Book Chase

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It seems that an Israeli author has filed a libel lawsuit against a book reviewer who dared point out the weaknesses in her book.  Normally, I would laugh about this kind of misguided and frivolous lawsuit, expecting that the plaintiff would end up losing and having to pick up the court costs of the defendant.

But this one gets complicated.  According to the newser website:

…the Israel-based writer of an English-language book by a Dutch publisher that was reviewed in 2007 by a German professor for an American journal decided to sue in a French court.

The idea of shopping the world for a sympathetic judge is becoming more common as an increasing number of countries allow that kind of thing to happen – a scary trend, in my opinion.

As for the alleged libelous statements…how does this grab you?

Thomas Weigend wrote it (the book) has “analytical nuggets” and “meticulously covers all relevant topics,” but observed that it rehashes “the existing legal set-up” and found the author’s “conceptual grasp” of some matters to be questionable.

If that is libelous, I suspect all book bloggers are guilty as charged by this crazy woman. It’s disturbing to see yet another author trash her professional reputation by doing something so ludicrous. Here’s hoping it costs her a bundle of Israeli, German, French, Dutch and American currency.

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(Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo)

Well, as predicted, they’ve gone and done it.

Borders finally filed for bankruptcy protection this morning and a few of the numbers associated with that move have become public:

Around 200 of the 642 stores will be shut down.


Of the approximately 19,000 Borders employees, some 6,000 are expected to lose their jobs.


The company has secured $505 million in financing to be used in reorganizing under Chapter 11 rules.


Borders shares can now be had for 18 cents each – an all-time low share price for the company.


Borders owes $41.1 million to Penguin Group, $36.9 million to Hatchett Book Group, and $33.8 million to Simon & Schuster – only a small portion of the company’s total debt of $1.3 billion.


Hiring 4 CEOs in five years (none of them with bookseller experience, by the way) is not a great idea.


A complete list of the stores being shut down can be found here.   (Surprisingly, none of the seven Houston stores are on the list but Dallas and Austin get hit hard.) 

Borders always did seem to be a step behind Barnes & Noble to me and I never really enjoyed browsing my local Borders the way I enjoy browsing so many other bookstores. There is just something about the layout of the store that creates such a sterile atmosphere that I seldom spend any real time (or money) there. I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly, but it’s some combination of a less than personable staff and the floor plan that irks me.

But that’s just me, one customer. Where Borders seems to have been most shortsighted is in never really positioning itself in the e-book market; the company never could carve out an e-book niche for itself.  I mean, come on…all of us could see the trend coming years ago.  Right?  But for some reason, the revolving door managers of Borders missed the boat completely. Does anyone think “Borders” when they think e-books? Seriously?

I hate to be a pessimist when it comes to the survival of any bookstore but I can’t see a way that this is going to end well. Borders could not compete in the market place even when it was supposedly financially healthy (the company has not shown an annual profit since 2006). How is a company as financially crippled as this one going to compete in that same market place?

I sincerely hope that I’m wrong, but that’s not because I particularly love Borders bookstores.  It’s just that it would be a shame to see this huge chain bite the dust after it ruthlessly put so many indie bookstores out of business during the last two decades.  Is Amazon.com going to the the only major bookseller still standing ten years from now?

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SFP’s Pages Turned lit blog turned me on (way late, it seems) to the latest flaming backlash from an author who does not appreciate her book being less-than-positively reviewed by an unprofessional critic, otherwise known as anyone coming from the despicable book blogging community.  I suspect that many of you have experienced the same; it’s happened to me several times and it is the main reason I’ve cut back so far on the number of review copies I nowadays accept from publishers or authors.

I will say, too, before going any further, that I have sometimes been overwhelmed by the graciousness of several authors who have stopped by to thank me for reviewing their books even though my reviews were far from being raves.  I am pleased to report that the “gracious group,” in my experience, has outnumbered the “unprofessional group” by at least 5 to 1.

This is some of what Sylvia Massara had to say about book bloggers (only the ones who do not rave about her work, of course):

This is why I am warning authors to beware of this kind of reviewer. When you offer your book to be reviewed, first take the time to check out the reviewer. Have a read of some of the reviews they wrote in the past. See if they trashed someone else. Make sure they back up their reviews with facts and objective criticism. I learned my lesson the hard way and didn’t do my research first, as I should have done.


Oftentimes, the people who set up these kinds of blogs have never written a thing in their lives, except maybe a grocery list. Most are avid readers who think they are qualified to review someone else’s work. So it’s very sad when they go about damaging the image of upcoming small press and indie authors with the rubbish they write.


My message to them is this: if you cannot write an objective review and back up what you say, then don’t write anything at all. And next time you use the words “predictable” or “one dimensional” try to quantify what you mean–that is, if you are able to write about it. Please bear in mind that writers work very hard at their craft and the last thing they need is a smartass who makes subjective comments because they don’t know how to do anything else.

This is tame stuff compared to the anonymous comments she left on at least two of the blogs that published unfavorable reviews of her latest romance novel.

Sylvia seems to be advising her pals to send their work out to only those “unprofessionals” that are willing to write a canned, positive review in exchange for the privilege of having received a “free” book.  Anyone daring to challenge Sylvia’s skills is written off as just another “avid reader that has never written anything other than a grocery list.”  Otherwise why would they fail to be dazzled by Sylvia’s brilliance?

I cannot speak for others in the lit blog community, and I don’t pretend to do so.  But, as for me, I started Book Chase a little over four years ago as a personal book journal.  I began with the intention of linking to what was already a thriving community of likeminded people, book lovers, writers, and heavy duty readers.  My “reviews” were as much notes to myself, as they were anything else.  I welcomed the opportunity to spread the word about “little books” that impressed me, the kind of book that seldom makes those trashy bestseller lists at the NY Times and USA Today.  I loved hearing from self-published writers, small presses, and university presses.

I pride myself on giving an honest opinion about what I read, and I think that my reviews have gotten better over the years.  But honesty is still the key ingredient, as far as I’m concerned.  I will admit to letting a few books drop into the Book Chase Black Hole, even though I could neither force myself to finish them nor find anything positive to say about them if I did manage to make it through to the end, precisely because I respected the authors for working so hard to get out the word about their books.  Some would say that is akin to pulling punches, but I have a soft spot in my heart for indie authors and small presses, and if I erred, it was on the side of “doing no harm.”

I have only this to say directly to Ms. Massara: Book bloggers do not owe you a thing in return for a review copy other than their consideration of the book for an onsite review.  They certainly do not owe you a positive review.  There are a few “unprofessional” bloggers out there that will gladly do the dirty deed for/with you – and you can find them if you look around for a day or two.  Sadly, that group of bloggers is every bit as unprofessional as the “professionals” who do the same for their own friends and colleagues.  Perhaps, you should consider your own professionalism before leaving snarky anonymous comments around the web regarding what you consider poor reviews of your work.  Is being a “sock puppet” part of the professional image writers shoot for these days?  I doubt it.

(Follow the link in the first paragraph if you want to read Massara’s original post (although she has self-servingly deleted about 180 comments she received) and two of the reviews of her work that got the lady in such a snit.)

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I’ve been out-of-pocket most of the last two days, involved in the culmination of a legal battle that started more than six months ago.  On the one hand, that it is finally over, is a relief.  On the other, what I learned about someone I’ve been close to for more than a decade, and about some in the legal profession, has been disheartening.

I learned that someone truly evil is difficult to defeat in life or in a court of law.  Such a person does not worry about playing fair, doing the right thing, or looking bad in the eyes of those who know the truth.  A truly evil person, especially one that is also a sociopath, will do things that astound normal, decent human beings.  We have been dealing with a person like this, and yesterday we decided that we would accept a less-than-equitable settlement in our case against him.  Evil can be bought, and we decided to pay the price in order to rid ourselves of this man’s impact on our daily lives.

First lessen learned: make people hate you so strongly that they recoil at the sight of your face or the sound of your voice and they will pay you to go away if that’s the only way they can find relief.

Second lesson learned: some attorneys cannot be trusted to do the job for which they charge a tidy sum.  In the aftermath of ridding ourselves of Mr. Evil, we now have to file an official grievance with the State Board against an attorney we were forced to fire.

OK, I have that off my chest and promise not to bring it up again…just felt like venting for the record.

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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.

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… 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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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.

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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).

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I got my Sony Reader back from my granddaughter last weekend so that I could download a review copy of Pat Conroy’s first novel, The Boo.  I was a little disappointed to learn that the review copy has a built-in ticking time-bomb that will destroy it exactly 60 days from the moment I completed its download.  I can understand the publisher’s reasoning for doing it that way (I suppose), but that got me thinking again about the difference between e-books and real books – and why I will always prefer the real thing to a stupid digital file that has no personality or eye appeal.

 I went out of my way, and spent a good deal of money, to place a whole wall of built-in bookshelves in the study of this house when we built it eleven years ago.  I still enjoy puttering around the shelves, coming up with new filing schemes and presentations as the mood strikes me.  Try doing that with a collection of e-books.  Bookshelves reveal much about their owner, sometimes more than the owner intends, I’m sure.  Are your shelves filled with James Patterson and Danielle Steele novels to the exclusion of most everything else?  Do the Twilight novels occupy a prominent position on your shelves?  Right alongside your collection of multiple copies of the Harry Potter series, perhaps?  If so, you might want to make sure that your boss doesn’t peruse your shelves during your next Christmas party if being taken seriously by her is important to you.

When given a chance to study the bookshelves of friends or family members, heavy-duty readers cannot resist.  And, whether they will admit it to you are not, they make personal judgments based on what they see on those shelves.  Savvy book owners know this, of course, and they use their books to tell others about themselves. All e-book collectors can do, on the other hand, is call up their little digital bookshelves and pass the e-reader or iPad around the room.  Not quite the same, is it?

Then, there are the book covers.  Simply put, I love book covers.  They are often pieces of art, much like those LP recording covers of the past (I still keep some of my favorite LPs in frames in my office and they get an amazing number of comments from visitors).  The first thing a potential buyer sees of a real book is its dust jacket and, if that cover is bad enough, it can end up being the only thing a potential buyer will see.  Some dust jackets are so bad that male readers cannot imagine being seen in public with them.  I’m sure the same, in reverse, is true for female readers.

We all love browsing in bookstores, even if we are supposedly there on a mission to buy one particular title.  If you are like me, and I suspect that most of you are, the majority of the books you buy are those that just happen to catch your eye as you wander around the store.  Some books just seem to call to you; others slap you in the head, they seem so perfect – and that’s before you even open them.  I don’t know what percentage of a book’s sales can be attributed to the eye appeal of its cover, but I am willing to bet that the positive impact of an attractive cover is substantial.  How can browsing through tiny little icon book covers on your browser compare to the experience of a real bookstore?  It can’t, of course, it can’t.

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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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So do you think your e-book reader is saving you money?  Are you saving a bundle on your kindle by purchasing new bestsellers at a few dollars less than you would have paid for their hardcover versions?  Or, are you getting rooked by your Nook because Barnes and Noble heavily discounts those same bestsellers in hardcover anyway.  In other words, have your reading and book-buying habits changed significantly, or at all, since you started using your new toy?

I’ve had two Sony Readers in the last few years, the second one being an upgrade to the one I bought almost as soon as the gadgets hit the market.  Honestly, though, my reading habits are the same now as they were before I ever heard about e-books.  I shoot for 100 pages a day and it doesn’t matter to me whether I get those pages from an e-book reader or from a physical book.  Well, if I’m being totally honest, I am more comfortable reading from a tree-book than from an e-book, but there are times during which only the Sony Reader is practical.  

I don’t buy any more books than I used to – and 95% of my book purchases are of the physical variety.  The only significant change sparked by my Sony Reader purchase (and by my recent iPad purchase) is that I have built a pretty fair electronic library of literary classics and other old books long out of print.  But those, for the most part, have been acquired free of charge, so my spending level is unchanged.  I still haunt my local library and at least half-a-dozen used-book bookstores.  Now, I do check the various online bookstores at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple several times a week – but that’s mainly to see what else I can snag for free.  That works well as long as I am not tempted to buy something else I randomly run across on one of those sites…always a struggle, I admit.

How about you, my fellow e-book reader enthusiasts?  Do you read more than you did before your purchase of the reader?  Do you buy more books now?  Do you read in new, weird places just because you can?  Are you buying books and stacking them up just because it’s so easy to get them instantly?  Is this convenience factor causing you to spend more money on books than you really want to?

WSJ.com has an interesting article on the impact of e-book readers, including a bunch of interesting statistics.  You should take a look.

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I’ve mentioned before that I have long admired Christopher Hitchens, both as a gifted writer/debater and simply as a man. Hitchens has made me think, laugh, and question my beliefs on multiple occasions. He backs down from no man in a debate and, from my distant vantage point, he seems to be a man who practices what he preaches.

Now, having seen the way that Hitchens is handling himself since learning that he suffers from stage 4 esophagus cancer, I admire the man more than ever.  Hitchens was an avowed atheist before he had cancer, and he is an avowed atheist today.  I have always believed the classic saying that “there are no atheists in foxholes” to be a true one, and I figured it would probably be pretty much the same story with deathbeds – that those given half the chance would hedge their bets on the way out the door.  Somehow, though, I don’t think God will be hearing from Christopher Hitchens.  Some will say what a terrible mistake Hitchens is making; others, like me, will say bravo, Mr. Hitchens.  You, sir, are an inspiration.

The latest from Hitchens is a December Vanity Fair piece in which he discusses the etiquette of cancer:

It’s normally agreed that the question “How are you?” doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like “A bit early to say.” (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, “I seem to have cancer today.”) Nobody wants to be told about the countless minor horrors and humiliations that become facts of “life” when your body turns from being a friend to being a foe…

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But it’s not really possible to adopt a stance of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” either. Like its original, this is a prescription for hypocrisy and double standards. Friends and relatives, obviously, don’t really have the option of not making kind inquiries. One way of trying to put them at their ease is to be as candid as possible and not to adopt any sort of euphemism or denial. So I get straight to the point and say what the odds are. The swiftest way of doing this is to note that the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five.

What some people, one motherly type in particular, say to Hitchens is hard to read without grinding one’s teeth at the sheer stupidity of the human race.

That Hitchens still calls them as he sees them is obvious.  If you don’t believe me, take a look at the end of the Vanity Fair article to see what he thinks of the book and video of The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch’s farewell to the world.

You are still the man, Mr. Hitchens.

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So now Amazon announces that purchasers of its e-books can loan them to friends – for a whole 14 days and one loan ever per book.  And that is only if the book’s publisher agrees that its books can be sold that way by Amazon.  I get the impression that Amazon foolishly expects to get some good publicity for its Kindle book reader from this announcement.

Well, Amazon, here’s a big Whoop from me.  All you have done is highlight yet another problem I have with the way e-books are being marketed.  That you have joined Barnes & Noble in this same stupid loan policy only makes you look as naive about your customer base as that company has looked in marketing its Nook reader from the beginning.

Thanks, Amazon, for reminding me again of one more thing I give up when I purchase an e-book instead of a hard copy.  I’m sorry, e-book retailers, but you can’t have it both ways with me.  You claim that you are selling me the equivalent of a hard copy but that is not true because I don’t have the same degree of ownership in an e-book that I have in a physical one.   If you want to charge me almost the same price for an e-book that you charge for a physical copy, than I want the same rights to apply to my electronic book.  It’s mine, right?  I should be able to loan it to friends and family if I want to do so.  I should be able to give it away.

I was an early adopter of Sony’s Reader and I even upgraded to a newer model so that I could gain access to all those free e-books available in the generic epub format.  I love the Reader for traveling and because it allows me to store copies of dozens of classic books from the past in one place.  I also download books from my public library system onto the Reader and greatly enjoy that service.  In fact, I read about one book per month on the Sony Reader but that is still only about 10% of the reading I do.  But I find myself buying very few new books for the Reader because they are, in my opinion, overpriced and their usage over-restricted.

So, Mr. Amazon, I’m not impressed by your announcement.  Way too little…let’s hope it’s not too late for you to come to your senses.

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>Why is it that we (and, in my experience, Americans are most guilty of this) are willing to work countless extra hours right before we go off on a vacation or long weekend to relax a bit?  And, more importantly, is it really worth it to exhaust yourself mentally and physically before resting up just in time to return to your regular work week?

I’m planning to drive up to Dallas on Friday morning for a weekend bluegrass festival up that way.  This is a big deal bluegrass festival when it comes to Texas and I’ve been looking forward to it for months.  As luck would have it, things are not going particularly smoothly at the office right now and I’ve been forced to work 11-12 hours per day this week just to get my Friday deadlines met by some time Thursday night.

That has meant almost no reading this week, way less sleep than normal, and a growing weariness on my part.  Every time this happens, I tell myself I will never fall into this trap again – only to do it again a few months later.  I suppose if it comes down to a choice of extra long hours vs. no vacation, vacation will win out every time.  But, really, now.  Is this the best we can do in this country?

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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The Slate website has an interesting article, “Confessions of a Used Book Salesman,” that caught my eye this evening.  It is written by Michael Savtiz, one of those obnoxious people that show up at library sales armed with a barcode scanner.  Those little gizmos give all kinds of pricing information tagged to a book’s ISBN designation, allowing professional resellers to run off with everything of value in a matter of minutes.  If you’ve ever seen one of these goons in action, you will never forget them.  Often, they bring blankets or sheets along so that they can cover up whole sections of tables until they can get back to them.  As a group, they have ruined the library sale experience for thousands of “amateurs” who come to a sale hoping to find something nice or unusual to add to their personal collections.

The odd thing is that Savitz is self-aware enough to know, and admit, that he is a jerk for doing what he does – not that he plans to give up the odious practice.

If it’s possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work? I’m not the only one who feels this way; I see it in the mien of my fellow scanners as they whip out their PDAs next to the politely browsing normal customers. The sense that this is a dishonorable profession is confirmed by library book sales that tag their advertisements with “No electronic devices allowed,” though making this rule probably isn’t in the libraries’ financial interest. People scanning books sometimes get kicked out of thrift stores and retail shops as well, though this hasn’t happened to me yet.

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When I work with my scanner and there’s someone else shopping near me who wants to read books, I feel that my energy is all wrong—high-pitched, focused narrowly in the present, and jealous. Someone browsing through books does it with a diffuse, forgetful curiosity, a kind of open reckoning that she learned from reading. Good health to you, reader. One day I will be like you again.

It is clear that Mr. Savitz knows that what he is doing is rude and far enough outside the rules of library sales that he should not be doing it. Of course, short of hiring armed guards, there is little that library staff can really do to stop this kind of behavior.  As with so many aspects of modern culture, those who have so little self-respect, and respect for others, will get their way.  The rest of us are too innately polite to make a scene.  That’s what the behavior thugs count on.

I have to admit that this probably bothers me more than it does most people because it has ruined a favorite weekend pastime of mine.  I used to spend a few hours every Saturday morning scouting Houston’s used-book stores in hope of finding something collectible for myself or for resale.  I relied entirely on my own knowledge and intuition about what might be valuable – or at least momentarily hot. I got pretty good at it, too.  Often, I would spend four or five hours browsing bookstores and come home with close to $100 more than I had in my pocket when I left home, plus a book or two to add to my own shelves.  The trick was knowing which bookstore on the route was likely to buy something from me that I plucked from one of their competitors that very morning.

I miss those days.  The store shelves around town these days are picked clean by people like Mr. Savitz, folks who don’t read or collect books.  No, they loot them.  Frankly, they don’t have any more respect for books and book people than I have for them.  I wholeheartedly agree with the NPR commentator who called the use of book scanners at library sales “classless.”  Yes, indeed.

>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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According to one Birmingham, Alabama, librarian, some big city public libraries should be off limits to children because of the indecent behavior that goes on there.  And she has had enough.  Barbara Ann Wilson is suing the Birmingham Public Library because she has been forced to work in a setting where some patrons use the internet to surf porn sites on the same library computers being used by children.  Her lawsuit claims that she received little or no support from the library manager when some of these same patrons pinched and groped her after she confronted them about their behavior.

From the ABC news site:

The library subscribes to a filtering service, according to its website. It can be turned off, however, at the request of any adult.


The library’s policy states, “The library does not control or edit what is made available or filtered out by this service.”

Click here to read the entire ABC News article (detailing the charges and possible solutions to the problem).

Not surprisingly, the ACLU has jumped in on the side of the porn-surfers but some of the group’s suggested solutions are ludicrous: providing privacy screens on each computer or placing them in a secluded area off the library beaten path.  Perfect.

Someone needs to explain to me why tax dollars should be spent on providing free porn to the homeless and those who cannot afford to indulge themselves in the privacy of their own homes.  The government is well know for its obscene waste of tax money- but this is ridiculous.

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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.

>I am pleased to report the group collectively known as Prospero over at The Economist agrees with my comments regarding the recent New York Times article about how carrying an e-book reader in public can suddenly transform a nerdy-reader-guy into a cool dude.  It all supposedly happens because the e-book reader makes our young hero appear more of a cutting edge kind of guy, someone with whom perfect strangers will be anxious to start a conversation.

My gripe is that the article is rather pointless because reading is not a social event.  It is, in fact, the exact opposite, an event during which the reader tunes out the rest of the world.

As Prospero puts it:

Rather, I’m intrigued by the notion that e-readers make reading less antisocial. Doesn’t reading necessitate not socialising? Indeed, isn’t that part of the appeal?


I was always under the impression that books served a dual purpose: not only do they offer a world to enter, but also they offer an affordable means of escape from the world we’re in. What a nice cloak a book can be on the subway or the train, or while sitting at a bar, enjoying the buzz of humanity while absorbed in something else. I’m reminded of Anne Tyler’s “The Accidental Tourist”, in which books are recommended as props for travellers who would rather avoid idle chatter with strangers.

Exactly.  Having strangers bug me about my e-book reader while I’m trying to read is the last thing I want to have happen to me.  I much prefer being thought of as a nerd.

>

No realist ever said life is fair…no one with his eyes open ever believed it was.


According to Forbes magazine, these are the best paid writers from June 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010:

1.  James Patterson at $70 million  (one out of every seventeen novels bought are “written” by “the quickie”) 

2.  Stephenie Meyer at $40 million  (will the public never grow tired of vampires and werewolves?) 

3.  Stephen King at $34 million  (I admit to having enjoyed a whole lot of King, and still look at his new books to see if they appeal to me)  

4.  Danielle Steele at $32 million (receives $7 million advance per book and had four new ones in the twelve month period) 

5.  Ken Follett at $20 million (I can live with this one, having enjoyed Pillars of the Earth and others of his – much of his earnings came from revived interest in Pillars) 

6.  Dean Koontz at $18 million (frankly, I used to think of Koontz as King-lite, but he has carved out a nice genre niche for himself)  

7.  Janet Evanovich at $16 million (astonishingly, she sells at an amazing annual pace and has a new publisher willing to give her an even more astonishing advance per book) 

8.  John Grisham at $15 million (the man has had some good moments, I agree)

9.  Nicholas Sparks at $14 million (give me a break)

10. J.K. Rowling at $10 million (the billionaire writer falls all the way to number ten, poor thing)

No, boys and girls, life is not fair, and this list proves it once again. Appealing to the lowest common denominator will beat out quality every single time, be it in books, movies, television or music.

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One paragraph from this New York Times article particularly caught my attention this afternoon:

“I think, historically, there has been a stigma attached to the bookworm, and that actually came from the not-untrue notion that, if you were reading, you weren’t socializing with other people,” Dr. Levinson said. “But the e-reader changes that also because e-readers are intrinsically connected to bigger systems.” For many, e-readers are today’s must-have accessory, eroding old notions of what being bookish might have meant. “Buying literature has become cool again,” he said.  (Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University)

The focus of the article is on how e-book reading devices make people who dare read in public more accessible – like that’s necessarily a good thing.

I read a good bit in public, generally when I’m catching lunch on the run somewhere or when I’m forced to cool my heels in some doctor or attorney’s waiting room.  Rather than sit like a lump of inert clay (the way so many others seem to do) I take advantage of the time to read a few pages in whatever book I have handy.

So lets get something straight, Professor.  I don’t want to be accessible; I want to read.  I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me because they think I’m some nerdy guy with so few real friends that I substitute books for people.  I feel a kinship with others whom I spot reading in public, often making eye contact and sharing a quick smile and a little nod with them.  Sometimes we even lift our books so that we can share the titles being read – but very seldom do we really talk because that’s just not necessary.  Readers understand each other; if the general public does not get it, perhaps the “stigma” rests on their own shoulders and in their tiny little minds.

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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.

>The hard drive on my old PC has been teetering on the brink of destruction for weeks now and it finally got to the point where I could no longer ignore its creakiness and reluctance to crank up for another day’s work.  I knew something had to be done but I was finding it hard to pull the trigger on buying a replacement PC for the sick one because, over the years, I have come to believe that planned obsolescence of PCs is all a big plot to force me to buy replacement software every few years.  Bill Gates and company always manage to kill some of my favorite software when they come out with a new version of the Windows operating system.  The other software companies seem to have little incentive to offer the fixes that would make their older versions compatible with “Ultimate Windows” because, of course, they would rather have the customer return to buy the version that does work with Ultimate Windows or next year’s Best Windows Ever.

Well, I refuse to play that game anymore.  Instead, I ponied up for my first iMac yesterday afternoon.  And now I’m faced with the huge task of moving all my old files over to the iMac so that it will do all the things I need it to do.  It is a relatively easy process, I find, to move things over to the Mac from my backup drives; the kicker is getting them to open up in the iMac software.  But even though this is my first ever exposure to working on an iMac, I continue to make steady progress – although I did have to make a run to Barnes & Noble this morning to find an illustrated user’s manual that could explain a few of the things that had me stumped.

So far, I have only destroyed one thing – well, at least, so far as I can tell.  Somehow, I managed to lose everything in the inbox of my main email account, the one tied here to Book Chase, in fact.  I remember there were close to 70 emails in that box, so I apologize if I’ve deleted anything that required me to respond to any email from here.  I’m still hoping I’ll find the inbox sitting safely in some snug little corner of Mac’s big file room but, so far, that hasn’t happened.

All of this computer time has limited both my reading and my posting this weekend – and I’m starting to wish I had made the switch a year ago when I first considered it because this is a snazzy machine, and I’m loving it already.  I suspect that this time-challenge will last for another few days, though, so bear with me as I struggle to get all the way back to square one again.  What is it they say about the journey again?

>That economic times are tougher today than ever before in my lifetime (and I’ve been around long enough to live through some pretty tough recessions) is beyond doubt. Frankly, I don’t see things getting much better for the average folks out there any time soon, either. In fact, I get the feeling that things will get worse before we finally turn the corner toward a real recovery some years up the road.

That’s why what this Houston Chronicle article describes does not surprise me in the least. Some bookstores are doing pretty well, others are suffering greatly. The difference? The ones doing well are primarily selling used books; the ones doing more poorly are selling just the opposite. With new hardbacks going for close to $30, on average, and quality paperbacks selling for $15, or more, is anyone surprised?

Sales at Dallas-based Half Price Books began to rise when gasoline prices soared during the summer of 2008 and again when the recession slammed U.S. consumers that fall.

Both events drove more traffic to Half Price Books’ 110 stores as Americans latched on to thriftier habits, said Kathy Doyle Thomas, the chain’s executive vice president.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Half Price Books racked up a 5 percent jump in same-store sales, which compare year-over-year revenue at stores open at least a year. Same-store sales at its 11 stores in the Houston area were up 5.6 percent.

The story doesn’t read as well at Barnes & Noble and Borders Group, as consumers shift to buying books online or reading digital books on electronic devices such as Amazon’s Kindle.

Borders has had layoffs and recently launched an e-bookstore to compete with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader.

I generally read at least 125 books a year, and there is no way I can afford to buy that many new books. So, at least 20 years ago, I settled into a plan to buy used books as reading copies and hardbacks for those books I want to give a permanent place on my bookshelves. (That does mean I often buy the same title, in different versions, two times.) The used books, including paperbacks, are often used in trades or as resales that get me a few more unread books.

I still, though, do shop for new hardbacks even though I cringe a little when I pay for them. I bought Mark Twain’s Other Woman by Laura Skandera Trombley the other day, a book about the woman who played a key role in Twain’s life during his last decade (after the death of his wife). The book sold for $27.95 and I purposely bought it from one of Houston’s independent bookstores. Add sales tax and I paid $30.25 for the thing because I want it for my permanent collection and I try to buy from indies when I’m reasonably close to one.

I suspect that books sales are in trouble and that library usage will increase at about the same pace that bookstore sales decline. Sadly, this is all happening just when local governments everywhere are slashing their library budgets.

>The fast-crumbling California economy has caused the city of Los Angeles to make a sad decision concerning its public library system. As of now, patrons of all 73 of the city’s libraries will have to get their business done from Tuesday through Saturday. Can’t make it on those days because you have to work, go to school or take care of other obligations? Not our problem, says the city of LA.

From the South Los Angeles Report:

“Children can’t wait,” she said. “A six-year-old whose parents can no longer take him to the public library because of the shortened hours may lose his reading skills over the summer. He’ll have to start all over again in the fall. And by the time he’s nine, he may have fallen so far behind that he will never catch up. That’s a tragedy, and one that the public library can help avert.”

More than 15 libraries no longer have children’s librarians, and more have no teen specialists, she said.

[...]

The closures could also impact adults, including those who are disadvantaged or out of work. “We, the public, whether we have lots of money or we have no money, we have no resources to use,” said librarian Verdel Flores. “The library is the great equalizer – it’s the great democracy-maker. Anybody can go in there and every service is free. You can learn English there, you can learn to type there, you can send out a resume, you can create a resume. The library is for everyone.” Besides the closures, budget cuts also resulted in the layoffs of more than 100 library workers, librarian Mark Siegel said, resulting in newly-built libraries lying vacant.

This is just sad. Considering all the waste and graft involved in government spending (and why should anyone believe California would be different), it is a terrible shame to see library users abused this way. Surely, the mayor can find the money to keep library doors open by cutting a bit of the useless fat in his budget. Come on, guys. You can do better than this.

>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.

>Why am I not surprised? Not at all surprised, but a bit disappointed to see that e-book readers are buying the same old stuff being churned out by the book machine otherwise known as James Patterson.

I’ll bet Mr. Patterson even wrote a few of the titles himself rather than slapping his name in big print atop those of the writers who did all the grunt work on his co-written titles.

Hachette Book Group said the best-selling author of “Kiss the Girls,” “Along Came a Spider” and other titles in the Alex Cross series has sold a total of 1.14 million e-books.

“Things have really changed in the digital space,” Patterson said in a statement.

“With more and more people reading on iPads, Kindles, and Nooks, taking time to create interesting, user-friendly, enhanced e-book editions is becoming more and more important,” he said.

“And if e-books get people who might otherwise not be reading to pick up a book, then that makes me happy,” he said.

>Reading via an ebook reader is an entirely different experience than reading from the printed page. I find it hard to believe that reading from a hard copy will ever be topped by reading from a plastic box. I do, however, read a number of ebooks each year, but that is primarily because the ebooks I read are books that would not have been available to me otherwise. So, it is a case of reading them electronically or not reading them at all.

Now something I’ve sensed about my ebook reading has been confirmed in this PC Magazine article: it takes longer to read a page on an ebook reader than it does to read the same printed page. In my case, I find myself having to re-read whole sentences, if not paragraphs, because my mind tends to wander when I’m using my Sony Reader; I seem to be more easily distracted for some reason. Also, the Sony Reader has a bad problem with glare and I sometimes struggle to find just the right angle at which to hold the thing.

It will take you longer to read a book on an iPad or Kindle compared to the printed page, according to a recent study. Dr. Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group…The study found that reading on an electronic tablet was up to 10.7 percent slower than reading a printed book. Despite the slower reading times, Nielsen found that users preferred reading books on a tablet device compared to the paper book. The PC monitor, meanwhile, was universally hated as a reading platform among all test subjects.

The article mentions the small sample size of the study, but I suspect that 24 readers is a large enough sample to prove the point that reading via an ebook reader is still a less comfortable experience than reading from a real book. The PC Magazine writer does wonder if the age of readers has anything to do with how quickly they can read from an ebook reader, and I think that is a valid question. Perhaps, younger readers, those who have grown up reading for countless hours on PCs and other devices, might be quicker e-readers than their elders – folks like me who have been slower to adapt to the new technology.

I don’t know the answer to that question. All I know is that reading from a paper and cardboard book is still a whole lot more satisfying to me than the experience I have reading from my Sony Reader – and I do not expect my opinion ever to change.

>I have admired Chris Hitchens from afar for a long time. Few authors give a better interview or handle their detractors more effectively than Chris, and I have had great fun watching him drive his critics to distraction. The man simply does not care what you think about him; he has something to say and you are welcome to take it or leave it. That’s not his problem. Criticism just seems to roll off his back and he continues to slash away in his almost stereotypical British style. He seemed invulnerable to me – someone who would be shaking things up for many years to come.

And now Chris Hitchens is in a battle for his life. Perhaps his very lifestyle has finally caught up with him, because now he is suffering from cancer of the esophagus, a cancer that can be caused by excessive drinking or smoking, both of which Chris has been guilty of for many years. Sadly, the odds are stacked heavily against him, but if anyone can beat the odds it is Chris Hitchens.

Chris is the man Christians love to hate; he is an avowed atheist and has written about it effectively, and often. He is the man liberals love to hate because he has become an active conservative voice and he consistently destroys the liberal viewpoint in open debate. And if the comments attached to the news articles about Hitchens I have been reading on the web for the past day are any indication, now some liberals and conservative Christians are taking delight in the man’s illness.

It takes something like this to remind me how little progress we, as human beings, have made in the last 2000 years. I am too disgusted with the comments to quote them here – and that would be pointless, anyway – but I suspect that, if Hitchens does bother to sample them, they will give him the strength he needs to fight his illness even harder than he would have.

You’re still the man, Chris. Good luck to you, sir.

>Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has the gall to argue that a law allowing governmental book banning is OK because “it would never be applied” anyway. Is this woman actually that naive? Is Kagan the best we can come up with for another lifetime appointment to the most important bench in the country?

You tell me:

Kagan places the burden on us to challenge any federal book banning. This woman is dangerously naive – or dangerously stupid. Listen to the sitting Supreme Court justices respond in horror to what this she is saying in her argument before that court.

“This statute covers it, but don’t worry, the FEC has never done it.” Oh, now I feel much better, Ms. Kagan…ridiculous.

>
Here’s hoping that fathers across the world are having a great day.

> Do you prefer reading current books? Or older ones? Or outright old ones?

Well, no, no, and no.

I really have no preference when it comes to the publication dates of the books I read. For me, it seems to be more an issue of what is available, or what mood I’m in, each time I feel like starting a new book. I do read a lot of brand new books, as indicated by the fact that I’ve already read 41 of the books published during the first half of 2010. But in past years, it has sometimes been the other way around, with me reading more books from past decades than from the current year.

And I’ve just rediscovered the joy of unearthing old titles that seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth. I used to find this kind of book by searching the dusty shelves of used-book stores. Now I find them on the internet. The net, in conjunction with the Sony Store and my Sony Reader, has made it possible for me to find old books ranging from pulp fiction to hardcore noir detective novels, Civil War memoirs written by the war’s survivors, biographies written by those who actually knew the historical figures they wrote about, histories, and some of the greatest classic novels ever written. I’ve downloaded about two dozen books (with an almost limitless number to follow, I hope) and I plan to highlight them here on Book Chase as I finish them. It’s almost like finding buried treasure that you didn’t even know was missing.

I really need to start dipping into the classics again, too, but that might not happen until next year because of the quality of the review copies I’ve been receiving in the last few months. Even though I am more selective than ever about the review copies I accept, I am finding more and more quality stuff than ever before, and I’m discovering more new (to me) writers than any year in recent memory. That is hugely encouraging to a book freak like me.

So, no, year of publication is not important to me. I just need to read faster and longer. Yep, that’s the ticket.

>I’ve been reading at a frantic pace all afternoon – but not for a reason I like.

For the second time in the past few months, I’ve had to rush through an ebook so that I could finish it before it disappeared from my Sony Reader. It’s not the Reader’s fault; it’s a fluke in the way the Harris County public library system regulates the use of its ebooks. Keep in mind that there are about 4 million people in this county (almost one of every six Texans lives in Harris County, in fact), so it almost always takes at least two weeks to gain access to one of the system’s electronic books.

Because of the high demand for what seems to be a rather limited number of ebook copies, the library does not allow an extension of time for downloaded ebooks. That means the clock begins ticking as soon as a patron’s download is finished and, after fourteen 24-hour periods, the book is killed regardless of what page a reader might be on. I get that and I undertand why it has to be that way right now. But, for at least the third time now, I have gone weeks with no checked-out ebooks only to have two or three of them become available to me simultaneously. Because the ebooks are available for just three days after patron notification, that means they have to be read within 16 or 17 days, at most.

I’m not a great fan of ebooks but I do enjoy the opportunity to download books from my library. Unfortunately, demand seems to be outpacing supply of ebooks in the Harris County system at a time when libraries are struggling to balance budgets while putting books, CDs and DVDs on the shelves.

I have mixed emotions about the whole thing, I have to admit. If the supply of ebooks can be increased only by cutting the number of real books on the shelves, is this a good thing? My vote is a definite NO.

As it turns out, I am not particularly thrilled by Mexico City Noir, a short story collection of crime fiction set in that city, and I wonder if my opinion was tainted by my rushed reading of the dozen stories in the collection. Reading against the clock is not an experience I want to repeat any time soon.

>(Photo of Stephen King and son, Joe Hill)

I’m reading (well, one is an audio book) three very different books right now and, not unexpectedly, I find myself having very different reactions to them. As my sidebar indicates, I’m actually involved with four books at the moment but I’ve not picked up one of them for several weeks now, so I don’t consider it to be active at this point.

I’m about 25% of the way through the audio book version of Paul Doiron’s The Poacher’s Son, a book about a Maine game warden whose poaching father is on the run in the Maine woods, suspected of having played a part in the gunning down of a policeman and a businessman. The story is interesting so far, though certainly not exceptional to this point, but I am really taking a dislike to the voice and delivery of the book’s reader, John Bedford Lloyd. Lloyd’s monotone delivery is fine for short periods but is dull and annoying for anything more than ten or fifteen minutes at a go. Lloyd’s tone changed so drastically from the end of Disc 1 to the beginning of Disc 2 that, for a few seconds, I thought a new narrator had taken over the job. It turns out, though, that some anonymous sound engineer failed to keep the recordings set at the same parameters. I’m hoping this one gets better – and there’s still lots of time for that to happen.

I’m about two-thirds of the way through Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross. This is an interesting look at the marriages of three men: one suspected of having murdered his wife by forcing her to eat something she was extremely allergic to and the two detectives trying to build a case against him. An interesting twist to this one is that one of the detectives is Sam Sheppard, the former doctor who had once been convicted of the murder of his own wife (based on the real Sam Sheppard’s story). This is a well written novel and it is, by far, the most “literary” of the three books. I have a pretty high opinion of it so far and, depending on how the book plays out, this one should receive a high rating. It is, by the way, a debut novel, one apparently in the works for more than eight years.

And then there’s Joe Hill’s Horns, a horror novel about a young man who suddenly sprouts a nice set of devil’s horns atop his head. The horns cause those exposed to them to share their innermost thoughts and wishes with the young man, often leading to disgusting admissions and truths he really does not want to hear about. Most of you know that Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son and I’m starting to think that Joe has analyzed his father’s work to the extent that his own writing is almost indistinguishable from his father’s anymore. This is an ebook I downloaded from my library or I probably would not be reading it. As it is, at 50% of the way through the book, I’m still wondering why I’m bothering with it. Frankly, I’m finding that it is aimed at a whole different reading audience than the one I’m part of – and that “horror” has long since ceased to horrify or scare me at all. There’s just too much content of the “gross out” variety to impress me that the book has much merit, and I’m only continuing it to find out the origin of the horns and whether the main character will finally shed them. At most, this will probably earn a 3.0 rating, maybe even a bit less.

I haven’t abandoned a book in a good while, and seldom abandon them when at least 25% of the way through them, but Horns and The Poacher’s Son are testing me.

>If I don’t really own an ebook, why does one cost so much?

Are you as sick of the Kindle, the Nook, the iPad and the Sony Reader as I am? I am disgusted by the fact that the hardware manufacturers are so fixated on the idea that only books purchased from their own “bookstores” should be read on their readers – and on making sure their ebooks cannot be read on other readers. Sony, at least, uses the common epub format, meaning that I as a Reader owner can check out ebooks from my local library. But Amazon.com books will only play on the Kindle, and Apple store books will only play on the iPad and Barnes & Noble books will only play on the Nook. That’s outrageous, especially considering the prices being charged for ebooks now that the Apple egomaniac has his own reader on the market.

Why should readers/customers pay such high prices for ebooks that will forever tie them to one particular reader? Ebooks are convenient under the right circumstances but, because I have nothing physical to hold in my hands, I can’t help feeling that I’m being ripped off. I can’t tell you how much emusic I’ve lost over the last few years when hard drives or mp3 players crashed. The same is certain to happen with ebooks (yes, I know that I can back them up to other drives, etc. – but who remembers to do that all the time or can find the backups when they need them?)

I’m a fan of the Sony Reader mostly because of the access it gives me to free ebooks at my library and because so many out-of-print books can be found on the web and transferred to my Reader. But I haven’t purchased an ebook from Sony in well over a year and that’s because I feel like I’m left with an empty bag after I finish reading an ebook. Barnes & Noble, despite using the same epub format as Sony, has apparently made sure that I cannot read one of the B&N-sold ebooks on my Sony Reader – according to the B&N staff I questioned at two local bookstores.

Amazon, Kindle and Barnes & Noble want to tell me how I am allowed to read my books and they want to limit my right to sell or loan them to others. Fine, guys. If the books don’t really belong to me, why do you insist that I pay full price for them? Pick a damn format and let your three ebook readers speak to each other. That’s not too much to ask, and your customers will buy more ebooks when you stop limiting their usage rights to what you sell them.

See this Epicenter link for a look at this issue from the publishers’ point-of-view.

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As you share food and fun with family and friends this weekend, please take a moment to remember those who helped make the world a safer place for all of us.

>Has anyone read the books in this series? If so, does this book trailer accurately capture their tone and content? I have to admit, I might watch a 60-minute video along the lines of this trailer but I’m not sure I’m up to reading one of these “classics.” Any thoughts?

>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.

>The two comments to yesterday’s post about the bookstore slobs I see in my local B&N every time I go there got me to thinking a bit more on the subject.

I have to ask myself if I feel differently about a student using B&N as a library than I do about some shopper too cheap to pull his wallet out of his pocket and buy a book or two. I worked with a fellow for about twenty years who used to use every lunch hour reading books in the bookstore across the street from our office. He would read three or four books a month that way, hiding the books somewhere deep in the shelves until he was done with them. Never, not one single time, did I know him to buy a book – from anywhere. But then I see students there on weekends and in the evenings making use of the technical and scholarly books in B&N and that doesn’t bother me so much.

I realize how expensive books are for college students and, after all, this store has little tables placed around the store for the use of “customers,” not to display books. Sometimes I see whole study groups in the store using one single text as part of their school preparation. B&N, at least my local one, seems to encourage this kind of thing.

Take a look at this letter from a Georgia resident lamenting the closing of his local Barnes & Noble store:

A month ago I heard sad news for our community that the Barnes & Noble bookstore located in Fayetteville is about to close.

I remember when I first moved to Fayetteville and I did not have a job, friends and family, so I used to go frequently to the bookstore and spent many hours there, lost in the reading of different kinds of books, eating a delicious desert, with the help of such as wonderful workers who were ready to help every customer.

I was so excited about living so close to Barnes & Noble that I decided to get the membership card to buy books. I got many dictionaries and books, which helped me to improve my vocabulary.

Then I began working and on my days off I decided to spend one hour in the store reading motivational books and other kinds of magazines. Doing the same activity during the past two years has helped me in the process of improving my English, since my first language is not English.

During the times that I spent in the store I noticed that a lot of young people were there reading books, magazines and eating a delicious dessert as well. I think that this class of business should remain open. This book store is something positive for our Fayetteville community.

I was thinking what can I do to impede the closing of Barnes & Noble, so I thought I do not have the money to allow for the store to remain open but I have feelings, thoughts, ideas, knowledge which I have gained during my entire life from books that I had read, some of them found in that precious store. I decided to write this letter to make everybody think: What can I do to stop Barnes & Noble from closing?

My first reaction is to tell the guy that if folks like him would have just spent a few bucks on books, at least as much as they spent on deserts, maybe this wouldn’t be happening. But I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong to feel that way. Maybe the bookstores are providing a community service to students in exchange for a little good will.

Don’t miss the comments from Janda and Martha. Both speak from bookstore clerking experience and what they have to say is not pretty, especially Martha’s definition of “soiled.”

>Maybe someone can explain to me how bookstores like Barnes & Noble can allow their stock to be trashed by non-buyers on such a massive scale. I am always a bit amazed at the number of people sprawled out at my local store with magazines, books and newspapers all over their chairs and on the floor around them. It is bad enough that most of these folks don’t bother to re-shelve anything – they do not even try to keep the products in good enough shape to sell.

There have been several instances in the last few months where I went looking for a specific title only to find that the only one in stock looked worse than something I might find at Half Price Books – for half the price. I will not pay full price for a book that’s dirty or torn, Mr. Store Manager…not gonna happen despite your unwillingness to mark down the damaged goods. Don’t try to buy an unsoiled newspaper in that store, either, where even the magazines are a hit and miss proposition.

Do these stores actually make so much money on over-priced coffee, drinks and snacks that they can cover the lost sales on the items they are really there to sell? Do publishers take back all those trashed books? I suspect that magazines and paperbacks still get only their covers ripped off and returned for full credit, but what is the deal on hardbacks and newspapers?

Anyone have the scoop?

Annie, are you out there? Cip, I don’t mean guys like you…we’re talking slobs here.

>I was cruising the internet this morning when this headline caught my eye: Kate Gosselin New Book Flops. I started to move right past the link before it struck me that I had no idea what the headline means. From the headline, though, I can tell a few things: Gosselin has written previous books, those books must have done fairly well, and this new one is a surprise loser when it comes to sales.

All well and good, I thought, but who in the world is this Kate Gosselin person?

So I clicked on the link and found this:

Did Kate Gosselin’s new book flop? Kate Gosselin’s newest book is not selling nearly as well as many experts had originally predicted. Her latest book, “I Just Want You To Know: Letters to My Kids on Love, Faith, and Family,” has reportedly only been able to sell around 10,000 copies since it was released. That is a fraction of the sales that Gosselin had previously seen from her other books when they were released. Both of her previous books, “Eight Little Faces” and “Multiple Blessings,” were able to climb to number 5 on the New York Times bestselling list.

Turns out that Kate Gosselin is part of that weird couple who sold their children to some supposed reality TV show a few years ago. I think I remember hearing that the male half of this marriage from hell is gone now but that the show will go on.

Now the headline really confounds me because I can’t imagine how this woman’s first two books sold in such big numbers that 10,000 copies of the new one is bad news. That leads me to ask the question: who is buying and, perhaps, even reading these three books? But, more importantly, why are they doing that?

Good grief, “reality TV” is about as real as professional wrestling. How does someone like Kate Gosselin become a “star” for even 15 minutes, much less long enough to write and sell three books? Unbelievable…we are a country of idiots.

>I’m going to stray into politics today but it’s only because this free speech issue involves a new book and a controversial writer. I find what happened at one Beverly Hills bookstore last night disturbing, especially considering the way that an Ottawa university did the same thing to another conservative speaker just a few days ago. Free speech is apparently not for everyone – just those who shout the loudest and make the biggest fools of themselves (and, yes, I find this kind of behavior disgusting when it comes from either side of political spectrum).

I find this Examiner.com account of the incident embarrassing for the writer who posted it:

Karl Rove was forced to leave his book signing last night after being shouted down by anti-war protesters.

Rove was in Beverly Hills, California promoting his controversial book Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Approximately 100 people had paid $40 each to hear Rove speak and then get their copies signed.

[...]

The Former White House chief of staff was berated with comments during his talk that ranged from being called a liar to a war criminal to one woman claiming “The only comfort I take is that you’re going to rot in hell.”

Stevens-Young pretends to be posting a news piece up to the point where she tries to get cute. I assume she thinks she’s preaching to the choir when she says:

Rowe reacted with some sophomoric responses including calling one person a “lunatic” and then ironically stating “they don’t believe in First Amendment rights for anyone but themselves.” When it was obvious there were a lot of people who disagreed with him, Rowe ran away before signing any books. Maybe he went to see a movie: Green Zone would have been a good choice.

I don’t know why I expected a news item when I decided to click on this link, probably because the article’s headline was hidden:

Karl Rove called a war criminal, flees before signing books

Somehow, I doubt that Karl Rove did much fleeing from a bunch of bookstore protesters.

I’ve never heard of Examiner.com, or Kristy Stevens-Young, the woman who seems to believe that free speech is a one-way street and that she’s managing the toll booth, but someone should tell her that she’s making a fool of herself. Don’t be surprised if she shouts you down, though.

> Look out, American readers. Times are tough, taxes can’t be raised much higher, and libraries across the land are desperate. Well…some libraries in parts of Colorado are desperate enough to throw your sorry butt in jail if you don’t return that DVD you borrowed from them. Remember, the key word is “borrowed.” Libraries don’t give those things away just because you’d like to have a copy of your own but are too cheap to actually, you know…pay for one.

From ABC News, with Diane Sawyer, comes the story:

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>One sentence in the September 2009 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited (my favorite magazine) has created a small firestorm of criticism from a few people who took offense at the style in which the article was written.

The article in question is a feature on Charlie Sizemore written by Chris Stuart. Mr. Stuart decided to use a direct, and very emotional, quote from Charlie in the first paragraph of his piece. Charlie, speaking of the time in the seventies when he was the lead singer for Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys (as a teenager, no less) had this to say about how upset he was about one of his appearances with the band, “Ralph, I’m sorry. I can’t sing for shit.” The point of Charlie’s story is that Ralph Stanley’s sympathetic response was perfect and that it might very well have saved his career in bluegrass music.

One little word, and not a particularly offensive one, in my opinion, resulted in letters and emails to the editor of Bluegrass Unlimited threatening to cancel subscriptions to the magazine. You know the drill – nothing new here except for how little it took to cause some folks to demand their own version of censorship, the rest of the readership be damned.

Daniel Swanson, via email said, “I got as far as the first paragraph before being floored. Needless to say, I quickly moved on to the next article. I have decided two things: I won’t read any more articles by the foul-mouthed Chris Stuart and if you don’t clean up your formerly fine magazine in the future, I’ll have no choice but to cancel my subscription.” – a silly, but very direct and aggressive response.

Jim Griffith of Ashland, Kentucky said, “I was very surprised that you printed the language used in the article about Charlie Sizemore…This type of language will cheapen your magazine if continued. I hope you will leave this type of language out in the future, as I would like to enjoy your magazine for many more years.” – a silly, but more passive-aggressive approach than the one quoted above.

These were the only comments to the article published in the January issue of Bluegrass Unlimited – two over-the-top reactions to what is in reality a fairly innocent little word, a word that, in this case, perfectly describes the emotion being felt by Charlie Sizemore when he approached Ralph Stanley all those years ago. Chris Stuart even had the nerve to use the word “hell” a couple times in the article but I doubt that our two wannabe censors read far enough into the article to find them.

I was happy to see in the magazine’s March issue that Ron Thomason, Robert Grosz and Dale Martin have written letters in defense of Chris Stuart’s judgment to use the quote exactly as he heard it from Charlie Sizemore’s mouth. Well done, guys.

Bluegrass music is as real as any music being made these days. Good songs are about emotion, be the emotions joy or despair, and, as a fan of the genre, I would be shocked if my favorite singers and songwriters did not honestly feel what they write and sing about. I want to hear real songs from real people, not censored claptrap from a bunch of phonies.

I cannot imagine a better introduction to the Charlie Sizemore piece than the one Chris Stuart chose for it and I find myself dumbfounded by the reaction of those who believe that any word in that article is offensive or out of place. Their desire to play the role of censor is what I find offensive, not the words “shit” or “hell.” Come on, people.