Used books by the numbers

A few months ago the New York Times had an article about a study that challenged the conventional wisdom that used books cannibalize new book sales (see my post about it here). Now the Book Industry Study Group has released a report that delivers some numbers on used books sales, which are famously difficult to collect. A post at the bookfinder.com journal breaks down the data, but one key point is that the majority of used book dollars go to textbooks; understandable considering what college students are expected to shell out. Another key point is this: "General used book sales account for 3% of the value of all general book sales." That number seems awfully non-threatening to me, but as this AP story makes clear, the book industry is not worried about the total number, they are worried about the growth of general (non-textbook) online used book sales (25% between 2003 and 2004); they are worried about promotional copies getting sold on eBay or Amazon; And they are worried that the consumer book market will start to look like the market for textbooks, where prices spiral ever upward and (where applicable) new editions are released with alarming frequency in order to combat losses from used book sales. Is this the book industry's fault for making books too expensive and not finding better ways to embrace the new economy or are Amazon and eBay destroying the book industry as we know it (and would that be a good thing?)

- C. Max Magee @ 8:06 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The end of summer

I was at the last Cubs home game of the year at Wrigley this afternoon. I took the train down into the city from Evanston after class. Almost everyone on the train at mid-day was on their way to the game, easily identifiable in Cubs gear and sipping discretely on cans of Old Style. There were a couple of readers on the train (Seven Plays by Sam Shepard and Until I Find You by John Irving), but none of them seemed Wrigley-bound. The sky was grey and everyone seemed to know that rain was on the way.

With the Cubs long ago out of contention, people showed up at Wrigley either out of habit or for the novelty of it. For example, I was there with my cousin because he hasn't yet been to Wrigley, and we figured today would be an easy day to get a ticket. Indeed it was. In front of us sat a group from Scotland, bearing a Scottish flag. They were there to shout and eat, but not to see the Cubs. Others, the ones there out of habit, had pulled on their same Cubs jerseys, and, clutching scorecards, thought about April, just six short months away. The action on the field wasn't totally forgotten, though. A few die hards were able to muster the energy to loudly boo Corey Patterson every time he came up to bat, but that was about the extent of it. The grounds crew, in recognition of their hard work all year, had the honor of singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. Soon after, the long anticipated rain began falling. The Cubs, who had played sloppily all day against the Pirates, saw the game, and the season, wash away - down 3-2 with two innings to play, the fans had lost their energy to watch, and the players their energy to play. They played it out anyway, despite the rain, though the score remained the same. My cousin and I walked many blocks west from Wrigley as the rain got steadily heavier. After a long, rainless summer, the rain and the cooler air that accompanied it seemed to signal that summer was finally over. Even on my bus ride home, water leaked in through the roof, and everyone aboard seemed to feel a chill.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:26 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Spotted on the El

I have an odd schedule this fall - I'm a part time grad student and a part time professional. I'm spending time north of the city in Evanston as well as downtown and at my apartment on the North Side. This means a lot of off-peak time spent on the El, where I've been able to continue my quasi-sociological study of Chicago based on what I observe people reading on the El. One thing I learned today: there's not as much reading going on during those off-peak hours. Apparently, if you're riding around on the train at ten in the morning or three in the afternoon, you're not likely to have your nose in a book. On the four trains and one bus (purple line, red line, and the 92) that I rode today I only spotted four books, three of which I was able to identify.

• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach - It seems a bit morbid for an afternoon train ride, but I'm told that this book is a quite entertaining example of the "biography of a thing" genre.
• Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power by Timothy B. Tyson - This one sounds pretty interesting. It's about a militant civil rights radical who was forced to flee the country. He ended up in pre-revolutionary Cuba where he started a radio show called Radio Free Dixie.
• Bloodlines by Dinah McCall - mass-market paperbacks are to bookspotting as pigeons are to bird watching.

Previously: May, July, August

- C. Max Magee @ 6:49 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Books as objects

Books have an aesthetic value beyond what is written inside them (as I have discussed before), but sometimes this idea is taken beyond the notion of eye candy on shelves. One example: at an outfit called Rebound Designs, they are taking books, gutting them, and turning them into handbags. But fear not, purists. From the site's FAQ:

Don't you feel bad cutting up all those books?

Not really. Most of these books were damaged or being thrown away to begin with, I don't cut up valuable books or books in fantastic condition. I take great care to find books that are already falling apart or are unwanted, like out of date textbooks.

via Boing Boing

- C. Max Magee @ 7:13 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The new Paris Review

The Paris Review, long recognizable for its fat, little, bookish profile, has been redesigned under the watch of new editor Philip Gourevitch. Also gone is the practice of emblazoning the cover with an abstruse piece of art (as opposed to, say, the New Yorker) and nothing else. "Maybe no one thought it before Mr. Plimpton died, but the venerable old magazine did need an update." says Bud, who's got a full accounting of the venerable literary magazine's new look (and contents).

- C. Max Magee @ 5:26 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Oprah announces latest pick; the living rejoice

When I started a book blog two and half years ago, I had no idea I would be paying such close attention to the activities of Oprah Winfrey, but here I am, again. The truth is, when I worked at a book store a few years ago (and not a very Oprah-friendly one, mind you) her influence on book sales and mainstream book culture in America was evident on a daily basis. With a few reservations, I applauded Oprah's decision to highlight "classic" novels, because it put these essential books into the hands of readers who might not otherwise be drawn to them. Now it appears as though this phase of Oprah's club has ended, and her gaze (which can bestow millions upon an unsuspecting author) has fallen once again upon the living. She says that she was "moved" by a letter signed by various living authors asking her to consider contemporary books once again, but perhaps, with the Summer of Faulkner, the "classics" experiment had simply run its course.

Even if it hadn't been preceded by the Faulkner books, the current selection, James Frey's addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces would be a disappointment. While entertaining (I'm told), it's the switch to non-fiction, and more importantly, confessional memoir, that bothers me. Oprah's entire show is a confessional memoir. Her guests are invited on the show to pour out their souls so that viewers can cry along with them, and Oprah joins in. While previous picks, classic or otherwise, take us out of Oprah's world and into a narrative created by the author, books like A Million Little Pieces are indistinguishable from the content of her show, all of which makes this choice seem incredibly self-serving. Perhaps she'll get everyone to read a self-help book next.

Several other bloggers have already weighed in: Scott, Annie, Authorstore

- C. Max Magee @ 4:09 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Over the past few years, I've read a good amount of twentieth century Russian history, and I've come to wonder, with dismay, why the Soviet regime - especially during Stalin's reign - is not acknowledged as one of the great horrors in human history. One does not see memorials and museums to this tragedy in cities around the world, nor even in Russia. This view was reinforced in me by books like Anne Applebaum's Gulag and Martin Amis' Koba the Dread. Now Millions reader Brian has read another book about Stalin's reign and sent in his thoughts:

I just read Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

-- One of the most intense and fascinating books I've ever read in my life. Wow. Focuses mostly on Stalin's life after Lenin's death and the lives of the Russian magnates that surrounded him. At about pg. 200 the Great Terror kicks in, leading into negotiations and subsequent war with Germany and... it is indescribable. Truly. We all know about Stalin, but I never really understood...

- There is one scene in this book, the Russians had 17,000 Poles imprisoned. Stalin ordered 7,000 of them killed. Blohkin was the man to do it. At various times during the Terror he was denounced by Yezhov or Beria, but Stalin wouldn't let him be killed as nobody could murder with such speed or efficiency. Moreover, like Stalin, it didn't jangle Blohkin's nerves; he didn't turn to excessive drink, decadent sex, or lose him mind. (Although his mother, years later, recalled that he would come home, throw himself at her feet, and sob uncontrollably) - so, on the abovementioned night, Blohkin put on his rubber butcher's apron, a cap, and took a German pistol (blame it on the Nazis if the crime was discovered) and personally shot 250 poles. He did this - 250 murders a night - for 28 nights. It is the single largest (known) mass murder by one individual in history.

- Montefiore provides day by day descriptions of life in the Kremlin, the intrigues amongst Stalin's 'court', the denunciations, confessions, and sexual liaisons amongst the men and women at the 'top' (one of Stalin's favorite things, which he did over and over, was to order the murder of a top official's wife and then force the official to hang around (and, possibly take orders from) her murderer); the meetings between Molotov and Hitler, Stalin and Ribbentrop, FDR, Churchill, etc. - he gives actual confessions, testimonies, and descriptions of Stalin's right hand men being beaten so hard that their eyeballs pop out of their heads (for some reason this is mentioned frequently -- what must be done to a man or woman's head to have an eyeball pushed, not picked, out?) by their former best friends, and, at times, their sons or brothers. Seriously.

The paperback came out last week. A must read.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:32 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Jonathan Lethem wins MacArthur Genius Grant

It'll be in tomorrow's papers and on most Web sites tonight at midnight but a couple of foreign papers have posted their stories early: Jonathan Lethem has been awarded a genius grant worth $500,000. I'll update this post tomorrow with more details once all the winners are officially announced.

Update: Well. Not much to report. Usually there's three or four literary-related Macarthur Fellows, but this year there are just two, Terry Belanger, a rare book preservationist from the University of Virginia, and Lethem. Here's the only Lethem quote about his windfall that I could find so far (from the NY Daily News): "'You probably ought to check in with me in six months,' he said. 'I think I can safely say it's going to give me a lot of the security and freedom that any artist craves.'" I'm sure that he will be compelled to discuss his plans at length sooner than that, and I'm sure other folks will be weighing in on the meaning of this honor for Lethem soon enough, as well.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:49 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

'Punctuation can't save your life'

A lengthy article in the Financial Times takes on America's squeamishness with that most perplexing of punctuations, the semi-colon. Personally, I'm a big semi-colon fan (if one can be said to be a fan of a particular piece of punctuation), but Michael Kinsley, for example, is more cautious:

"I use semicolons and I never really enforced a hard-and-fast rule," Kinsley responded recently by e-mail from the West Coast, where he has been running The Los Angeles Times' opinion pages for the past year."But if abuse is going to be common," he continued, "it's simpler and safer to have a flat-out rule. It's like drug regulation. Drugs are banned sometimes because a minority of users will have negative side effects, or because taking them correctly is complicated, although many people could get it right and would find them helpful. Actually, I'm opposed to that kind of thinking re drugs, but I am OK with it regarding punctuation. Punctuation can't save your life."

- C. Max Magee @ 11:28 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Michael Chabon has announced a release date for his next novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, April 11, 2006. As some of you may recall, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union is set in a parallel world in which the Jewish homeland was set up in Alaska rather than Israel, something that president Franklin D. Roosevelt considered during World War II."

Also recently posted: cryptic word of a film version of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (recently rereleased with a new cover.) Since Chabon is revealing only the initials of those invloved with the film, it's unclear what exactly is going on. Is it me, or is Chabon getting weirder and weirder? If anyone knows who he's talking about here, please let us know.

Previously: What Chabon's been up to

Update: Kyle in the comments was right, Chabon has updated his post about The Mysteries of Pittsburgh film: "to be written and directed by Rawson Thurber, writer/director of the commercially successful and highly amusing Dodgeball (2004)."

Update 2: The Yiddish Policemen's Union has been postponed.

Update 3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union will be out in May 2007. pre-order now.

- C. Max Magee @ 3:28 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Chain store horrors

In the Guardian, Tim Adams bemoans the shrinking selection and big budget marketing fees wrought by ongoing consolidation in the British bookselling industry (taking their cues from the American chain stores, it seems.) Behind this trend is the head buyer of Waterstone's, a man named Scott Pack.

(via Using Books Weblog)

- C. Max Magee @ 3:20 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The home-schooling book boom

There's an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the under-the-radar boost in book sales due to the increasing popularity of home-schooling. According to the article, home-schoolers come in a few different flavors. "The majority of families who home-school are conservative Christians, to be sure. But another sizable portion are secular counterculturalists, and then there are the diplomats, foreign-aid workers or those living in the desert or Alaskan wilderness--anyone far from a school." But what's more interesting is what these students have in common as readers:

a preference for long books, often parts of a series, consumed with a leisure that public-school curricula don't allow; an emphasis on narratives, which children like, divorced from contemporary politics, which surely can wait; and a powerful sense that children are major players in the world, the kind of people, perhaps, who deserve better than large classrooms and who may grow up more likely to write books than to be told which ones to read.

The most popular series, across the political spectrum, are the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books and the books of G.A. Henty.

- C. Max Magee @ 1:45 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Hurricane help

Colleen (a regular contributor at Bookslut) sent me an email about a program she's working on to help kids displaced by Hurricane Katrina. It sounds like a great plan; here are the details:

I'm working with a group in Baton Rouge who are helping children sheltered with their families at Southern University. We have put together a couple of wish lists of books and games that the folks at Parkview Baptist Church will happily deliver to the SU kids and other area shelter kids. Feel free to buy off the lists, and send the links on to everyone you know and pass on my email to anyone who has any questions. We've had some success so far and several publishers, authors, illustrators and reviewers are all kicking in copies of books they are sending direct. If any of your readers would like to do that, I can provide the mailing address.

- C. Max Magee @ 1:36 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Vonnegut's late in life success

Kurt Vonnegut's A Man without a Country is turning into something of a surprise success thanks to prominent TV appearances and the fact that his essays appear to strike a chord with many Americans. From today's AP story: "The book has reached the top 10 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, and publisher Seven Stories Press has already more than doubled its first printing, from 50,000 copies to 110,000." Vonnegut has also taken the opportunity to remark on the onset of old age: "He jokes, sort of, that he has 'lived too long' and wishes he had been finished off by a fire at his home a few years ago, from which he escaped unharmed. 'When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon,' Vonnegut said with a wheezy laugh worthy of a long-term chain smoker."

Previously: New Kurt Vonnegut
See also: Vonnegut talks about the new book on NPR.

- C. Max Magee @ 4:08 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Solitude for sale

Writing at home can be distracting and discouraging. It's hard to concentrate when surrounded by all your stuff. There's TV to watch, chores to do, people to call on the phone, a dog to walk. Days can go by without a word ever being put on the page. So writers seek refuge outside their homes to write in more conducive settings, a local coffee shop or University library, for example. Writers of a certain stature might attend a writers' colony hoping for a stretch of forced productivity, while others will fashion their own writers' colonies by secluding themselves in a rented office to toil away.

With this in mind, two enterprising former MFAs in New York City, noting the need so many writers have for a place to write, have created Paragraph Workspace for Writers. As they describe it:

Paragraph is a membership organization dedicated to providing an affordable and tranquil working environment for writers of all genres. We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Paragraph was created by writers for writers, with an understanding that writers work best in a quiet, comfortable space away from the hurry and obligation of urban life.

For between $80 and $132 a month (depending on length of commitment and level of access) writers can use the space - a decked out 3rd floor apartment on 14th Street - as their own little writing venue. The online application for membership includes space for references, presumably to weed out the crazies. I can think of a few other reasons why this may not work - the more members the group gets, the less worthwhile the space becomes for each individual member; there are hundreds of places in New York that provide the same environment (though perhaps not the 24 hour access), starting with libraries; a writer in need of such a space is not likely to have the disposable income to spend on it - but who knows, maybe it'll work.

- C. Max Magee @ 1:26 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Read This!

The Litblog Co-op's second selection has arrived! What is it? How will it be received? Will the Co-op be praised or reviled? You'll have to go to the blog to find out.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:54 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Silly names

C.S. Forester's fictional naval hero, Horatio Hornblower (of the Hornblower series of adventure novels), has one of the more memorably silly names in literary history. So, British researchers were quite surprised when they found a real life Hornblower in centuries old census records. Other silly names uncovered: Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, and many more.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:04 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Complete Collection's missing books

A few months back there was some fuss about Penguin selling, for close to $8,000, the Complete Collection: More than 1000 of the Greatest Classics. Recently, used bookstore owner Jeff Sharman went through his inventory and found "a handful of forgotten Penguin Classics" - ones that didn't make the cut. He raises an interesting point that not all classics stand the test of time.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:56 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Essential Interview

Mark at TEV has posted the first installment of his interview with John Banville, whose book The Sea has recently been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This is the first of four installments that will appear weekly. Mark did a great job on this interview and I highly recommend it - it's interviews like this, thoughtful and unpretentious, that show the true promise of book blogs.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:45 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Calvin and Hobbes returns, but not the way we wish it would

"Calvin and Hobbes" has begun reappearing - in reruns - in newspaper funny pages around the country as a way to promote what will surely be among the big-ticket book gifts during the upcoming holiday season, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. The 1440 page, 22 and a half pound, three volume, slipcased behemoth is an attempt by the publisher Andrews McNeel to recreate the success of its similarly mammoth offering from two years ago, The Complete Far Side. Judging from the current Amazon ranking of the Calvin and Hobbes book (81), it looks like another high-priced winner for the publisher. Meanwhile, Bill Watterson, the famously reclusive artist behind the strip, is still not speaking publicly, and newspapers around the country are notifying their readers of the beloved strip's brief return with a palpable sense of disappointment. For example in the St. Petersburg Times:

We announce their return with, shall we say, bridled joy. For starters, this is not permanent; Universal Press Syndicate is offering the feature only through Dec. 31. And the strips have been published before.

Will Watterson ever make a comeback, as, I suspect, so many newspaper comics fans hope, or should we just shell out the dough for this voluminous shrine to the best strip to grace the funny pages, well, in my lifetime, anyway. (With apologies to "Bloom County.")

- C. Max Magee @ 9:21 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

One Book, One Chicago's latest selection

Yesterday, the mayor, who doesn't bear much resemblance to Fitzwilliam Darcy, announced that the latest "One Book, One Chicago" selection is Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice. Now, I have no problem with Jane Austen, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book in high school or whenever it was, but this strikes me as just about the blandest, safest pick you can make for one of these "one book, one city" programs. It's hard to see the point of these citywide reading initiatives if all they do is push their way through a high school reading list. Much more valuable would be a book that would get the city buzzing. The program could also be a platform to introduce Chicagoans to a less well-known writer, or, failing that, the "one Book" selection might hinge upon issues more pressing to present day Chicago. That they got it right with the last selection, Walter Van Tilburg Clark's dark Western novel The Oxbow Incident, a book that is both far more underappreciated and which asks much tougher questions than Pride and Prejudice, makes the latest selection even more disappointing. Link: One Book, One Chicago.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:50 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Booker list gets shorter

As has been noted elsewhere, the Booker shortlist was unveiled today. This year's six book list has a lot of name recognition. Here are the shortlisters: The Sea by John Banville, Arthur and George by Julian Barnes, A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Accidental by Ali Smith and On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

Of note: Salman Rushdie, J.M. Coetzee and Ian McEwan don't make the cut. I still like Ishiguro to win it, but the bookies have Barnes as the big favorite, Ali Smith as the longshot and everyone else bunched in the middle. You can track the odds here (if you're into that sort of thing.)

Additionally: The Guardian has analysis and excerpts.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:11 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Amazon reviewer shenanigans

Amazon reviews are kind of silly. One has to wade through lots of cranks to get to a useful review, and even then it's hard to put that much faith in a few sentences penned by a complete stranger (although I have been known to pen Amazon reviews, on occasion). Still, they undoubtedly do have an effect on sales and on peoples' perceptions of particular books, so when instances of unfair play come to light it can piss people off - like when it was revealed that authors were pseudonymously reviewing their own books (scroll down). With these same concerns in mind, I reprint this email that I received from an eagle-eyed Millions reader today.

If you go to this page and scroll down to reviewer #235 (who calls him/herself "nyy") you should notice that this reviewer has not reviewed any books. Zero. I emailed Amazon about it, and just got a canned reply about how their reviewers are rated. What do you think -- a typo or a hack or something else?

I have no clue, and I'm sure Amazon would explain it away as a glitch, but it does make me wonder if the customer review system is completely on the level.

Update: The original New York Times article about authors reviewing their own books at Amazon.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:25 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Big news from Apple

Sure, today Apple unvailed the "iPod phone" and the superslim iPod Nano, but the real news is that for the first time, via iTunes, the entire Harry Potter series will be available on digital audio (that's $249 for the whole set). This is more interesting to me for what it represents. As iPods and other high-capacity digital audio players have become ubiquitous and as digital audio delivery (via podcasts and/or services like audible.com) has become more user friendly, the stage has been set for a revolution in reading. Though digital audio books will never overtake paper ones, they will only grow in popularity and sometime soon we may see a mini-revolution in the way people consume literature.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:17 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Tivo for readers

As a proud TiVo owner, I get their email newsletter letting me know about new features and promotions. Rarely do my TV habits and reading habits occupy the same mental turf, but the latest newsletter included a TiVo tip for TV watchers with a bookish bent.

TiVo Tip: Bookworms love TiVo, too! Here's how one TiVo subscriber is using the smart TiVo service to think outside the (TiVo) box, too (oh, c'mon; that's clever). "Many bad movies are based on good books," Larry H. so aptly points out (Prince of Tides, anyone?). "So before I go to the library or bookstore, I do a keyword WishList search for 'BASED ON.' Usually about a dozen or so programs pop up. I'll read the descriptions and see if anything looks interesting."

There you have it, use your TiVo to find good books to read.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:08 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The New York Times 'Funny Pages'

No the Times isn't getting comics, but they are taking a cue from the New Yorker by adding a graphic novel-type comics section to the Sunday magazine. Everybody's been saying for years that "graphic novels" are on the cusp of taking the book world by storm. Is this a step in that direction? The first artist to appear will be, you guessed it, Chris Ware. Get the gory details here.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:02 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Essential interview

Fans of George Saunders should head over to Maud's blog where he has been interviewed. What's the occasion? Saunders has a new book out (today!) called The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:54 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Book blogs: do they matter?

Here's another one: this time it's a CS Monitor article by Randy Dotinga called "Book blogs' buzz grows louder." Over the last year many newspapers have printed some variation of this article. In it, the author introduces his readers to this online literary subculture book blogs. (And once again The Millions fails to get mentioned, but congrats to Mark Sarvas who leads the article - I've got to borrow his PR person.) Almost invariably, these articles also try to assess the impact, if any, that these blogs have on book sales, and almost invariably that question proves very difficult to answer. Here's Dotinga's stab at it:

But is anyone listening? Many book bloggers seem to be talking only to themselves, judging by the dearth of postings by outsiders on their sites. And it's hard to tell if bloggers' mash notes translate into sales at Barnes & Noble.

Which is another way of saying that book blogs have no measurable effect on book sales. We are a drop in the bucket, as it were. It's hard to disagree with that conclusion. Extrapolating from my own numbers, the numbers I've seen mentioned by other book bloggers and the numbers mentioned in Dan Wickett's interviews with book bloggers (1, 2, 3, 4), I'd estimate that on any given day no more than 75,000 people worldwide read a "book blog." Most large publishers wouldn't bother buying an ad if it was only going to reach 75,000, and yet, if my experience is representative, the more prominent book bloggers are recieving e-mail pitches, catalogs, and review copies almost daily. Are these publishers fools to be courting us? Well, yes and no. Anyone expecting a burst of sales from being mentioned on The Millions is sadly deluded, and the same is likely true of an isolated mention on any of the dozens of other book blogs out there. But, collectively, we book bloggers are able to deliver something that is hard to come by: a targeted audience. Publishers know that the people who read book blogs are many times more likely to buy a book than non-book blog readers, and by thrusting books into our hands, they hope to reach our coveted audience and get a little word of mouth going. If all the pieces fall into place, I think it's possible that book blogs are capable of boosting the sales of a particular book, though not enough to get it onto any bestseller lists.

But I have another theory as to why these publishers are courting us: It's fun. For the first time there is an informed, entertaining conversation about books going on that anyone in the world can listen in on. No longer do the desk jockeys in the publicity department have to spend all their time clipping reviews and engineering in-store events, now they get to read blogs - now they get to feel like they're a part of the book discussion. They get to reach out directly to the most passionate readers. (I suspect this is why authors and all sorts of publisher types seem to love book blogs, too.) So, sure they want us to sell some books for them if we can, but, secretly, I think they just want to join in the fun.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:37 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Flood book fascination

It's always interesting, to me anyway, to see how current events drive books sales. Everybody is interested in Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath right now, but it will likely be at least a month or two before the first books on the storm are published - and those will be the rush jobs with lots of photographs and not much text. So for now, the vaccuum must be filled by other books. One of these, apparently, is Rising Tide a book from 1997, which according to the AP, has gotten a big boost in sales since the storm. The book by John M. Barry is subtitled "The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America," and I'm guessing that people are reading it in order to see how a natural disaster might cause America to change once again. Barry spoke about Rising Tide on NPR's Weekend Edition. And here's an excerpt from the book. Another book seeing increased sales - judging by its Amazon ranking - is Isaac's Storm, Erik Larsen's 1999 book about the 1900 Galveston hurricane (which may be surpassed by Katrina as the deadliest storm in American history.) Here's an excerpt from that book.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:39 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Perspective on Orhan Pamuk by Emre Peker

Funny how things work. I got 3 emails from friends asking what I think about Orhan Pamuk's prosecution. As you might have heard, Turkey is bringing charges against the prominent writer for denigrating the country. Clearly, this is a rather backward move in a country with aspirations of joining the EU. The issues at hand are the oh-so-touchy matters of the so-called Armenian genocide and the deaths caused by the Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey. With regards to the first matter I will chose to remain silent as I do not consider myself well informed on the issue. Any good Turk, by my country's laws that is, would vehemently deny any such allegations and attempt to convince you that atrocities were committed by both sides (Ottomans and Armenians alike) and that it was during the Great War, and, well, shit like that happened in wars and thousands could perish for no good reason. I have a proclivity to side with this argument and, though the Turks might have inflicted greater damage on the Armenians, I believe the issue became more of a political tool as opposed to a matter of stating the obvious, as in the Holocaust. Having grown up in Turkey with an Armenian as a best friend and having had no exposure to the particular events concerning the Armenians in my Turkish History classes (perhaps because of the government's discretion) I defer to the little facts that there are and people's common sense, which usually lacks, on this issue.

The second and more present issue of the Kurdish insurgency, however, is not as opaque as the Armenian issue. The PKK (that is the Kurdish People's Party, a terrorist organization banned by most countries, including the US and most of the EU) began it's uprising in 1984 and mounted it to great heights immediately after the First Gulf War. 1991-1996 was an especially bleak period where it was common to read of 8-25 deaths a day in each newspaper. During this period a good portion of Turkey's eastern provinces were under Martial Law, certain towns and cities believed to harbor terrorists were completely emptied, living conditions declined all around, and there was constant fighting in the mountains and along the border with Syria and Iraq. At one point Turkey was carrying out bombings in the Iraqi no fly zone and threatened war with Syria if it did not stop supporting, training, and housing PKK members. During the '90s over 30,000 people, civilians, soldiers, and terrorist, lost their lives in battles, bombings, and straight out massacres.

Now back to Orhan Pamuk's assertions and prosecution. According to The Independent and the BBC, Pamuk stated that "[t]hirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands (Turkey)" in an interview with Tages Anzeiger, a Swiss newspaper, in February. I agree that there are certain historical inconsistencies that need to be fixed on the Armenian issue and certain necessary reforms for Turkey to overcome it's problems with Kurdish citizens. Pamuk's assertions, however, are more speculative and provocative, especially from a Turkish point of view. As I pointed out above, I will refrain from touching on the issues of the so-called Armenian genocide. As for the massacre of over 30,000 Kurds, however, I feel the obligation to point out that Pamuk has his facts wrong. The deaths were in both camps. There is a dire need to grant greater freedoms to the Kurdish population in Turkey, as well as a serious governmental obligation to improve life in the eastern parts of the country. To state that all the deaths were a result of aggressive government policies and that they were, without discrimination, strictly Kurdish, however, is a wrong and foul. It is also inconsiderate towards those who lost their lives in the fight against Kurdish terrorism. The flaw in Pamuk's statements is that they embody and support western, that is mostly European, perspectives on how Turkey did and should handle these two issues. Therefore, Pamuk falls afoul with the laws, which I admit are a bit backward, but further arouses discontent and pain among many Turkish citizens.

All in all it is still disgraceful to prosecute Pamuk on the current charges. The government clearly has certain shortcomings. Otherwise they would be able to invite Pamuk to an open discussion and back arguments to the contrary with evidence. It is curious that the archives on both issues are either non-existent or jealously guarded. Pamuk is most likely to walk away from his trial without any damage, and the issue is bound to close. The greater problems at hand however, mainly dealing with the Armenian allegations of genocide and the separatist Kurds, are likely to be outstanding for the foreseeable future. I only wish that influential and smart people like Pamuk would use their stature for more productive activities as opposed to populist outburst. I am curious as to how Pamuk's trial will unfold, what backlash Turkey will receive in her ambitions for joining the EU, and most importantly how our government will one day address both issues.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:17 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Weekend links

• On Zadie Smith in the Guardian:

  The new novel arrived fully-formed: Zadie Smith woke up one morning, and On Beauty was all there, in her head. She wanted to write a long marriage - she'd just got married herself, was curious what 30 years of it would be like - and she had a plot. When she described it to her new husband, poet and novelist Nick Laird, however, he pointed out she was simply rewriting Howards End. But she has never been afraid of tribute, and [E.M.] Forster was a "first love"; she had a couple of serious wobbles but this did not put her off.

  The Guardian also gives the book a good review. On Beauty comes out September 13.
• Every once in a while I spot an interesting looking item in those ads at the top of the page. Today I saw one for Out of Eden: Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick. It looks like the sort of book you'd like if you like Jared Diamond's books. It describes how different invasive species have managed to relocate to new parts of the globe.
• Tattoos and literature are becoming ever more enmeshed, it seems. Recent novels by Jill Ciment and John Irving dwell on tattoos, and now a Brooklyn writer, Shelley Jackson, "has been having volunteers tattooed with individual words of her 2,095-word short story ("Skin") since 2003. Only 700 words remain to be tattooed." Read about it here.
• Another online book-tracking and tagging application: Reader2

- C. Max Magee @ 4:29 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Another book news feed

NPR has created a nice collection of audio RSS feeds (podcasts) by topic and/or program. Among them is a feed for segments about books. I've added it to the Book News via RSS collection of book news feeds. Here's the whole collection.

- C. Max Magee @ 4:05 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Andrei Codrescu and the hurricane

I noticed that in the past few days several people have come to this blog after searching Andrei Codrescu and hurricane. Codrescu, a Romanian poet, writer and NPR commentator, is a favorite of mine and when I realized that he makes his home in New Orleans, I became worried that he might be missing. I'm guessing that those searching for him on Google are worried, too. In an interview a little more than a year ago Codrescu, like so many others, dismissed the threat to New Orleans:

Standaert: You live in New Orleans, which could be submerged in a matter of a few short hours if a 'category five' hurricane hits the city full bore. Does this frighten you? Sorry if I brought it to mind! I've heard other residents say with a devil may care wave of the hand that it would be appropriate if New Orleans was Pompeii-ed, Atlantis-ed, or otherwise Sodom and Gomorra-ed. Are these people nuts? Or does living in New Orleans breed a laissez faire attitude toward eminent apocalypse? Is it the decadent caramelized, sugar powdered, steaming apple beignets?

Codrescu: So what's living in San Francisco like? Or L.A.? Or New York? Or anywhere on the path of Comet from Hell? Be serious, Mike. This just ain't a safe universe. People in New Orleans get great pleasure out of possible disaster just like Venetians do: they are in a hurry to make beauty because they are so close to the elemental (fury) gods. But anyone who decided to be boring because they live on a rock under the desert, is either crazy or hasn't taken enough LSD. Or they may just be boring, which is incurable. There is nothing sicker than a bunker.

I was relieved to hear that Codrescu is safe and in Baton Rouge. Yesterday he mourned on NPR. Like so many others he is both chastened by the wrath of Mother Nature and angry that his beloved city has been destroyed.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:15 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Watching New Orleans

It's been hard to watch the news the last couple of days. I've been interning with chicagotribune.com this summer, so, since Monday, I've been pretty immersed in what's been happening on the Gulf coast - as immersed as one can be, I suppose, with out being actually immersed. Judging from the light traffic this blog has gotten over the past few days, I'm guessing most folks have been spending their online time reading the news, as I have. Aside from the major news sources - CNN, etc. - here's what I've been refreshing many times a day: the WWLTV blog, the Times Picayune Breaking News Weblog, The Irish Trojan's blog, and The Interdictor. It's amazing how much all the blogs out there have enriched the coverage of this catastrophe. It's a great time to be a news consumer.

But you may, like me, also need a diversion from the news. Luckily, my favorite New Yorker of the year has just arrived at my doorstep: The Food Issue. I can't wait to start reading it. Other diversions:

• The Chicagoist is giving away three books to promote Picador USA's 10th anniversary event at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago
• I might have to try this: Library Thing is a Web site where you can catalog your library. You can tag the books by subject, and the system pulls in Library of Congress cataloging data. Free for the first 200 books and 10 dollars for a 20,000 book limit. (via H2O)
• Bookfinder.com, the ultimate Web site for tracking down hard to find books, has released their latest list "of the most sought after out of print titles in America."

- C. Max Magee @ 9:32 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post