Category: publishing

“Even as the universe of printed matter continues to shrivel, the book — or at least some of its best-known features — is showing remarkable staying power online. The idea is apparently embedded so deeply in the collective unconsciousness that no one can bear to leave it behind.”

“This is Jane Austen on a ship of war, with the humanity, joy and pathos of Shakespeare — and brilliantly written. I have read them perhaps 20 times. I will read them many more.”

Its problem “comprises the generic-ness from which the label genre stems: in this case, the outdated stylistic tics and aesthetics of a marginal pulp-modernist medium, the clichés, the well-worn assumptions and comfortable call-backs, and the outdated institutional values in which they were nurtured and framed.”

“Cannot proceed with this manuscript because the plot cannot be found in the first third of the text.”

“Writers as different as Martin Amis and Chicago’s Scott Turow have spoken to me of the tidal pull of Dickens on their imaginations; so, more recently, have Elizabeth Gilbert and Donna Tartt, whose current best-sellers (‘The Signature of All Things’ and ‘The Goldfinch,’ respectively) display their Dickensian affinities like badges of honor.”

The Dutch novelist Arnon Grunberg is writing a novella “while a battery of sensors and cameras track his brain waves, heart rate, galvanic skin response … and facial expressions.” Fifty readers will also get hooked up to sensors when the book comes out – and then let the data crunching begin.

“The very man charged with protecting these treasures, Marino Massimo De Caro, a politically connected former director of the library, is accused of being at the center of a network of middlemen, book dealers and possibly crooked conservators — all part of what prosecutors say is a sometimes corrupt market for rare books in which much is spent and few questions are asked.”

A list…

“The scan of the book has appeared on (members-only) torrent site what.CD and in the form of an Imgur album which was posted on Reddit.”

“With Amazon.com’s ever increasing presence, it may be surprise to hear that there are more independent bookstores now than there were four years ago. Among the likely reasons: the closure of hundreds of Borders stores and the buy local movement.”