Notes: Antisnobbish Kindle?; 'Crazy for Books' in L.A.
"How will the Kindle affect literary snobbism?" asked the New York Times
in its examination of the societal side effects associated with using
an electronic reading device in public, noting that the "practice of
judging people by the covers of their books is old and time-honored.
And the Kindle, which looks kind of like a giant white calculator, is
the technology equivalent of a plain brown wrapper. If people jettison
their book collections or stop buying new volumes, it will grow
increasingly hard to form snap opinions about them by wandering
casually into their living rooms."
Michael Silverblatt, host of
public radio's Bookworm, wondered what effect e-book readers will have
on "literary desire . . . When I was a teenager waiting in line for a
film showing at the Museum of Modern Art and someone was carrying a
book I loved, I would start to have fantasies about being best friends
or lovers with that person."
For other industry perspectives on the topic, you might also want to revisit Robert Gray's Shelf Awareness series earlier this year (columns in the January 28, February 6 and February 13 issues).
---
While it remains opposed to collecting sales tax in New York--and other states considering similar "affiliates" laws--Amazon.com does support efforts to impose taxes in a uniform manner, an Amazon spokesperson told Business Week.
"We'd be O.K. with a mandatory collection requirement as long as the states' tax systems were truly simplified and the collection evenhandedly applied," Amazon's Patricia Smith wrote in an e-mail.
---
Throngs of people "crazy for books" attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books over the weekend, and Jacket Copy featured extensive coverage of the event.
"It's
a misconception that L.A. is not a book town," said Emily Pullen, a
manager at Skylight Books in the Los Feliz section. "It's got an
amazingly rich literary culture. New York is the home of the big
publishing houses. But there are so many great, amazing and energizing
authors who live in L.A."
---
In his Register-Mail
column headlined, "Bookstores an example of future in local
businesses," John Pulliam celebrated the fact that the community is
going "from one downtown bookstore to three--that well may be the
turnaround about to happen in Galesburg [Ill.]."
In addition to
Inner Wisdom bookstore, Brighter Life Bookshoppe will soon move
downtown and the "new entry is Ben 'Stone' Stomberg, who wants to open
a 'traditional' bookstore. . . . Anyway, I'm excited by the prospect of
three downtown bookstores, all with their own niches. There's no reason
all three can't make it and downtown will be richer for it. I believe
that the recession is going to mean that cities the size of Galesburg
are going to have more independent, home-owned businesses. . . .
Ironic, isn't it, that a recession may have given Galesburg the push it
has been needing for decades."
---
The Greensboro, N.C., News & Record reported that a Giant Book Sale bookstore recently opened in a building formerly occupied by a Circuit City store.
---
Jackson Street Books, Athens, Ga., is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and the Banner-Herald
profiled owners Jennifer Janson and Tony Arnold, who purchased the
business nine years ago and have witnessed substantial changes with the
rise of online bookselling.
"Prior to the advent of Internet
bookselling, we sold a lot more books to dealers who visited each
other's shops . . . " Arnold said. "Almost immediately, the Internet
had a profound effect on the price of books because the quantity of
books that were out there became pretty evident pretty fast. No longer
was it the case of a collector seeing one title he had never seen and
would buy it."
---
"Sisters Laurette Oien and Cathy Howe
have breathed new life into a dying Santa Maria [Calif.] business even
as others are struggling to survive in a staggering economy," the Lompoc Record
reported. The co-owners of 2 Sisters Books & Gifts "have
resuscitated it with a passion for their product and policies that
would give corporate pencil-pushers a coronary."
---
And
now, the sequel: Perseus Books Group is "asking the world to write the
first sentence for a yet-to-be-written sequel to any book ever
published" as part of a "collaborative effort to publish--during the
span of the 2009 BookExpo--a book that highlights the new 'possibles'
in our business. A book that will be created . . . collaboratively. A
book that will be published into as many formats as possible in about
48 hours." On the Book: The Sequel website, Perseus notes that royalties from sales will go to the National Book Foundation.
---
The
handmade book "is one which aspires to, and regularly manages to, exalt
the ideal of the book," Wyatt Mason wrote in the current issue of Harper's magazine, where he explored examples of "the ordinary book being routinely beautiful."
---
The Guardian
reported that a "librarian at Oxford's Bodleian Library has unearthed
the earliest-known book dust jacket. Dating from 1830, the jacket
wrapped a silk-covered gift book, Friendship's Offering."
---
Anyone who has read Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of the Lion
will recall this vivid scene where a nun is blown off Toronto's Bloor
Street Viaduct by a strong wind and caught by a worker. The Guardian reported on Project Bookmark Canada,
"an arresting idea from a group of Canadians--a plan to place permanent
markers displaying text from stories and poems in the locations where
they take place."
"Readers can step right into the stories,
experiencing the authors' visions and the real locales simultaneously,"
said Miranda Hill, the project's founder. "My vision is that you should
be able to read your way right across Canada."
---
Shelf Awareness children's editor Jennifer M. Brown is launching Twenty by Jenny, a website to help parents build their child's library one book at a time. The site guides parents to "twenty classics" in each of four age groups (0-3, 4-7, 8-12 and teen) and also offers the opportunity for parents to sign up for Jenny's newsletter to receive a new featured book review for each age group each month. (If they sign up for all four age groups, they'll receive four book reviews per month.) In addition, there's a Twenty by Jenny blog which explores book-related themes--such as the importance of reading aloud--and encourages conversation.
Brown has been an elementary schoolteacher, a children's book editor at HarperCollins and Pleasant Company and was children's reviews editor at Publishers Weekly for 10 years. In addition to her role as children's editor of Shelf Awareness, she is a frequent contributor to School Library Journal's e-newsletter to teachers, Curriculum Connections, and also to Kirkus Reviews.
---
The Bookstore Training Group of Paz & Associates is launching Indie Bookstore Entrepreneur, a free e-mail newsletter that will focus on "ideas from big thinkers, trends in buying and being, and business possibilities across industries" and "will offer a periodic dose of what is good for business and communities, what feeds our souls as leaders and citizens, and what makes an indie bookstore a great place to shop . . . and work. The goal of the publication is to foster entrepreneurial thought as prospective and new booksellers define, refine, and revise their businesses as the world changes."
"Transitions are fertile ground for innovation and creativity, and there are a number of factors that are driving people to reinvent themselves and develop a career of their own," said Donna Paz Kaufman, founder of Paz & Associates. "Most interesting is the financial struggle of corporate stores while citizens are pondering their role in creating sustainable local economies."
To subscribe to Indie Bookstore Entrepreneur, go to PazBookBiz.com.
BINC.1118.T2.2024YEARENDCAMPAIGN.jpg)
Change the World for Ten Bucks, written by the U.K. nonprofit We Are What We Do, tries to inspire people to change little things in their lives such as not leaving on too many lights, not picking plastic bags at the grocery store and recycling. The book has already sold nearly one million copies worldwide and has led to some tangible results: a canvas tote bag inscribed with "I Am Not a Plastic Bag" is sold out around the world.
But for the weaver of tales that germinate in such storied soil, no source material, however hallowed and unimpeachable, can substitute for walking the frozen ground of the North Dakota prairie in a February wind, or for listening to the solitary voices of people whose bones were formed from the dust of prairie soil, of for the howl of a wolf, the trill of a loon, or the lilting melody of a meadowlark on a spring morning. In any search for the true and authentic America, one whose residue of betrayal and loss are redeemed by the endurance and perseverance of its resilient citizens, there are no proxies for the people whose lives and voices animate these pages.