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Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Godspeed, Harriet

Posted in Books, tagged , , on 27 Oct 2015| 4 Comments »

Book lovers never die; they just get carried away by a story.”

Stack of BooksYou may never have heard of her, but in the publishing world, Harriet Klausner was legendary.

This week, she passed away, aged only 63.

Harriet Klausner was the uncontested Queen of Book Reviews. A speed reader who easily consumed four to six novels a day, she was (and remains) Amazon’s #1 Hall of Fame reviewer, with over 31,000 reviews to her credit.

In 2006 (when she had only written around 13,000 reviews), Time Magazine listed her as one of the year’s most influential people. “Klausner is part of a quiet revolution in the way American taste gets made.”

Indeed. (more…)

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Words from Books: Reading and Vocabulary

Posted in Books, tagged , , on 22 Sep 2015| 8 Comments »

Stack of BooksAutumn arrived in Seattle a few days ahead of schedule. This weekend, a low-pressure system cruised in with gusts that rattled the windows and whistled through the trees. Standing at the window, watching the maples dance, I thought to myself, “It’s a blustery day.”

Blustery.

The word brought back a memory of the first time I encountered it. I was a child, reading a Winnie-the-Pooh book — The House at Pooh Corner — when I came across the word describing a very fine “Winds-day.” It was the perfect word, filled with plosives and sibilants, and from that moment on, Milne’s word was my word, too.

Now, fifty years later, standing at my window, I remembered that word, that book, and that moment, and it all got me wondering: Decades of reading has increased my vocabulary, no doubt about it, but are there other words I got from specific books?

I pondered it for a few days and found other words I got from specific books. (more…)

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The Feel of the Thing

Posted in Books, tagged , , , on 29 May 2015| 2 Comments »

Stack of BooksIt was my mother’s social ambition that taught me to love books.

My mother–the eldest of her siblings–had a hard-scrabble childhood. She experienced family disruption at an early age, knew it well in fact, as her mother (my grandmother) was widowed and abandoned by husbands and inamorati at a fearsome rate. Moving from city to city, home to home, dogged by the turmoil of constant change, their family suffered one “fresh start” after another (and for “fresh start” read “begin again, from nothing.”)

Smart, tall, and attractive, my mother wanted a better life than the one from which she came. She worked hard to better herself through schooling and difficult choices, and did not apologize when it meant moving on. Some–her siblings included–thought her haughty and snobbish. In my own time, I’ve been described as haughty, arrogant, and imperious, so maybe I get that from her. (more…)

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Amazon and the Devaluation of Art

Posted in Books, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 28 Apr 2015| 4 Comments »

Dragons AheadThe 14th century was a seriously bad time marked by The Black Death and The Hundred Years’ War. After the plague, to combat the wage inflation caused by there being 30-50% fewer folks standing around, the nobility said, “Sure, I’ll pay you twice what I used to pay you,” and then they turned around and devalued the coins they used. Thus, even though you were now paid 6 sous each day, with their value cut in half they’d only buy you 3 sous worth of goods. Complain as you might, you were powerless to change it.

Amazon is like that. No, not like the Black Death. Like medieval nobility. (Though you could make an argument for the Black Death, too.)

(more…)

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A Milkstool Has Three Legs

Posted in Books, tagged , , , , , , on 30 Oct 2014| 2 Comments »

A blog post has been going around lately, in which Hugh Howey (bestselling author and book industry watcher) attempts to debunk some myths about publishing. Specifically, he addresses the standard tropes that the fast growth of the e-book market is  (a) materially damaging publishers, and (b) decimating the independent bookstore market.

His post (which is a good read) pulls together simple graphics from sources such as The New Republic, Bloomberg, and Harper Collins’ own PowerPoint slides, and lays it out clearly.

  • Publishers are making more money from e-book sales than from hardcover sales.
  • Independent bookstores are thriving in this post-Recession economy.

As evidence of the first item, Howey shows how the profit margins publishers enjoy from e-book sales is nearly twice the margin provided from hardcovers. Publishers’ profits are not on the MSRP of a book of course, but on the wholesale cost of the book. So, in the graphic I’ve linked to on the right, keep in mind that the 41% and 75% profit figures are based on the publisher’s share of the MSRP (which are $13.72 and $10.49, respectively). (more…)

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Going Under

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , on 21 Oct 2014| 1 Comment »

Stack of BooksI’ve been thinking about “immersion” lately. A lot. It’s infected my daily thoughts, disturbed my reading, and stymied my writing.

If I was searching for someone to blame, I’d have to pick Jefferson Smith and the “Immerse or Die” project he runs over at CreativityHacker, but since it’s been an interesting and illuminating intrusion, I’ll thank him instead.

Immersion is that willing suspension of disbelief a reader brings to each new book. Readers know that the people in my books are not real, and that the events within my pages never really happened. They voluntarily set aside their logical, common-sense disbelief in the truth of my tale as they dive into my books, swim through the worlds and words of my description, and give their hearts to characters I’ve conjured out of nothing but air and brash intention. This is the contract between us, reader and author: they agree to pretend for a time that my stories are real, and I agree not to burst their bubble. It is a trust that I, as author, must handle gently, because when it is breached, it cannot be rebuilt. (more…)

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Oh, Snap!

Posted in Books, Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , on 14 Oct 2014| 2 Comments »

I have a bone to pick with Horace Engdahl.

Engdahl is a member of the Swedish Academy (the folks who give out the Nobel Prizes) and this month, in an interview with French paper La Croix, he lamented that literature in the West is suffering because writers have become too “professionalized.”

Formerly, he opines, writers used to work as cab drivers, as secretaries, as waiters for a living. The work was difficult, but it fed their literary growth. Now, though, with grants and financial support, writers only have to write which, in Engdahl’s estimation, “cuts the writer off from society and creates an unhealthy link with institutions.”

This, from a guy who’s been a member of such an “institution” (i.e., the Swedish Academy) for nearly two decades, and probably hasn’t driven a taxi or waited tables in his life (he was a secretary for ten years…for the Swedish Academy. A-hem.)

Obviously, Engdahl believes that the only source for “litrachur” in the West is the legions of authors who are living the high-life on their NEA grants and their MacArthur fellowships. Those of us who work for a living outside our writing (i.e., the vast majority of us) are incapable of writing anything lofty enough to catch the notice of anyone of import.

For a laugh, though, try to guess just where Engdahl looks for literature in the East and in Africa. That’s right; he looks among those who work for a living outside their writing (though he worries about the future of their literary stars, too, hoping that the quality of work :will not be lessened by the assimilation and the westernization of these authors.”

I don’t disagree with everything Engdahl says–I see, as he does, a rise in the “faux-transgressive” (my phrase, not his) in Western literature–but by and large, his words really show the exclusionist attitude of the literary world. There’s literature, and then there’s just writing. And nothing written for a paycheck can be worth a literary dime.

I’d say something snarky here, just to vent my spleen, but The Observer’s associate editor, Robert McCrum, put it all too well:

“At face value, these comments are an odd mixture of grumpy old man and Nordic romantic. I’m not sure that the author’s garret is the guarantor of excellence.”

Oh, snap!

k

PS. For an English writeup on the topic, see The Guardian’s article here.

Typewriter

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