Category: publishing

“Films are great, but they just don’t have the same…inclusion that books have. You’re merely an observer: you aren’t feeling everything the character feels, aren’t reading every single one of their innermost thoughts, all of their doubts and fears and hopes.”

“[T]he avowed aim of the American protest novel is to bring greater freedom to the oppressed. They are forgiven, on the strength of these good intentions, whatever violence they do to language, whatever excessive demands they make of credibility. … The ‘protest’ novel, so far from being disturbing, is an accepted and comforting aspect of the American scene, ramifying that framework we believe to be so necessary.”

“I felt that a line had been crossed in which the state first of all was the arbiter of how much discussion was allowable. I don’t think it’s for the state to physically and under threat of law smash up your source material in order to stop you writing. I thought it was a very retrogressive thing for the government to be doing. It didn’t make much difference to our reporting, which made it all the more pointless.”

Joan Acocella considers a new translation of the Decameron – in particular, its abundance of sex without guilt.

“The new Kindle First program will offer four e-books a month before their official print publication. Customers can purchase one of these Amazon-branded titles for $1.99. And Prime members can choose one of the books for free.”

“Anybody with a smartphone, anybody with an internet connection, can now order any book in print, and get it delivered straight to their door, in any moment of enthusiasm. If they’re even more impatient, or prefer e-books to physical books, they can even buy the book and start reading it in seconds. I can’t see how that can possibly be anything but great news for the publishing industry.”

Yes, it’s National Novel Writing Month. Again.

“Re-re-reading is odd: a book has to have a certain depth to survive multiple readings. That is not to say that a book which one races through, enjoys, and wouldn’t return to is not without merit.”

“It is clear from four annual research surveys that e-books are in the later stages of the innovation curve and have settled into reasonably predictable consumption patterns. The likelihood of future growth will, in part, depend on improving the value perception of e-books among less committed users.”

“The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia–and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation–has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking. Those participants left seem incapable of fixing the flaws that keep Wikipedia from becoming a high-quality encyclopedia by any standard, including the project’s own.”