From the category archives:

Reading

Publishing’s suicide

December 5, 2009 Being a Writer

Jesse Kornbluth from PW:

Book publishing has been trying to commit suicide for all the decades I’ve been writing, and now it’s finally getting some traction on that project. Its latest folly is ironic: one of our most antitechnology businesses now places unrealistic hopes on technology as a savior, a textbook case of an American [...]

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Interesting (failed?) experiment in microserialization

December 3, 2009 Being a Writer
Thumbnail image for Interesting (failed?) experiment in microserialization

From Galleycat:

Earlier this week, the literary journal Electric Literature launched a “microserialization” experiment by publishing a new story by Rick Moody(pictured) on Twitter–co-publishing the story on other Twitter feeds, including the Vroman’s Books feed. Jacket Copy summarized the frustration that some Twitter users felt with the simultaneous delivery: “In the past, having bookstores, bloggers [...]

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Do bookstores matter?

November 16, 2009 Observations

For years—perhaps decades—my dad would walk to the flagship Kroch’s and Brentano’s store on South Wabash on Chicago, spending his lunch hour among the famously knowledgeable booksellers and the then-amazing array of inventory. I only remember being in that downtown store once or twice, but the mall Kroch’s and Brentano’s in the town where I [...]

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I just wonder…

April 8, 2009 Being a Writer

A. O. Scott, writing in the NYT:
“And just as the iPod has killed the album, so the Kindle might, in time, spur a revival of the short story. If you can buy a single song for a dollar, why wouldn’t you spend that much on a handy, compact package of character, incident and linguistic invention? [...]

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Vigorous, versatile, zestful

March 15, 2009 Commonplace Book

Alfred Bester:
Deliver science fiction from any necessity to have purpose and value. Science fiction is far above the utilitarian yardsticks of the technical minds, the agency minds, the teaching minds. Science fiction is not for Squares. It’s for the modern Renaissance Man…vigorous, versatile, zestful…full of romantic curiosity and impractical speculation.

(Via)

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Surprise! Birkerts resists the Kindle

March 13, 2009 Observations

Scott Esposito lines up Sven Birkerts’ Atlantic humbug on the Kindle.
There was a time (well over a decade ago now) when I thought Birkerts was a hero for The Gutenberg Elegies. But now I’m with Scott: at this point Birkerts just seems spent.

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The first one’s free, kid

March 7, 2009 It's a SciFi World

As discovered on Friday’s Kindle Daily post, Random House is offering some free scifi Kindle love until May 31. Of particular note is the free availability of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars and Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon. There’s also some T.A. Pratt and Harry Turtledove up for grabs.
As you might have guessed, the books [...]

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Whispernet, indeed

March 1, 2009 Reading

I’ve worked in publishing. I’ve been a part of rights negotiations with writers. And I understand the Authors Guild point of protecting their right to sell the audio rights to their work. But Amazon backing off of text-to-speech on K2 feels a bit like bullshit.
It’s not like the text-to-speech feature is all that great. I’m [...]

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Keys to the Kingdom

February 25, 2009 Reading
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My Kindle arrived yesterday. First impressions were not quite up to the technolust I feel when opening a box “Designed by Apple in California,” but pretty darned good. Amazon has done a nice job with the packaging and merchandising here. I particularly appreciate that the Kindle arrives already linked to my Amazon account. It literally [...]

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Good perspective on the Kindle

February 20, 2009 Reading

Molly Wood nicely expresses some of the same thoughts I’ve had on the Kindle (which is now due to arrive in just 5 days!):
I’m not going to argue that the Kindle is any kind of a bargain. It’s an expensive device that performs limited functions. if you’re not passionate about its value proposition—reading books, magazines, [...]

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