Display by Label: Books

The memes have been flying all over the place lately. And I got hit in the crossfire. Twice. One in each leg ... I've been tagged by Lemmonex and Jeff. But here's the thing ... one of these here memes asks for six quirks and the other asks for seven random/weird things. Together this adds up to ... let's see, carry the one ... thirteen. And there's no way I'm posting thirteen things about myself. Even if I space them out over two posts, it'll still be a total of 13 in a week and, well, that's just ... unlucky. So I've got to throw one more in for good measure. And good karma.

So here we go, six plus seven, plus one. Random/Weird/Quirky. And since we're already on the subject, we might as well start with this one:


Lemmonex didn't post rules to "seven things," so as far as I can tell there is no tag requirement. So I'm going to claim ignorance and go with that. But there were clear rules for six things, as set forth by Jeff. Here they are:

1. Tell about six unspectacular quirks of yours
2. Link the person who tagged you
3. Mention the rules in your blog
4. Tag six following bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged

Now to tag ... I'm going to make it easy and go with bloggers whose names begin with H or J:

• Hammer
• Hannah
• Helena
• HH
• Jinius
• Joanne

Ya'll have been tagged. Enjoy.

link to this | comments (10) | File:  Things  Music  Ho_Hum  Books  Blog 

I've long felt that the market was wide open for a "Web 2.0" social networking site for book-lovers. For a while there has been this. But it just wasn't quite there. Now, there's Shelfari. And these guys get it. If I were slightly a lot more entrepreneurial, this is exactly what I would have started working on a year ago. Oh well. Now, I can safely mark that off my "pipe dream" list. This could do for reading what last.fm did for listening. If you're into books, sign up, go to my shelf, add me to your friends.

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Recently, I mentioned launching my friend Tom's Web site for his debut novel, Last Town on Earth. On Sunday, he was interviewed by Liane Hansen on NPR. Nice job, Tom!

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Books  Friends 

Publishing as we know it will die. Sad, but true. The happy part is that it will be resurrected. Saved. JA Konrath's genie told him how. I think they're good ideas.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Books  Publishing 

A little over a year ago, my friend Tom signed a book deal with Random House. Well, one year and three months later, the book is finally in stores and I wanted to put in a little plug for it.

The book is called The Last Town on Earth. Go buy yourself a copy! I'll admit, I have not read it yet, so I can't speak to its excellence first hand, but it's getting some incredible reviews, including this one at the NY Times (link might require a login).

Also, this isn't just a plug for Tom. I designed and built Tom's Web site.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Reviews  Friends  Books 

Seth Godin throws out 19 pearls of wisdom for authors. Number two is interesting, and if you did it, you'd probably give yourself a great incentive to finish (as well as a deadline.) I should do it. I also like number 18.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Books  Publishing 

Photos are up from Philadelphia and Montréal. They've actually been up for a week, but I forgot to mention them, probably because I was too busy writing an incredibly long-winded post about publishing and scanning of books. I realize rule number one in blogging is to keep posts to a length where the reader does not need to break for meals. Oh, well. I say, just make the 'meal' a glass of wine and it will go much quicker.

Also, as an interesting follow-up to the last post I mention, an author named Blake Schwendiman has put a full electronic copy of his book online for people to download . . . for free. Interesting move. Why is he doing it? From the author:

I'm putting this full-length novel online and encouraging you to read it, send it to your friends, blog about it, distribute it on your blogs, etc. and we'll all see what happens. Maybe nothing. But maybe ... something. In fact after weighing the pros and cons of doing this, I can't find any actual downside.

(link via Seth Godin)

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Writing  Travel  Publishing  Photography  Books 

As somebody who enjoys reading a good book, but who also spends a vast amount of time online, I'm interested in the debate over whether or not Google (or anybody else) should be allowed to scan all of the world's books and make them searchable online. Recently, there were two opinion pieces written in the New York Times about the subject, one by Kevin Kelly, 'Senior Maverick' at Wired and the other by iconic American author John Updike. Both address a possible scenario where the printed book disappears in favor of the digital. For Kelly, this will mark the end of the economy of printed copies. For Updike, it will destroy literature as we know it. In my opinion, neither viewpoint is entirely correct.

Kelly's article, called 'Scan This Book!' expounds on the virtues and benefits of a 'universal' online library in which all books - all writings, in fact - are digitized and archived online so that their texts can be made searchable, linked, tagged, and . . . well you get the gist. The article is good, though kind of long-winded. Ironically, the full text can no longer be viewed by the general public on the NY Times Web site, though I was able to find a special URL (above) to the full text version from Kelly's Web site. If we didn't have that, though, we could, if we were so inclined, pay NY Times for a full copy.

In his article, Kelly paints a very different picture of the 'economy of publishing' from the one we have now. He envisions a true democratization of the written word, one where ideas and texts are freely available to everybody, regardless of physical location or income. Instead of the hard copy becoming the thing of value, Kelly writes, "Now relationships, links, connection and sharing are." He goes on to say, "Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer and engage." I think he's right on target here. One of the frustrations I have with reading anything offline anymore, including novels, is the fact that I cannot link directly to a passage and comment on it. Sure, I can cite the passage and then link to the book on Amazon, but this won't provide people with the surrounding context for whatever remark I have. For me, there is, increasingly, value in being able to access things online, comment on them, and link to them.

Kelly goes on to say that we are beginning to see a new business model for publishing, where "Authors and artists can make . . . their living selling aspects of their works other than inexpensive copies of them." What he's referring to are things like public speaking engagements or advertising on blogs. Certainly, if an author is popular enough and had the blogging skills, he could probably draw a decent income off of Google Ad revenue. The point is that there are many ways, aside from the copy itself, that an author can make money. These offer him more ways to 'profit' from his work, or simply from his 'celebrity' (if he is so inclined).

But I'd have to disagree with Kelly's suggestion that the value of the 'copy' could be supplanted altogether. I think there will still be value in a 'hard copy,' not just because it serves as an 'artifact' but because text is still easier to read on paper. The difference between selling 'copies' today and selling 'copies' in the future is that the author will have greater control over those copies, and will see a greater percentage of sales. 'On demand' publishing will reduce overhead and cost of copies to the end user, but shouldn't necessarily decrease the amount an author could earn per copy, as less will go to the hands of others. The trend is already happening. The real democratization of the written word lies in the power of the author to publish his own work and do his own grassroots marketing.

In Updike's article (currently still live), he finds many things wrong with the digitizing of books, including, as the title indicates, "The End of Authorship." The article is filled with alarmist rhetoric not unlike the kind of talk made by the music recording industry over digital file swapping: In my day, we didn't have any stinking 'Internets.' And we liked it! (Because we made money that way.)

Sorry, I don't mean to show disrespect. I mean this is, after all John Updike we're talking about, creator of Rabbit Angstrom, and one of The Important Writers of our time. Personally, I like his writing (I love the story Gesturing.) But he just misses the point. To say that he doesn't 'get it' is, I suppose, a bit of a cheap shot. After all, the man has made his living selling books the old-fashioned way. It's something that has worked for him, and for many others like him. But that's why I think publishing Updike's response to Kelly's article was kind of an odd choice for the NY Times: these two guys are not speaking the same language.

Updike's main point seems to be that the move away from the printed word is a move away from intimacy:

In imagining a huge, virtually infinite wordstream accessed by search engines and populated by teeming, promiscuous word snippets stripped of credited authorship, are we not depriving the written word of its old-fashioned function of, through such inventions as the written alphabet and the printing press, communication from one person to another - of, in short, accountability and intimacy?

The Internet inhibiting communication from one person to another? I don't know, Mr. Updike. I'm confused.

Lack of accountability? Do you mean lack of linking? Of identifying sources? Again, I'm lost. What Internet are you talking about here?

Has any other medium fostered so many one-to-one (and one-to-many, and many-to-many) discussions, debates, conferences? Has any other medium offered individuals the ability to personally communicate with one-another with such ease? People have the ability to interact with media in ways they never could when it was being force-fed to them by media giants telling them what was good, what they should be watching, reading, or listening to. Today, the people are deciding what is good. Via YouTube, via podcasts, and via blogs. Of course, perceptions can still be manipulated, but in general I think people will develop a much greater resistance.

But according to Updike, "content on the Internet is egregiously inaccurate, unedited, unattributed and juvenile." Granted, there is a good deal of shit out there. I'll give you that. But there's also some great stuff. And isn't having the freedom to find both and make your own judgments about it great? I'd say that sort of personal choice spells more intimacy not less.

I do agree with Updike when he says that, "[t]he printed, bound and paid-for book was - still is, for the moment - more exacting, more demanding, of its producer and consumer both." The bound book is more demanding, both in terms of time and economy, on the part of the writer and the reader. Because of this, people who read books are, increasingly, more selective in what they buy. And here's one of the great things about where publishing seems to be heading: instead of people being swayed to purchase books based on marketing and propaganda, they could be turned on to books through their own reading, or by receiving recommendations from people they trust. The merit of a book, or a CD, or a movie, is becoming less about which press published it, which label recorded it, or which studio filmed it. (And how many marketing dollars those agencies put behind it.) Instead, and here's a shocking concept, merit is beginning to be based on whether or not average people like something. Plain and simple. If a book takes off, it will do so from word-of-mouth, where 'word-of-mouth' has truly global proportions. Grassroots marketing will be King. Already, Amazon is giving its top-rated amateur reviewers advance copies of books. Power is being taken away from the traditional 'great' review sources - like the NY Times, for example.

But not only is the way literature marketed and sold going to change. Writing itself is going to change, has got to change, if it is going to spread. Just as 'the novel' of today is not 'the novel' of the 17th century, we will discover a new definition of 'the novel' one that integrates other forms of media, perhaps, or one where the reader takes a more interactive roll. And the authors who are able to invent this new way of writing are going to be the ones who are remembered (even if they aren't compensated well for it). What I found most disappointing about Updike's article was that he almost seemed more concerned with the economy and status of literature than about innovation and expression.

The debate over the scanning of books will ultimately quiet down. Books will be scanned. Period. It will be a non-issue. Eventually people won't want it any other way. But to say the economy of 'copies' will disappear with it, or because of it, is silly. I don't think we have to worry too much about Kelly's dream or Updike's nightmare. A new economy will emerge for the printed copy, one that is more efficient, more targeted, perhaps better, but most certainly different.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Writing  Publishing  Chewing  Books 

An essay in the NYT Book Review about a survey of the best books of the last 25 years. Even though Toni Morrison's Beloved won with 15 votes, I think it's notable that Philip Roth had seven different books voted on for a total of 21 votes.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Books 

This weekend I bought the book 100,000 Baby Names, by Bruce Lansky. Now, before you go alerting the media, let me just say, it's not what you think. Not really. I mean, sure there has been some talk lately in some family circles about the possibility of C and I making babies. Sure certain members of our family would like this to be a reality . . . like, yesterday. I will not name names, but will simply refer to them in generic terms like 'Mom' and 'Dad.' But really, it could be anybody.

Let it be known: There are no imminent arrivals. At least none that I'm aware of.

So what's the deal? Why buy a book called 100,000 Baby Names if you're not expecting a baby? Right. Good question. Here's the scoop: I got it as a writing reference, as a way to help me come up with meaningful character names. I had read somewhere that these books made a great brainstorming reference and thought, 'Now, that's brilliant!' Names always hang me up when writing fiction. Is this person a Jeanette, or more of an Olga? A book like this would help me peg it down firmly.

So Sunday I headed off to the bookstore to snatch me up one of these gems. Of course, I quickly realized, you won't find baby-name books in the 'Reference' section of your local Borders. No, you have to venture into the 'Parenting' section, which, in my store, hides in the very back corner of the lower level. Unchartered territory for the likes of me. I guess I'd seen the Parenting section a couple of times from a distance. I'd even probably brushed by it a few times in passing. But I'd never waded into it head-on. A chill went through me at the very thought of it. I descended the staircase, holding back an overwhelming urge to turn and run, ignoring my God-given flight instinct.

It was quiet in the Parenting area. A lone bearded man sat on the outskirts reading a sci-fi book. He must have somehow wandered over near the baby books in search of comfortable seating. When he saw where I was headed, and how close he was to that destination, he quickly got up from his seat and made a bee-line for safer ground.

I was now alone. It occurred to me that if I screamed nobody would hear me.

Let me say that if you know you want kids, don't visit the Parenting section of the bookstore. It just might change your mind. As I glanced through some of the titles, I felt a sense of dread creep over me. How to Potty Train Your Child AND Keep Your Carpet . . . Learning to Live without Sleep . . . Why Does Little Jimmy Resemble Satan? . . .The First Year: How to Keep Yourself from Becoming a Raving Lunatic. Okay, these aren't real titles, but they're not far off. The primary message of all these books was strikingly clear: parenting was not for the faint of heart. And I believed them.

Look, all I want is a book on names! I pleaded. I'm not looking for a come-to-Jesus experience. Not yet. Let me pass and I swear I'll be out of your hair in no time.

Finally I found it: the baby-names shelf. Or rather, the baby-names three shelves. I couldn't believe there were so many books dedicated to naming babies. Despite there being so many, I was quickly able to determine which one I wanted, the aforementioned 100,000 Baby Names. For one thing, it was one of the only ones facing outward so it quickly caught my attention. But before you think I'm too easily swayed by Borders placement techniques, I did do some content comparison with the other books. Here was my criteria:

First, a hundred thousand names, quite simply, is a crap-load of names. It's more than any of the other books. More than 50,001, for instance. More than 80,000. More, more more. And more is good, when it comes to a thing like names.

Second, I could tell from a quick skim of the book that the author had done a lot of research on names and their meaning. Did you know David means beloved? Here's a couple of other random ones: Maxime means most excellent. Amandeep . . . it means peaceful light. There are names from every nationality. The number of names and their meanings is . . . well, staggering.

So . . . a crap-load of names . . . details on meaning . . . these in and of themselves are great reasons to buy the book. I could probably end it there, but then I'd be skipping the best part - the lists. There are dozens of interesting lists based on things, places, themes, beginning letters, ending letters, and so on. For instance, if you know you want a name that is a palindrome, then the author gives you several to choose from . . . think Hannah, Igi, Otto. If you think it might be neat to name your kid (or character) after a chef, there are several culinary masters to choose from . . . think Emeril, Wolfgang . . . there's also a list of famous doctors . . . think Doogie, Sigmund. The lists go on and on - cartoon characters, heavy metal artists, Japanese mythology, popes, explorers, kings, Lord of the Rings characters . . .

And then there are the lists that I find to be the most fascinating part of the book: the top 25 most popular boys and girls names by decade, starting in 1900 and working up to today. This is really interesting stuff. If you take my name, it doesn't enter the top 25 until the 1920s, coming in at 22. Then in the 30s it makes a jump to 11. The 40s: 6. The 50s: 5. The 60s: 2! Want to know who beat it? Michael. It's always the friggin' Michaels, isn't it? Think they're so bad. Bite me, Michael. Hard.

Okay so what about the 70s? Does 'David' see a number one? No luck . . . turns out in the 70s - the decade I was born - my name drops back down to 4. Shit! And it continues to fall until 2004, where it remains slacking at number 15. Guess I was passé even before I was born. I knew I would have made a great child of the 60s.

And Michael? Well, that show-off, he has been at number one since the 60s and he's looking to pull off another victory for the current decade. So I'm starting a campaign. You can do your part: if you're having a boy, for the love of God, don't name him Michael.

Incidentally, Emily will be interested to know that although she was late to the race, jumping up to number 25 during the 1980s from her prior place at 66, she's quickly worked her way up the ladder and currently holds a comfortable numero uno spot, with her closest competitor being Madison. Nice job, Em! Mary held the number one slot for six decades, but has slowly been losing ground since the 1960s.

I'd share more with you, but I don't want to spoil the ending. Go get one for yourself. You'll be glad you did. Only, bare in mind that it's hard to feel like you're buying a serious reference book with the cover printed in pink and blue pastels and decorated with giggling, smiling, and yes, sleeping faces of babies. Here's a tip for you guys: If you're trying to meet girls at the bookstore, go get yourself a big book with baby pictures on the front of it. You're sure to get at least three or four smiles from hot women. Of course, you probably won't be getting much more than that because, well, what kind of asshole comes on to a girl when he's holding a baby book? I suppose you could just say it was for your sister. Whatever you do, don't tell them you're a writer.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Writing  Books  Babies