2008, the editors of Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus chose the verb “overshare” as their word of the year.” – The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki (“How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors”)

“What is an Obama zombie?” – Obama Zombies by Jason Mattera (“How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation’)

“He was Little John at home, Gator John on wheels, John Jude on his birth certificate, Goofy-Foot John, or simply da kine to those in da know.” – American Taliban by Pearl Abraham (a novel)

“After crossing the Merrimack River, I turned onto Route 1A, continuing south through the picturesque towns of Massachusetts’ North Shore.” – Dogtown by Elyssa East (“Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town”)

“Meet Patricia Graham – wife, grandmother, office manager, churchgoer, community volunteer. And in her spare time, rightwing domestic terrorist.” – That’s No Angry Mob, That’s My Mom by Michael Graham (“Team Obama’s Assault on Tea-Party, Talk-Radio Americans”)

“Tom the Handyman is wading in the snow outside my window in boots a burglar might wear.” – The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn (novel)

“Oscar Morales was fed up. It was holiday time in his hometown of Barranquilla, Columbia, just after the 2008 new year.” – The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick (“The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World”)

“William Blakely? Oh my God, you mean Blockade Billy.” – Blockade Billy by Stephen King (baseball-based novella that includes a 50-page short story called “Morality”)

“I’m talking about torture.” – Letters to My Torturer by Houshang Asadi (“Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran”)

So, based on only the information I’ve presented, do I have any recommendations? I’ve already admitted to myself that it is extremely unlikely that I will read all 11 of these titles before the library demands I return them. I’m not sure what got into me this morning, but I found something interesting just about every place I looked on the shelves. At other times, I find nothing…just wish there was something in between.

(I suspect that all the guys will choose the first one on the list…)

>From the Wall Street Journal:

For $75,000, you can buy a piece of Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar.

Luxury publisher Kraken Opus mixed in a pint of Mr. Tendulkar’s blood with paper pulp to create the signature page for a book celebrating the renowned batsman’s career. The 10 limited-edition copies, which comes out in February, cost $75,000 each and have already sold out.

If you find this a bit much, or if you want to hear about other luxury books being sold to a bunch of what I perceive to be very gullible people with too much money in their hands, see the rest of the article. We live in a weird old world, people.

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One of my favorite books from last year was Jim Lynch’s Border Songs. It hardly seems like a full year has gone by since I read it but today is the day that Border Songs hits the bookstores in paperback.

This is what I had to say about the book in June 2009.

I’ll repeat that fans of the cult classic Confederacy of Dunces will almost certainly enjoy Border Songs because the main characters of the two books could be cousins. This one is fun and Jim reminded me that it was picked as one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post, Toronto Star and others. If you enjoy unusual novels, you should take a look at this one.

>Here’s something from the “Just When You Think You’ve Seen It All” news category.

It seems that the vampire craze sweeping the middle schools of America has spawned a new way for those students to show their “affection” for one another.

The Washington Post has this little blurb about the new craziness:

So, here’s the latest vampire-related trend apparently sweeping through middle schools: Some teens are biting each other, usually on the neck, as a way to declare love or friendship.

And, of course, they are documenting the act and slapping it up on Facebook for their parents to see. CBS’ Early Show reported Wednesday that the “troubling new trend among teens” is likely the result of the booming popularity of the Twilight book and movie series and HBO’s True Blood.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/player-dest.swf

Good, bad, or silly? I’ll leave that to you to decide, but who said books were no longer relevant to young people?

>Now, this I like: short stories on vinyl.

It seems that a U.K. publisher has decided to “publish” short stories on 33 1/3 rpm vinyl discs under his new Underwood label (see the article to find out why he chose this name for his company – but I’m betting some of you already know the answer).

Nathan Dunne is either a very brave or a very stupid young man. At a time when a) the MP3 has supplanted the CD as the most popular format on which to listen to recorded sounds; b) literature as a physical artefact is coming under attack from the rise of iPads, Kindles and other digital reading devices; and c) the short story is as tricky to sell to publishing houses as it has ever been, Dunne has set up a new imprint called Underwood, whose remit is to produce 33rpm vinyl records featuring writers reading 20-minute short stories aloud. “Candidly, it’s an experiment,” he admits.

[...]

For Dunne, the current emphasis on the portability and ease of circulation of recorded sound rather than its sonic properties corrodes the intimacy of the listening experience.

“The MP3 has an alien digital gloss. It’s streamlined, corporate, like a mainline train station. Listening to a short story on vinyl is the purest antidote to that. It’s more immersive. It heightens engagement.”

This might just be crazy enough to work. I know I’m one of many thousands who still collect those old vinyl LPs that went out of style some time in the eighties. What better way for a vinyl collector to mix two hobby passions than “books on vinyl?”

For more information, please see the Telegraph article or go directly to the Underwood website.

>Stephenie Meyer, in some sort of weird marketing campaign, is making her new novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, available on line where it can be read at no cost. Meyer does suggest that readers donate $1 to the American Red Cross since that is the amount being donated for every hardcover copy of the novella sold in bookstores.

So, if you don’t mind reading an ebook version of the book on your PC or other WiFi device, this is where you can find it. Be aware that it is only available at this link until midnight, July 5.

It’s not for me, but I thought some of you might be interested in reading or sampling the thing. If you do, please let me know what you think of it.

>Janet Evanovich
It’s getting hot out there in more ways than one because the big summer books are about to hit the shelves of your local bookstores. Based on their huge initial printing numbers, you won’t have any trouble finding a copy of this bunch:

Sizzling Sixteen – Janet Evanovich – (a Stephanie Plum novel) – 2,500,000 copies

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner – Stephanie Meyers – (a “Twilight” novella) – 1,500,000 copies

The Lion – Nelson DeMille – (a terrorism thriller) – 1,000,000 copies

The Search – Nora Roberts – (a serial killer thriller) – 650,000 copies

Star Island - Carl Hiassen – (another South Florida novel) – 500,000 copies

2010 will be a good year for authors named “Stephanie” or “Janet “but this looks a whole lot like the same old stuff to me…and I’m bored already.

>The awards we’ve all been breathlessly awaiting were awarded on May 20 in NYC. Yes, the 2010 Moby Awards for book trailers can now be announced. Among the winners are this one for “best performance by an author,” won by Dennis Cass for his performance in book launch 2.0:

Be patient with this one and you will hear one of the funniest book blurbs ever – near the end – and might enjoy the little jab at a famous book that closes the video.

For those of you still interested, the link shown at the beginning of this post will take you to the other award winners – and losers.

>Here’s an interesting question for you guys. All of us, I dare say, are adamantly against the idea of banning books, and many of us go out of our way to promote books that are banned anywhere in the world. That is simply second nature for a bunch of book lovers like us.

But is it always that simple? Are there books that do deserve to be banned because they are as dangerous as assault weapons? Here are two that I personally believe fall into that category: The Anarchist Cookbook and The Poor Man’s James Bond. Should we really be making it this easy for all those terrorists and terrorist wannabes out there?

Online retail giant Amazon has come under fire for openly selling controversial books that contain prescriptions of deadly chemical cocktails, and dangerous information that can be misused by just about anyone.

[...]

The books in question- ‘Anarchists’s Cookbook’ and The Poor Man’s James Bond were downloaded off Amazon by a white-supremacist father-son duo. The father then used the instructions in the book to concoct a chemical weapon.icky Davison, 19, of Annfield Plain, County Durham, was sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institution on Friday after being convicted of charges relating to downloading copies of the Anarchist’s Cookbook and The Poor Man’s James Bond.

His father, Ian Davison, 42, was jailed for 10 years at Newcastle Crown Court after he manufactured enough ricin to kill nine people and kept it in a jar in his kitchen for two years, the Press Association reports.

Even the “author” of The Anarchist Cookbook, William Powell, would love to see it go out of print permanently. I have to agree with him.

>It seems to me there has been a huge increase in this country in the number of published books relating to Muslim culture. I have to imagine that 9-11 is the reason for the increase – the same reason it took me so long to pick up any of the Muslim-related books.

I admit that my gut reaction to the murders of September 11, 2001 was one of anger. Then, I developed a rather nasty desire for revenge. I worked in a Muslim country for almost ten years (1992-2002), living in Algeria when it was safe to do so and commuting there from London or Houston when it was not. I worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslims from Algeria, Tunisa, France, Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, and India. I was naïve enough to believe I had a good understanding of Muslim culture as it relates to the ordinary citizens of those countries. I made many Muslim friends and still keep in touch with some of them today despite not having seen them since mid-2002. My anger about the events of 9-11 was/is always just beneath the surface and I had no desire to read about Muslim culture, even in the sense that it is always better to know your enemy than not.

But one day I started to notice a constant stream of new books about Muslims, some written by Muslims, some not. Suddenly it seemed there were interesting new novels and intriguing nonfiction books about Muslims everywhere I looked. The book that finally broke the ice for me was Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, a book I still think about sometimes. I didn’t read that one until May 2007 when it appeared in trade paperback, but I followed it up quickly with a hardcover version of Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. From there, I was off to the races and, during the last two years or so, I have read another 23 titles relating to Muslim culture: 15 novels and 8 nonfiction books.

Looking back, I see that the titles are all over the map. Many of them are serious looks at the culture and many of them are thrillers and detective fiction set in Muslim countries. Strange as it might sound, I think I learn every bit as much about the culture from fiction as I do from the nonfiction titles I have been reading.

In addition to the two Hosseini titles, I’ve read these:

Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir by Marina Nemat (Nonfiction – Iran)

Now They Call Me Infidel - Nonie Darwish (Nonfiction – Egypt)

Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Nonfiction – Somalia)

The Prisoner of Guantanamo – Dan Fesperman (Novel about Gitmo)

The Amateur Spy – Dan Fesperman (Novel set in Jordan and Jerusalem)

Live from Jordan – Benjamin Orbach (Nonfiction set in Jordan)

The Sirens of Baghdad – Yasmina Khadra (novel set in Iraq)

Finding Nouf – Zoe Ferraris – (novel set in Saudi Arabia)

In the Land of Invisible Women – Qanta A. Ahmed (Nonfiction – Saudi Arabia)

Land of Marvels – Barry Unsworth (Novel set in Egypt)

Harbor – Lorraine Adams (Novel set in Algeria and U.S.)

The Weight of a Mustard Seed – Wendell Steavenson (Nonfiction – Iraq)

Fidali’s Way – George Mastras (Novel set in Pakistan and Kashmir)

The Writing on My Forehead – Nafisa Haji – (Novel about immigrants to U.S. from Pakistan)

Rooftops of Tehran – Mahbod Seraji – (Novel set in Iran)

Saffron Dreams - Shaila Abdullah (Novel about Pakistani immigrants in New York)

Pursuit of Honor – Vince Flynn (Thriller about Muslim terrorists in U.S.)

Protect and Defend – Vince Flynn (Thriller about Muslim terrorists in U.S.)

My Prison, My Home – Haleh Esfandiari (Nonfiction set in Iran)

The Samaritan’s Secret – Matt Beynon Rees (Novel set in Palestine)

A Grave in Gaza – Matt Beynon Rees (Novel set in Gaza Strip)

A Time to Betray – Reza Kahlilli (Nonfiction set in Iran)

The Jewell of Medina – Sherry Jones (Novel about life of Mohamed)

Admittedly, these books are very different from each other. I don’t regret reading any of them – all added to my understanding of Muslim culture – and that was the point.

>Well, it turns out that reading books on an e-book reader is not nearly as environmentally friendly as it’s been advertised to be.

It is difficult to compare the environmental impact of the readers to that of producing millions of books on paper every year but some interesting facts do emerge when everything is considered. I was especially surprised by the break even point suggested by the article (the number of books that have to be read on an e-book reader before it begins to contribute to an overall positive impact on the environment). The article is from Steven Levingston, “Political Bookworm” of the Washington Post:

… surely e-readers must be a more eco-friendly way to read, right? Not so fast, said Green Press Initiative program manager Todd Pollack.

“It is almost certain that e-readers have the potential to reduce the impacts associated with harvesting trees and forest conversion, but that does not guarantee that they are the better choice from an environmental standpoint,” he wrote in an email. “We don’t have enough information to say which method of reading a book is best for the environment.”

Things get complicated because there is more to the energy cost of an e-book reader than the juice used to charge its battery. In addition to that cost there is this:

“About forty percent of the energy costs is embedded in the supply chain” — mining, shipping, water usage, manufacturing, etc. — “and it is difficult to put numbers on that,” he said. Many manufacturers aren’t keen on sharing what’s in the devices, anyway.

Furthermore, the server farms that allow a digital book to be downloaded to an e-reader also consume an immense amount of energy.

Then there’s what happens to all those e-readers when they bite the dust. The article claims that manufacturing one e-book reader has the same environmental impact as producing 70 books. All in all, journalist Danial Goleman estimates that users of electronic readers only break even after reading 100 books on their readers. As he says, “If you’re going to be an e-reader, you have to be dedicated about it.”

>Daily Finance (AOL) reports some mixed numbers for 2009 book sales in the United States. Some categories are up (hardcovers and e-books) and others are down (trade and mass market paperbacks) but, overall, it was another down year for U.S. booksellers:

Total net book sales were reported to be $23.8 billion, down 1.8% from $24.9 billion in 2008 — which itself was down 2.6% from the previous year. Overall sales of trade books — the fiction and non-fiction books you know and love — totaled $8.1 billion, a 1.8% drop from last year. However, adult hardcovers jumped 6.9% to $2.6 billion, helped in part by a little-known author named Dan Brown. (Just shoot me now.)

Trade paperbacks fared worse, falling 5.2% to $2.2 billion, and mass market paperbacks weren’t so hot, dropping 4% to $1 billion.

[...]

E-books sales, however, were busting out all over. With month after month of exponential growth, it should surprise few that total 2009 sales were approximately $313 million, up 176.6% from 2008. And already in 2010, that growth curve is shooting up even more, as January sales alone were $31.9 million — 10% of 2009′s total, and a much higher proportion than the 3% to 4% of total book sales last year.

E-books are off to a great 2010 start and you do have to wonder how big an impact Apple’s iPad is going to have on e-book sales for the rest of the year. Are we approaching a tipping-point year for e-book sales, the year when they total more than 50% of all books sold? Next year, the year after, five years from now? It’s going to be interesting to watch this evolve.

>According to television station KXAN, Gund is recalling a series of baby books (more than 15,000 books total) that have dangerous bindings. Apparently, the Styrofoam used to fill the bindings can be pulled off to become a choking hazard to the little readers.

Take a quick look at the attached video – thankfully, these books are easily recognized.

>The publisher of Derek Steele’s memoir about his experiences with drugs, Addict at 10, is offering three Book Chase readers a free copy of the book. All you have to do is be one of the first three readers to respond to this offer – take a look at the book trailer, below, and let me know if you want a copy. If you show up as one of the first three comments to this post, just email me with your mailing details and we’ll get a copy out to you.

It doesn’t get much easier than this, now does it?

>From guardian.co.uk comes detail regarding the most popular books and most “borrowed” authors from U.K. libraries during the period July 2008 – July 2009. I’m not picking on U.K. readers -because I suspect that the results would be similar (or worse, if that’s possible) here in the U.S. – but this is sad:

The top three adult authors for July 2008-June 2009 were all Americans: the thriller writer James ­Patterson, followed by the romantic novelists Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele.

You read that correctly: 1. James Patterson, 2. Nora Roberts, 3. Danielle Steele

I don’t begrudge those folks their sales and popularity (well, yes, I am repelled by Patterson’s business model through which he slaps his name on dozens of books a year that are largely written by other writers) but it is a bit disheartening to see them atop a list of ALL writers whose works are housed in U.K. libraries.

On the other hand, read on, U.K., because I suppose that reading these guys is better than reading nothing at all.

Follow the link at the beginning of this post to see a list of the Top 250 books borrowed from U.K. libraries. You will find that three of the top four are Patterson titles and that he even wrote one of them all by himself. What a guy.

>Does anyone even use eBay these days? My love affair with eBay ended on the day that someone in the U.K. managed to hack into eBay’s database long enough to hijack my account and password. That thief then proceeded to make offers (above the amounts being asked by sellers) on more than a dozen computers with the request that they be sent immediately to an address in England. I was very lucky to notice what was happening early on that Labor Day morning and I quickly locked my PayPal account before funds could be stolen to pay for the computers. I contacted the sellers, some of whom had already posted their suspicions to my “feedback” account, and explained the problem. It was a long process – and I have been soured on the eBay/PayPal experience since then, refusing to participate in either ever again.

I was naive enough to believe that a site as popular and prominent as eBay could not possibly let something like this happen. I was wrong. I was naive enough to believe that eBay had some liability when something like this happens. I was wrong. I was naive enough to believe that eBay cared about its members and their personal security. I was most definitely wrong.

Now, Philly.com has news about another huge problem on the site, dishonest sellers getting away with murder (not that this is unusual at all other than maybe in the amount of money stolen):

For more than six years, Forrest R. Smith III forged the signatures of many famous authors in books and then sold those books at inflated prices on eBay.

Smith’s scam victimized hundreds of book collectors who thought that they were buying works signed by such literary luminaries as Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut and Toni Morrison.

In reality, the books had only been stamped with forged signatures created by Smith.

Smith, 48, of Reading, was sentenced yesterday to 33 months behind bars and ordered to make restitution of $120,000 to his victims.

[...]

Authorities said that Smith carried out his scheme from March 2002 until at least September 2008.

The feds said that Smith used two accounts on eBay – one registered in his name with the screen name “bigdaddy_books” and one registered in his wife’s name.

Smith used the “bigdaddy_books” account to purchase unsigned books, then forged authors’ signatures in them and resold them as “signed” from his wife’s account.

Authorities said that by representing that the books with the forged signatures had been signed by their authors, Smith could sell them at a much higher price than he would have been able to sell unsigned copies.

Smith and the government stipulated that there had been more than 250 victims and that he had netted $120,000 to $200,000 in the scam.

I do hope that eBay is more cooperative in helping this group of victims than it was with me when I needed someone to help me out of a fix. Good luck, folks. I hope you get your money back.

>There are a handful of record albums that I find myself coming back to year after year. Two of those are Bob Dylan albums, but probably not the ones most would think of first when listing Dylan’s recordings: Nashville Skyline and Slow Train Coming.

With Nashville Skyline, Dylan went country, even going to Nashville to record the album and inviting Johnny Cash to record a song with him (beginning a long friendship between the two men). Slow Train Coming is Dylan’s first Christian album, one of three he recorded after announcing that he had become a born-again Christian. I find the combination of simplicity and heartfelt emotion in these two albums to be particularly appealing for some reason.

Now comes word from Rolling Stone that a new children’s book based on one of the Slow Train Coming songs, “Man Gave Names to All the Animals,” is to be published in September:

“From the first time I heard it, the lyrics created pictures in my mind of a land of primeval beauty,” Arnosky (artist) said in a press release. “I thought this vision would make a dream of a book, and I asked for Bob Dylan’s permission to make this dream come true. Happily, he said yes.”

[...]

“[Arnosly] has outdone himself with the lush, detailed illustrations, and we couldn’t be more delighted to have this opportunity to work with Bob Dylan,” said Sterling Children’s Book Senior Editor Meredith Mundy in a press release. Sterling previously released a children’s book dedicated to “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and its success persuaded them to publish another book by a folk legend.

Those unfamiliar with the song lyrics might want to watch the YouTube video I’ve attached, below. Do keep in mind that the illustrations shown in this video have absolutely nothing to do with the new picture book, however. (In fact, I’m not at all sure I understand what these pictures are all about- if anyone gets their point, please do enlighten me.)