Category: words

“At some date in the future, the book industry will look back on the middle of the year 2000 as a period in purgatory. From some perspectives, e-books appear to be a golden goose, an innovative medium to attract a new audience of young, hip, computer-savvy readers. But, from other points of view, these digitized ‘products’ seem to be soulless replacements for the ink-on-paper friends of a lifetime.” – Chicago Tribune

Jacques Barzun’s ambitious new book attempting to contextualize 500 years of history is getting warm reviews everywhere. “In his gigantic tome, Barzun wades willfully into the miasma known as cultural history. Along the way he discovers the swampy depths – and the occasional high ground – of Western life. ‘I don’t believe that history is cyclical,’ he says. ‘It’s much more mixed up.’ His operative metaphor is a kaleidoscope, not a Ferris wheel.” – Washington Post

Is post-modern fiction a fiction itself? After all, it is a “form of writing that defeats readers’ expectations of coherence, as experimental narrative that plays with generic conventions, as fiction that dwells on ambiguity and uncertainty.” Who’s to know what the right answer is? – National Post (Canada)

Two thousand years after they were written, six poems by a woman who lived in ancient Rome are to be published. “Sulpicia’s contemporaries were Ovid and Horace, but while their work has been feted in the centuries since they created it, Sulpicia has been largely ignored and marginalised.” – BBC

The cost of publishing a book yourself has dropped with the internet and more and more authors are taking advantage of it. “My goal is to see the book read by and understood by a few thousand people. Obviously when you are young you dream of an advance, hardcover sale, foreign rights, movie sales, TV sales, but in my maturity I am being more realistic.” – Wired

The publishing industry is rife with questions about the future of the printed word: Is the book as we know it nearing extinction? Or will downloadable e-books and print-on-demand machines actually reinvigorate the world of reading? Seven industry insiders discuss the future of the printed (or printless) word. – Newsweek

Stephen King is encouraged by the internet success of the novella he released on the web this spring. So he plans to serialize a story on the web. “King proposes fans pay $1 per installment and suggests everyone be on the honor system. He said he’ll cease publication if too many people steal the story. ‘But I just don’t believe that will happen. I mean, we’re talking a buck a pop here, right?’ ” – Wired

• Harold Bloom takes an e-book for a spin, and… well, the results are rather predictable. “For me the Internet is like the Congo. I know it exists, but I will never go there.” On e-text: “Intimacy with a [computer] screen is, I suppose, possible, but if there are descriptions of it available, I would rather not see them.” – Feed

Author Martin Amis at age 50 has gotten around to explaining his life in a new memoir. ” ‘Experience’ is an astonishing memoir, and destined to be imitated by self-chroniclers looking to escape the confines of chronology.” – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

New websites that publish books online theoretically give anyone the ability to publish a book. But how many of the hundreds of thousands of new e-books will be read? “How will they be discovered?  Sophisticated search engines? Maybe — but only if you already know what you are looking for. Word of mouth? PR and promotion? Perhaps, but that takes more time and money than most authors have.” – *spark-online