Lately, there just doesn't seem to be time to breathe life into the blog, so in the interest of more pertinent stuff (getting through the holidays intact) I'll be posting intermittently until Dec 25. Contrary to the blather on a lot of major media outlets, not everyone is headed to the border this Christmas. The store is getting markedly busier, and I'm coming home exhausted most days.
If you're inclined, you can track the better blogs, and the blogroll here and a pair of indispensable newspapers here and here.
In the interests of beating a drum for a moment; there are always good reasons to shop where you live. This is just one more. All I want for Christmas is a carbon tax.
Have a merry Christmas or if you can't do that; just keep your head down. It'll be over soon enough.
Posted by Dave
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
It's all here and it's all peanut butter
English rules the world and it appears the publishers as well.
"It's not just a question of column inches. In any library or bookshop, the vast majority of books on the shelves are by authors writing in English. In stark contrast to publishing throughout the rest of the globe, translated fiction accounts for only a tiny fraction of the books published in the English-speaking world. In Germany 13% of books are translations. In France it's 27%, in Spain 28%, in Turkey 40% and in Slovenia 70%, but in Britain and America the best estimates suggest that the fraction of books on the shelves which started off in another language is somewhere around two per cent. One measure of the lack of interest in translated literature from both government and the industry is that Britain is the only country in Europe that doesn't produce any statistics on translation."
This is the marketplace giving the people what they want more than much else, I think.
Any good bookseller will at least know the terrain, but translated books are a hard sell, unless a specific author breaks out somehow. I realize it's not fair, but at some point you've gotta dance with what brung you.
Lots of English titles die fast and quiet as well. Translated titles are never going to be particularly sexy, although Europa Editions covers some European stuff and there seems to be a fair amount of Japanese work in translation through Vertical.
Somehow they manage to stay alive, but Dalkey Archive has made great looking translated books for years; and done it cheaply, too.
Consequently, I'm going to start this later today.
Posted by Dave
"It's not just a question of column inches. In any library or bookshop, the vast majority of books on the shelves are by authors writing in English. In stark contrast to publishing throughout the rest of the globe, translated fiction accounts for only a tiny fraction of the books published in the English-speaking world. In Germany 13% of books are translations. In France it's 27%, in Spain 28%, in Turkey 40% and in Slovenia 70%, but in Britain and America the best estimates suggest that the fraction of books on the shelves which started off in another language is somewhere around two per cent. One measure of the lack of interest in translated literature from both government and the industry is that Britain is the only country in Europe that doesn't produce any statistics on translation."
This is the marketplace giving the people what they want more than much else, I think.
Any good bookseller will at least know the terrain, but translated books are a hard sell, unless a specific author breaks out somehow. I realize it's not fair, but at some point you've gotta dance with what brung you.
Lots of English titles die fast and quiet as well. Translated titles are never going to be particularly sexy, although Europa Editions covers some European stuff and there seems to be a fair amount of Japanese work in translation through Vertical.
Somehow they manage to stay alive, but Dalkey Archive has made great looking translated books for years; and done it cheaply, too.
Consequently, I'm going to start this later today.
Posted by Dave
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
wise and funny
Reason number 405 why I love Shalom Auslander.
From a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
(I've maintained for years, budget cutbacks and all; the San Francisco Chronicle is a better bet for book coverage than any daily paper operating in Canada).
"Foreskin's Lament" has its share of critics and defenders. On Amazon the reviews were split about 50-50 when I checked. Some of the critical comments came from people who describe you as a "self-hating" Jew. What do you think about such remarks?
Sometime in the future, when archeologists are sifting through the rubble we leave behind, trying to figure out when it all went wrong, I'm pretty sure that they'll eventually trace it back to the day Amazon launched customer reviews. To answer your question, though — yes, the people who react predictably to these things reacted predictably to this thing. Thank goodness I didn't criticize Israel. It's curious, this "self-hating" thing. "No," they say, "Judaism is loving, Judaism is warm, we don't believe those things." So then shouldn't the target of their anger be the teacher of such things and not the one who was taught them?"
Bulletproof.
Posted by Dave
From a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
(I've maintained for years, budget cutbacks and all; the San Francisco Chronicle is a better bet for book coverage than any daily paper operating in Canada).
"Foreskin's Lament" has its share of critics and defenders. On Amazon the reviews were split about 50-50 when I checked. Some of the critical comments came from people who describe you as a "self-hating" Jew. What do you think about such remarks?
Sometime in the future, when archeologists are sifting through the rubble we leave behind, trying to figure out when it all went wrong, I'm pretty sure that they'll eventually trace it back to the day Amazon launched customer reviews. To answer your question, though — yes, the people who react predictably to these things reacted predictably to this thing. Thank goodness I didn't criticize Israel. It's curious, this "self-hating" thing. "No," they say, "Judaism is loving, Judaism is warm, we don't believe those things." So then shouldn't the target of their anger be the teacher of such things and not the one who was taught them?"
Bulletproof.
Posted by Dave
Monday, November 12, 2007
Ah, this show ain't no good
In a fairly accurate sign of the Apocalypse, Borders in the U.S has a "master plan" that allows for televisions in stores as a way to get across to customers that Borders "are not just about books."
It's hard not to find an offensive paragraph in this story, but this will do:
"The screens are “not designed to be intrusive,” Mr. Jones (chief executive) said.
Rather, he said, they are “part of a master plan to create content that will do several things for us,” like directing traffic to the Borders Web site and paving the way to more cross-promotional deals with large media companies."
Brings a tear to the eye, and bile to the throat.
They'll be in a slew of Chapters stores by next year, you can bet on it.
Posted by Dave
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Norman Mailer....
has passed. The NYT has the obit.
I've not read much of Mailer. Armies of the Night years ago and a smattering of non-fiction.
I made the mistake of reading reviews rather than the novels, but it should be said that he represented probably better than any other living writer, a time when novelists strode over the culture like a Colossus.
Philip Roth is in that category and maybe one or two others, but it's a damn short list, and less so now that Mailer is gone.
A recent link and a beauty from When We Were Kings.
For me Mailer and George Plimpton were as uniquely an American pairing as Cosell and Ali.
Posted by Dave
I've not read much of Mailer. Armies of the Night years ago and a smattering of non-fiction.
I made the mistake of reading reviews rather than the novels, but it should be said that he represented probably better than any other living writer, a time when novelists strode over the culture like a Colossus.
Philip Roth is in that category and maybe one or two others, but it's a damn short list, and less so now that Mailer is gone.
A recent link and a beauty from When We Were Kings.
For me Mailer and George Plimpton were as uniquely an American pairing as Cosell and Ali.
Posted by Dave
from the front lines
comes William Boyd, a guy who in addition to penning some great novels, (Any Human Heart is still one of the best pure stories I've read in the last few years) has some deep roots in Hollywood.
He reports from the writers strike.
"Film is an essentially collaborative medium - don't let directors tell you otherwise - but you can't even begin to think about collaborating if there isn't a script. You can't cast, you can't budget, you can't crew-up, you can't schedule if it's not written down. One of the less obvious consequences of industrial action is that it throws a sharp light on the crucial balances of power and spheres of influence that operate in the entertainment industry. A strike like this will also, I believe, have a longer-term advantage in that the writers may, with a bit of luck, be seen for the key players they are."
He's right of course.
So is Alfred Hitchcock.
Posted by Dave
He reports from the writers strike.
"Film is an essentially collaborative medium - don't let directors tell you otherwise - but you can't even begin to think about collaborating if there isn't a script. You can't cast, you can't budget, you can't crew-up, you can't schedule if it's not written down. One of the less obvious consequences of industrial action is that it throws a sharp light on the crucial balances of power and spheres of influence that operate in the entertainment industry. A strike like this will also, I believe, have a longer-term advantage in that the writers may, with a bit of luck, be seen for the key players they are."
He's right of course.
So is Alfred Hitchcock.
Posted by Dave
Friday, November 09, 2007
Damn shame, this
I'm a bit late on this, but when conservative authors get shafted by their equally conservative publisher, well a tear comes to my jaundiced little eye.
The lead paragraph states,
"Five authors have sued the parent company of Regnery Publishing, a Washington imprint of conservative books, charging that the company deprives its writers of royalties by selling their books at a steep discount to book clubs and other organizations owned by the same parent company."
Essentially, the authors of these books are getting a pittance because a fair number of their sales aren't in bookstores, but rather to members of something called the Conservative Book Club, whose members get books from the publisher at a discounted price, thus lowering the cut, as spelled out in the contract, to the authors.
The money quote from the aggrieved Bushies reads,
“The difference between 10 cents and $4.25 is pretty large when you multiply it by 20,000 to 30,000 books,” Mr. Miniter said. “It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance.” He added: “Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”
One, you need to read your contract, sir.
Two, heavy discounting to nontraditional sellers hurts authors' bottom lines and has for years.
That happens when publishers are wholly owned subsidiaries of huge multinational corporations, as many are; or are in your case, just plain assholes.
Suck it up.
Posted by Dave
The lead paragraph states,
"Five authors have sued the parent company of Regnery Publishing, a Washington imprint of conservative books, charging that the company deprives its writers of royalties by selling their books at a steep discount to book clubs and other organizations owned by the same parent company."
Essentially, the authors of these books are getting a pittance because a fair number of their sales aren't in bookstores, but rather to members of something called the Conservative Book Club, whose members get books from the publisher at a discounted price, thus lowering the cut, as spelled out in the contract, to the authors.
The money quote from the aggrieved Bushies reads,
“The difference between 10 cents and $4.25 is pretty large when you multiply it by 20,000 to 30,000 books,” Mr. Miniter said. “It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance.” He added: “Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”
One, you need to read your contract, sir.
Two, heavy discounting to nontraditional sellers hurts authors' bottom lines and has for years.
That happens when publishers are wholly owned subsidiaries of huge multinational corporations, as many are; or are in your case, just plain assholes.
Suck it up.
Posted by Dave
how about why isn't your book on the National Book Award shortlist?
because it sure as hell should be.
Anyway, Slate magazine has some questions for Junot Diaz
(who's Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao really should be on the National Book Award list)
Posted by Dave
Anyway, Slate magazine has some questions for Junot Diaz
(who's Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao really should be on the National Book Award list)
Posted by Dave
Thursday, November 08, 2007
A Grand Old Man indeed
Alasdair Gray (who's books are beautiful to look at as well) gets some love from the Guardian.
"Every reader has an author whom they believe to be undervalued. Sometimes, as with mine, Alasdair Gray, they're not even obscure. They might indeed have won prizes (Gray has scooped the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award, among others) and a trove of excellent notices from reviewers, yet still be considered as lacking the wider celebrity that, in an ideal world, would reward their talent."
I confess, I've not read very widely (Poor Things and his book of Endnotes only) but I know lots of cool kids dig him.
Posted by Dave
"Every reader has an author whom they believe to be undervalued. Sometimes, as with mine, Alasdair Gray, they're not even obscure. They might indeed have won prizes (Gray has scooped the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award, among others) and a trove of excellent notices from reviewers, yet still be considered as lacking the wider celebrity that, in an ideal world, would reward their talent."
I confess, I've not read very widely (Poor Things and his book of Endnotes only) but I know lots of cool kids dig him.
Posted by Dave
links from Mothercorp
CBC mops up with an quick interview with the Giller winner and a "cheat sheet" involving the major literary nominees up North lately.
Posted by Dave
Posted by Dave
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
This is a good day
Shortly after her Giller win, Bookninja notes that Late Nights on Air is in happy company down south.
That's excellent news, and kind of emblematic of literary coverage to a point. The Globe lamented the relative lack of a laugh in the Giller five, with A Secret Between Us being the exception.
By hanging out in Soft Skull's house Elizabeth Hay, already an accomplished stylist and entirely deserving winner of the Giller, is now wicked cool.
Nice.
Posted by Dave
That's excellent news, and kind of emblematic of literary coverage to a point. The Globe lamented the relative lack of a laugh in the Giller five, with A Secret Between Us being the exception.
By hanging out in Soft Skull's house Elizabeth Hay, already an accomplished stylist and entirely deserving winner of the Giller, is now wicked cool.
Nice.
Posted by Dave
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
long lists and more long lists
Publishers Weekly weighs in on their favourites for the year.
Nice job on the fiction (O'Hagan, Junot Diaz) and I was happy to see the Charles Taylor-related nonfiction title get a nod. In YA terms, Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, which Chris is raving about, made the cut.
PW also had a bit of fun.
"The Bigger They Are...
The Almost Moon
Alice Sebold (Little, Brown)
Expectations were high for Sebold's follow-up to The Lovely Bones, but the book—about a woman who kills her aging, infirm mother—is...not good.
Worst-Kept Secret
The Secret
Rhonda Byrne (Atria)
An assist from Oprah made this goofy riff on the power of positive thinking a fixture on bestseller lists"
That's not necessarily so.
I saw one good review for Almost Moon and they doyenne of the trade loves it. So you know, it's gotta be good, right?
Another long list, with some Canadians on it, for awhile at least is here.
Posted by Dave
Nice job on the fiction (O'Hagan, Junot Diaz) and I was happy to see the Charles Taylor-related nonfiction title get a nod. In YA terms, Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, which Chris is raving about, made the cut.
PW also had a bit of fun.
"The Bigger They Are...
The Almost Moon
Alice Sebold (Little, Brown)
Expectations were high for Sebold's follow-up to The Lovely Bones, but the book—about a woman who kills her aging, infirm mother—is...not good.
Worst-Kept Secret
The Secret
Rhonda Byrne (Atria)
An assist from Oprah made this goofy riff on the power of positive thinking a fixture on bestseller lists"
That's not necessarily so.
I saw one good review for Almost Moon and they doyenne of the trade loves it. So you know, it's gotta be good, right?
Another long list, with some Canadians on it, for awhile at least is here.
Posted by Dave
Monday, November 05, 2007
pick 'em
The Globe handicapped the Gillers on Saturday, and it's Ondaatje's to lose, with an acknowledgment that perhaps this is Elizabeth Hay's year.
They're half right. This is Elizabeth Hay's year.
For the record, I hope Elizabeth wins, because Late Nights on Air is a fine piece of work, but I can't shake the feeling that the prize will go to Alissa York.
Tune in tomorrow.
Posted by Dave
They're half right. This is Elizabeth Hay's year.
For the record, I hope Elizabeth wins, because Late Nights on Air is a fine piece of work, but I can't shake the feeling that the prize will go to Alissa York.
Tune in tomorrow.
Posted by Dave
Sunday, November 04, 2007
It's turning over up North, too
Mark Sarvas hearts Shalom Auslander.
You should, too.
"Auslander, a contributor to This American Life, Esquire, Nextbook, and the author of the short-story collection Beware of God, has good reason to fear retribution, his lengthy list of sins far outstripping Moses'. Foreskin's Lament opens with the young Shalom being raised in the Orthodox Jewish enclave of Monsey, N.Y., where he is already swearing, mixing meat and milk, and switching lights on and off on the Sabbath, inspired by a rabbi who has informed him that "the Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that until the age of thirteen, all of a boy's sins are ascribed to his father." So Auslander tries, unsuccessfully, to bring Yahweh's fatal wrath upon his abusive, drunken father.
My father banged angrily on the bedroom door. - Lights out, he barked.
I smiled. For you and me both, pal."
Posted by Dave
You should, too.
"Auslander, a contributor to This American Life, Esquire, Nextbook, and the author of the short-story collection Beware of God, has good reason to fear retribution, his lengthy list of sins far outstripping Moses'. Foreskin's Lament opens with the young Shalom being raised in the Orthodox Jewish enclave of Monsey, N.Y., where he is already swearing, mixing meat and milk, and switching lights on and off on the Sabbath, inspired by a rabbi who has informed him that "the Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that until the age of thirteen, all of a boy's sins are ascribed to his father." So Auslander tries, unsuccessfully, to bring Yahweh's fatal wrath upon his abusive, drunken father.
My father banged angrily on the bedroom door. - Lights out, he barked.
I smiled. For you and me both, pal."
Posted by Dave
The first day of the rest of our lives
insofar as we're now dropping prices on every book and calendar with an American and Canadian price by fifteen per cent to address our skyrocketing loonie (or more accurately, the tanking Bushbuck).
I still believe that this is a short lived outrage as outrages go, but if it means we get get through Christmas with cash flow still flowing, then this is the new math.
It bears pointing out, as some booksellers are that shopping where you live has a positive effect several times over. I would add a much lower carbon footprint; particularly in our case.
Posted by Dave
I still believe that this is a short lived outrage as outrages go, but if it means we get get through Christmas with cash flow still flowing, then this is the new math.
It bears pointing out, as some booksellers are that shopping where you live has a positive effect several times over. I would add a much lower carbon footprint; particularly in our case.
Posted by Dave
Saturday, November 03, 2007
$1.07
Not really in a mood to talk books much. It's nice to see Rob Wiersema's kind works on the almost obligatory Tom Perrotta review, but it doesn't seem to matter as much that a good book it's own reward. What overrides everything is it's sticker price relative to the U.S dollar.
In the case of Perrotta's new one, it's a Canadian edition, so the point is perhaps less obvious, given that $32.95 is the only price on the jacket, but the U.S edition can be had cheaper south of the border.
The hardest part about the parity debacle, and publishers slow response to it, is that books are now lumped in with every other shitty little consumer product in the discussion which now goes simply "Canadian consumers are being ripped off", etc.
Prices are coming down and will continue to do so. In a couple months this mess will largely sort itself out. The damage to the book trade will be, I fear, a more lasting affair.
Posted by Dave
In the case of Perrotta's new one, it's a Canadian edition, so the point is perhaps less obvious, given that $32.95 is the only price on the jacket, but the U.S edition can be had cheaper south of the border.
The hardest part about the parity debacle, and publishers slow response to it, is that books are now lumped in with every other shitty little consumer product in the discussion which now goes simply "Canadian consumers are being ripped off", etc.
Prices are coming down and will continue to do so. In a couple months this mess will largely sort itself out. The damage to the book trade will be, I fear, a more lasting affair.
Posted by Dave
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