Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Jun 28, 2011, 9:52 am
Since we seem to support this idea here at SotB - it's not about posting constantly or even consistently, but rather it's about posting important and relevant material, ya see? - I thought I would pull a quote I read recently and post it here. It's a quote that speaks to our deepest concerns in this... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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May 18, 2011, 11:24 am
This just in, Philip Roth has won the 2011 Man Boo...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Sorry, I fell asleep while reporting this news as it bored me to death while typing.
Here's the story.
H... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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May 13, 2011, 1:53 pm
I was interested in two recent pieces that address the hard choices editors have to make. We are punished at times because some writers feel we are punishing them - for not writing about fuzzy bunnies and cute puppies and pretty flowers.
First, we have Raina Wallace over at The Rumpus writing about... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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May 3, 2011, 8:25 am
As an editor, I'm of course concerned about the publishing industry caving in on itself, gutting its own support beams in its mad rush to digital products that cannot sustain labor that is thoughtful, wide-ranging, with workers trying to be prescient, trying to work with authors on deep and thorough... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Apr 29, 2011, 3:40 pm
Sad news today out of New Haven, CT, where apparently the Labyrinth Bookstore may close, as soon as two weeks from now. (I initially read this news this morning in the daily installment of Shelf Awareness.) I mentioned this store almost three years ago here, when we stopped there on a mini-tour of b... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Apr 12, 2011, 1:56 pm
It should come as no surprise to any of us - especially those of us who are *not* big fans of Amazon - that the (sometime) bookselling giant has just announced an even CHEAPER Kindle! Here's the cheap li'l harlot now, folks, marked down to the oh-so-reasonable $114. How do they do it?!
Oh, with ads ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Apr 6, 2011, 3:54 pm
Before I get into this post let me get something out of the way. The whole book jacket issue thing makes me crazy. I have been on all sides of it as an editor, agent, and customer and my personal take on it is that it’s a big, fancy wank job. Has a book jacket helped in catching my eye? Yup. Have ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Apr 3, 2011, 10:39 pm
When I post something on here, no one screens it for me. This is sometimes painfully obvious, as when I include a glaring error, from a misspelled word to something just plain wrong. But Christopher and I purposely use this space to mouth off about whatever annoys, amuses, pleases, or frustrates us.... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 28, 2011, 10:21 pm
It goes like this: a blogger gives a book a poor review and the author sees said bad review and posts a comment about the review in defense of her book. That's that, right? All over. Wrong. So wonderfully wrong. Next, instead of taking her lumps, all HELL BREAKS LOOSE with the author, Jacqueline How... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 27, 2011, 9:32 pm
With great trepidation, I went to see Tod Machover's Death and the Powers: The Robot's Opera, a production of the American Repertory Theater playing at the Cutler Majestic here in Boston. I may be a nerd, but I'm not really a geek. For example, the video art on display by Stan VanderBeek at MIT's Li... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 21, 2011, 11:15 am
I hate to say it, but it seems... Christopher and I are Pluggers (tm). Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 20, 2011, 6:55 pm
I was rather shocked to watch the video and see the photos posted over at deTROITfuUNK, of the now deceased Mark Twain Library. The images are a powerful look at what could happen in other communities if we allow the government to cut funding and close branches of public libraries. I'm not saying th... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 14, 2011, 1:46 pm
I recently heard from a friend of mine, Felicia Pride, who has become a one-woman force in publishing as founder of Backlist, about this opportunity, which I'm passing along. (I feel comfortable doing so as it's supported by public television station WETA out of DC.)
(PS: Remember to support public ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 12, 2011, 10:46 am
As I've written here before, I'm increasingly frustrated by this black/white divide between big publishing and self-publishing. Authors have more options than this. Self-publishing companies, out to make big bucks off the backs of authors who feel they'd be better off just doing it themselves rather... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 10, 2011, 9:23 am
I was intrigued last week when I read in Shelf Awareness that Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY, is going co-op. Explains the "present owner," Gary Weissbrot,
Four days after sending out my farewell closing letter, Bob Proehl put out a well considered and passionate proposal asking our community ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 7, 2011, 11:09 am
I have long held that Melville House is one of the coolest independent publishers out there, led by the a great director, Dennis Johnson. They have proven to be innovative, open-minded, progressive, intelligent, and mouthy - all qualities I admire in publishing.
Now comes word that they're hiring! ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 4, 2011, 2:12 pm
Tomorrow, March 5th, is World Book Night. Why the hell didn't we think of this?
From the Guardian UK:
World Book Night 2011The first ever World Book Night is being held on Saturday, with events across the UK being held and at least 1million free books being given away. Here are the books being g... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Mar 1, 2011, 11:15 am
Another terrible blow to the intellectual life of our nation. Farewell, Rev. Gomes. He was a kind man of deep sympathy and a passionate intellectual rising from public school to Harvard. He was also my minister. What a loss.
From the Harvard Gazette:
The Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Profe... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Feb 14, 2011, 10:35 am
First the lead in from Matt Taibbi:
While, outside of America, Russian-born Rand is probably best known for being the unfunniest person western civilization has seen since maybe Goebbels or Jack the Ripper (63 out of 100 colobus monkeys recently forced to read Atlas Shrugged in a laboratory setti... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Feb 11, 2011, 4:47 pm
"People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book," Amis said, in a sideways excursion from a chat about John Self, the antihero of his 1984 novel Money. "I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you'r... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Feb 1, 2011, 12:19 pm
An admission: I am a blog loser. I try to post on a regular basis but life gets in the way. (Don't we all say that except for, like, Bookslut?) Plus, I am as pessimistic these days about books and publishing as I have ever been...and that is saying something since my first job ever (literally the da... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Jan 27, 2011, 1:46 pm
The Brits are talking libraries big time, as protests continue over the looming threats to their public library system. (I love the protest wherein community members checked out all the books! Brilliant.) They have planned for a Save Our Libraries Day of Action on February 5th, and I'm still wonderi... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Jan 12, 2011, 3:23 pm
On this snowy New England day, perhaps you, dear reader, have not read that opinionated old coot Richard Posner's latest blog entry, in which he poses the headline question, "Can Bookstores Survive?" His answer seems to be, in a nutshell, "good news: no!"
I appreciate Posner laying out the pros and ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 31, 2010, 5:13 pm
It is not a resolution, as it's been building over the last year, and I'm now confident it will continue. I'm really loving poetry right now. Not in a read-a-bit/write-some-garbage kind of way, but in a why-did-I-ever-stop-reading-this-and-who-do-I-read-next kind of way. There's much to discover.
To... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 29, 2010, 9:56 pm
With today's LA Times interview with Russ Grandinetti, VP for content or some crap from Amazon, by Alex Pham, I feel like I had a mini epiphany. I think it was when Grandinetti said one of many lines that Amazon trots out regularly, like well-trained politicians, this one about Amazon's vision to ma... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 26, 2010, 8:25 pm
Her name sounds a bit like a drag queen, in which case I am that guy in the front row of her show applauding a bit too much.
Amber Sparks has a great post over at Big Other from earlier this month, about the lack of working class representation in literature (which I found via Daniel Pritchard's Th... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 20, 2010, 10:09 pm
I have written about Cory Doctorow before - I mean, anyone who writes about publishing / media / anything even vaguely related to the internet has written about the man. He's whipsmart and very visible and has done a lot of great work. In the latest article from him that's getting attention, in last... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 20, 2010, 11:50 am
I consider myself part of the problem I'm considering today. The need to widen the scope in our conversations, to include multiple perspectives, can certainly be work, but it's work worth doing. It's easy to gravitate toward people like you and that's something we'll always do, so we all need to rem... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 2, 2010, 9:33 pm
I read this story from Eugenia Williamson in the Boston Phoenix with an eyebrow cocked. It opens with news that indie bookstores are hot property in Boston right now, and goes on to explain how the big chains - B&N and Borders - are suffering from not jumping into the digital market fast enough and ... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Dec 1, 2010, 11:15 am
A quick post before the whole stinking thing comes to a complete halt. Congratulations to Percival Everett for winning the 2010 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award for I am Not Sidney Poitier. Ok, no, it isn't the most well known award in the universe but it does shine a light on the best noveli... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Nov 26, 2010, 11:02 am
First, our deepest apologies here at SotB. We have been horrible and have not updated this blog in far too long. I hope you all will remember that we do have day jobs, and those jobs got very demanding in the last month.
But now the holiday season is upon us and that means, of course, a time to refl... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Nov 3, 2010, 10:59 am
Ironically, we ourselves have moved from words to video, just as we hope books won't. I know, right?! But these "movies" are all the rage, so I wanted to use this tool to make a snarky, ridiculous, absurd entry into the e-book debates. I could have made one that is more like a conversation between m... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 31, 2010, 8:23 pm
We have some new followers at our Twitter account thanks to Christopher's expert - by which I mean "snarky" - live-tweeting from Harvard's "Why Books?" conference itself on Friday. I sat next to him for most of it and we shared nods and notes (not all of which are blog-appropriate) and eye-rolls. It... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 26, 2010, 11:51 am
Howdy. Usually when I take to these airwaves (whatevs) I do so to scold, make fun, or generally make an ass of myself by being outraged about this or that stupid happening in book publishing (I'm looking at you Justin Beaver). Not this time. Everyone knows I am anti-Kindle. I think the device is jus... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 17, 2010, 12:40 pm
It's a beautiful fall weekend here in New England, and yesterday saw the exciting, much-publicized Boston Book Festival, now in its second year. I went to one event and then wandered around with some friends to the booths, and it was all in all an impressive showcase of talent and publisher marketin... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 14, 2010, 8:00 pm
I went to a reading this afternoon by Paul Harding, famed novelist of the (surprise) Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Tinkers, published by the tiny, independent, non-profit Bellevue Literary Press. I will say first that Harding was great as a reader. He read a terrific passage that was entertaining, wi... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 13, 2010, 12:41 pm
From one of the great voices of the internet (and a personal hero of mine), Richard Metzger comes this stinging rebuke to Lee Seigel's piece in the New York TImes Book Review comparing the Beat Generation with the current Tea Party.
From Richard:
“I think I’m going to puke.”Blowhard asshole Le... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 13, 2010, 12:19 pm
(plus the names of the judges to blame if they don't pick your favorite book from each list) - CV
FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2010 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS Fiction
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Alfred A. Knopf)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)
Nicole Krauss, Great House (... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 13, 2010, 12:12 pm
I am not really sure why anyone would want to create artificial barriers to writing a novel-Ok, I do. I am looking at you Oulipo Group-but if you are interested in making your writing life even harder then November 1st marks the first day of National Novel Writing Month. The simple goal of the event... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 12, 2010, 10:11 pm
This weekend, I spent some time at my sister's house, having her six year old son show me how he uses their iPad, as my parents looked on, only slightly more confused than me. We all figured out the basics and within no time, were scanning up and down and flipping through applications, but at the en... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Oct 5, 2010, 3:50 pm
I don't want to get all Wendall Berry on you. I like plenty of modern things. I also am not necessarily always cranky. But I do like to spend an evening now and again with some old school cranks. I like the physicality, the challenge, the reactions. I'm getting ahead of myself - let me explain.
My p... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Sep 21, 2010, 9:58 am
From this morning's Shelf Awareness:
"I’m really concerned about it. And nobody knows where it's going-particularly in terms of the relationship of the Internet to the print media. But writing isn't going to go away. There's a big shake-up-the thing that comes to mind is that it's like in a basket... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Sep 19, 2010, 12:14 pm
I know I just posted on something said over at Booksquare, and here I am writing about another post there, but I've gone back to this post multiple times in the past few days, which makes it seem worthwhile to talk about here. Right? Right.
The new post in question is from Sept. 14th, and in it, Kas... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Sep 15, 2010, 10:39 am
On this wonderfully cool fall day, I want to offer you two good links, one of which may bring a smile and the other, a bit more thoughtful.
First with fun: LOOK at this library information desk made from books!
Can you believe it?! So friggin' fun. It's at the Delft University of Technology, in the... Comment - Like
Boston B. posted an article on
Survival of the Book
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Sep 12, 2010, 4:28 pm
If you haven't done so already, I would recommend you head over to the Booksquare blog to read Kassia Krozser's post about the "question of value" in books. Krozser nails a lot of problems in publishing these days. She calls into question the gatekeeping role of publishers who get so hung up on an a... Comment - Like
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