For the first time since 1991 The Abandoned (aka Jennie) by Paul Gallico is coming back into print in the United States. The book has been featured on the BookFinder.com Report, for the most sought after out-of-print books in America, 5 times including each of the last 3 years.
The novel is about a young London boy who is hit by a large truck while attempting to save a stray cat. When he comes to he realizes that he has been transformed into a feline himself, and with the help of a savvy stray, Jennie, learns to navigate the tough city of London on four paws.
The latest publisher of the book is The New York Review of Books, and I got a
chance to ask their publishing Editor, Edwin Frank, why he decided to bring the
book back into print after so many years.
“When I was a kid I had a friend who
loved Gallico, and remembering that I read "The Abandoned" around the
time we started the kids book series. I didn't acquire it right then,
but it stuck in mind--it's a memorable book--and it kept coming up in
surprising ways in conversations with different people, always an interesting
indication. So I bought it....”
The New York Review of books edition of The Abandoned is set for an April 9th release, but you can pre-order a copy now.
There was a time when an author could make a substantial living off short stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald was famously chained to the financial gravy train that his short stories produced and was unable to work on the more glamorous novels that he yearned to write. This idolizing of the novel demonstrates the bum rap that short stories have gotten over the past 100 years or so.
As literary magazines closed down, newspapers shut their doors to fiction, and pop culture magazines became all pop and no culture the avenues for short story writers to publish their works have all but dried up. For most short stories to really work you need a cheap and fast distribution method that provides a quick turnaround time allowing the writer to keep their finger on the pulse of their audience.
Modern short story writers mainly had to rely on publishing collections of short stories bound together as a full book, which kind of sells the medium short. You have all the length, and cost, of a novel but without the ability to develop characters or build the story arch as eloquently. It’s hard to argue that in a one to one fight the novel would often win.
It’s a shame but I have witnessed this first hand. My first experience with P. G. Wodehouse was when a friend of mine lent me an omnibus of Jeeves and Wooster stories. I loved the first dozen or so short stories but only got about a third of the way though the book before getting bogged down with flat characters. I still like Wodehouse, and whenever I have a Wooster story thrust in my direction I enjoy it; but I need small doses.
But the tides are starting to change and technology may be the savior of the short story. The rise of eReaders has provided short story authors with a very cheap method of delivering their wares to eager readers in bite sized chunks. The New York Times recently wrote a nice piece on this topic in which is a quote which I feel sums up the relationship between the short story and the eReader.
“The single-serving quality of a short narrative is the perfect art form for the digital age,” said Ms. Dermont, whose collection is due out next month. “Stories are models of concision, can be read in one sitting, and are infinitely downloadable and easily consumed on screens.”
Stories are also perfect for the digital age, she added, because readers “want to connect and want that connection to be intense and to move on.” That is, after all, what a short story is all about.
I am as guilty as the next man when it comes to failing to seek out short stories, yet enjoying them when they fall into my lap. Perhaps an eReader might be the solution to my own lethargy providing me with a parade of short fiction for my mid transit reading. What do you think? Would you read more short stories if they were more easily accessible?
You can read the full New York Times article here
If you are looking for a nice way to spend the better part of an hour this weekend, I recommend this BBC Radio 4 discussion on the life of William Caxton; who first set up a printing business in Bruges before returning to England in 1476 with presses in tow. Caxton is thought to be one of the first, if not the first, person to bring the printing press to England. He was a fascinating businessman and this podcast discusses his work, as well as early printing in Western Europe.
As with all Radio 4 programs the chatter is wonderful and I think my favourite part of the discussion is when the panel is opines it was the typewriter, and not the printing press, that killed the manuscript and the scribe. Scribes were continued to be sought after well past the advent of the printing press because with their aid no book was ever out of print, they were in effect the first Print-on-demand service. Additionally the group suggested that if you were looking to truly impress someone with a gift in the sixteenth century, a printed monochrome book would play second fiddle to a much more beautiful and colourful manuscript created by a talented scribe.
The whole conversation sounded so familiar to what I see on various blogs in the 21st century about the merits of Fine Press books in a digital age, whether print-on-demand books add any value to publishing, and if eBooks are going to destroy publishing as we know it. It was kind of comforting to remember that we really have been though all this before.
The program was recorded as a podcast and can be found via this link on the BBC website
Things are bad all over, with economies slowed debt levels have become a more accentuated concern and all eyes are turning to public services. No program or service is safe from scrutiny, it seems, and in Brittan the fight is on to keep the nations libraries.
According to an annual report from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy the country has lost 347 libraries in past two years, down to 4,265. As grave as this sounds the news becomes more bleak when the figures for library attendance partly justify the closures. Visits to libraries across the UK have also dropped 2.4% in the past year and 6.7% compared with five years ago; and borrowing rates are down comparable figures.
So now the fight is on, with opponents claiming that: shutting down libraries is no way to improve public education, libraries also provide internet access to the less privileged, meeting places for social groups are a valuable community service, and they provide a service to job seekers looking to hone their resumes. Those in favor of the reductions to public spending point the aforementioned statistics, adding that not all libraries should be closed only the ones no longer being used; the same study indicates that while many libraries are being closed the largest libraries are mainly staying open. The Norfolk and Norwich Millennium library had 1.18m books issued and 1.34m visitors alone in the past year.
So is it simply a redistribution of resources, or are rural British getting the short end of the stick? And what are we to do about it? You can follow this story in The Guardian.
Every year when we release the details of the BookFinder.com Report I am contacted by journalists who want to know “Why are people looking for <insert book title here>?” The story differs by journalist and from year to year but essentially it boils down to the fact that it’s often tough to figure out why a book, which has seemingly been ignored for years, is suddenly so sought after.
With some titles it’s very easy to spot that they were cited in newly popular book/TV show/movie or were recommended by some form of celebrity (see my previous post about John Yudkin’s book Pure, White and Deadly). I am usually able to explain these stories pretty quickly, but the books which seem to cause the greatest puzzlement are the ones which have no sexy back story, they have just been recommended again and again on online message boards for hobbyists as great books to help someone do something. Books like The Modern Gunsmith by James Virgil Howe and the Collector’s Guide to Colt .45 Service Pistols by W. Clawson have been out of print for several years but continue to be a better resource for a niche group of enthusiasts than any new books that are being published.
Another book which falls into the great timeless books category is A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (#13 on the 2012 BookFinder.com Report). At first glance you might want to throw this title into the vast bin of awful celebrity cookbooks, but the thing that separates Vincent Price from the chaff like Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better by Dom DeLuise is that Price was an honest to goodness gourmet cook.
In the 1970s he had his own Cooking Television show in Britain called Cooking Pricewise; here’s a clip of Vincent making a salmon dish with Wolfgang Puck (although truthfully I don’t believe it was from Cooking Pricewise, rather another television appearance). I also found some great audio on Vincent Price’s website from an International Cooking Course he narrated. I’ve been listening to “Exotic Delights of the Far East” while writing this post and dinnertime cannot come soon enough.
Price also authored several other cookbooks including Come Into The Kitchen, A National Treasury of Cookery (5 vols.), and a printed companion to his cooking show also called Cooking Pricewise.
One last interesting fact about Mr. Price was that he was also a noted art collector, and his book Treasury of American Art has been also out-of-print since 1972.
Every year around this time the BookFinder.com team puts our heads together, crunches the numbers and cranks out the BookFinder.com Report; a snapshot of the nation's search trends for out-of-print books. After 10 years of researching the most sought after out-of-print books in America, we’ve learned a few things:
- Sex still sells: 20 years after it was first published, Madonna’s Sex has been the most sought after out-of-print book on BookFinder.com for the past ten years.
- Nora Roberts has very little influence on her fans: Despite Nora Roberts pleading with her fans to avoid Promise Me Tomorrow (a book she herself has described as mediocre), the book remains painfully expensive and highly sought after.
- Stephen King knows this pain all too well, he decided to take his novel Rage, which is about a school shooting, out-of-print some time ago and he just can't seem to shake the demand.
- Publishers should re-print more Alice Starmore books: Starmore is a rock-star of the knitting world; known for creating some of the world’s most intricate patterns and having written a number of books. Her book Aran Knitting appeared on every BookFinder.com Report from 2003-2010 until it was re-printed in 2011, only to be replaced by Tudor Roses (#60 in 2011 and #13 in 2012). Starmore also has several other out-of-print books including In The Hebrides (1995) and Stillwater (1996).
Many of the books we see on the BookFinder.com report persist on the list for years. Sometimes they were simply limited-run books that remain popular and demand always outstripped supply. Sometimes a popular author decides they want a certain chapter of their writing career to stay firmly in their rearview mirror (see Roberts, Nora). However, even after 10 years, there are still out-of-print books coming back out of the woodwork. Here are a couple of this year’s surprises:
- Kyle Onstott’s Mandingo has featured on several past reports. However, this year the author appeared on the 2012 Report three times: Mandingo, DRUM, and The Black Sun; more than any other author.
- Big League Sales-closing Techniques by Les Dane is considered by many to be a salesman’s bible, even though it’s been out-of-print since 1971. Word-of-mouth recommendations on internet bulletin boards and review sites have pushed the price of this out-of-print guide through the roof.
- Pure, White and Deadly; the Problem of Sugar by John Yudkin was first published in 1972 and outlines research showing that refined sweeteners are closely associated with heart disease and type-two diabetes. The book was all but forgotten, despite being highly topical, until it was featured in Robert Lustig’s lecture “Sugar: The Bigger Truth” which attained YouTube viral success. Because of this, Yudkin’s book was re-printed in the UK but remains out-of-print for Americans.
See the 2012 BookFinder.com Report, the hot 100 out-of-print books of the past 12 months.
The town of McAllen Texas was recently repurposed an abandoned Walmart building into the towns new 124,000sq library. The new facility is fantastic and completely state of the art; it even won the International Interior Design Association "2012 Library Interior Design Award."
I encourage you to look at some of the photos, even though it is quite modern I still really like the look of this library.
In 1993 Douglas Adams, the world-renowned author of The Hitchhikers Guide of the Galaxy, recorded a short piece of audio for his US publisher of the time – Bob Stein of Voyager Expanded Books. Who would know how prophetic his words would sound nearly twenty years later, and how accurate his sense of the evolution of the book was.
In this short recording, Douglas Adams charts the evolution of the book from the ‘hardware problems’ of writing on rocks, to scrolls, to the bound book and finally the silicon chip. The animation to go along with it was created as part of the International Douglas Adams Animation Competition.
From
The Literary Platform
First off, I want to offer my apologies for not posting here more often. It doesn’t feel as if I have neglected you for a couple months but indeed this is the case.
I found a basic reading test this morning which gives you page of text, asks three basic comprehension questions and then ranks you against the national (US) average.
It’s not a perfect test since the text is so short but it is kind of fun. Let us know how fast you read.
How fast do you read?
John Locke, a Columbia architecture grad, has set up a little conceptual experiment which he is calling the Department of Urban Betterment whose chief duty is to covert old pay phone boxes into tiny libraries.
Apparently he's set up two booths so far and had limited success. Apparently the first booth had all its books lifted, and then the shelves stolen within a few days. The second booth faired a bit better with pedestrians both taking and leaving books for while, but eventually it suffered the same fate as the first. Locke plans to continue his experiments but in future booths he wants to add some simple instructions to help show pedestrians the intended use.
Personally I love it, and I think that with a little education it could be a great addition to some neighbourhoods. Full interview with Locke available here
Reading the blogs and newsletters of the book trade can be a bit depressing at times. Not a week goes by without someone bemoaning the death of the industry and the absolute futility of it all. It is no secret that a very large number of booksellers, especially of the rare and collectible ilk, are on the older end of the baby boom; and that many (but not all) seem to think that somewhere along the line everything went terribly wrong in raising the next generation.
To this I have two comments. First, doesn't that sounds oh so similar to what the parents of the boomers themselves may have said around the time of the Summer of Love? Second, I think the rare and collectible book trade will be just fine. For full disclosure I'm 30 years old and am the son of a baby boomer myself, so feel free to take my opinion with as many grains of salt as you see fit.
Rare books are expensive, even scarce books take a certain amount of patience to find and acquire. Rome was not built in a day, and neither was a quality book collection. Young adults and youth today care just as much about the written word and this website could even be the lynchpin of the argument. BookFinder.com was created in 1997 by a young 19-year-old college student named Anirvan because he was trying to complete his Doonesbury collection. Just because he didn't pick up a copy of the AB Bookman didn't make him any less of a collector.
This is why I am so happy to see latest series from The Fine Books Blog has where they are interviewing young folks in the book industry. Here you can read an interview with 22-year-old Ashley Loga who has embarked on a career in the rare book trade after attending the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. Her view on the future of the rare book trade pretty much matches mine.
Being only 22, I am perhaps one of the youngest ones currently in the trade. Personally, I am tired of this defeatist attitude. I frequently come across people bemoaning the death of the business on the list-serves. This frustrates me greatly. Having a defeatist attitude only hinders the business and does not help it grow at all. Everyone says that people my age do not collect but this is untrue. I know quite a few people under the age of 30 who collect books and take pride in their collections. I think this view partially comes from a disconnect with the older age group and the younger age group. And partially from the fact that people my age do not have the funds to buy books on the higher end of prices. Book fair advertisements need to not only target the older crowd through newspaper advertisements but also find new ways to target people in their 20s and 30s. The customers' desires are merely shifting: the business is not dying.
You can read the whole article here. What"s your feeling?
The First Sale Doctrine is an everyday part of life for used booksellers. If you are not familiar with the term it is essentially a limitation in the copyright act that allows the purchaser of copyrighted good to transfer (sell, lend, giveaway) said good without gaining permission from the copyright holder. This limitation was recognized in 1908 after the case of Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, in which the publisher Bobbs-Merrill attempted to limit the price that the Macey's Dept. Store could sell their publications for.
This ruling has been, mostly, sufficient for regulating physical goods, however since the proliferation of digital media artists, producers, and consumers have been unsure how to proceed. Can I lend someone my mp3 collection? Can I borrow a digital book from a library? Should a digital books have a lifespan?
I was reading a post on the Brave New World blog which got me thinking about this topic again. If publishers want consumers to value digital books in the same way they value physical books they will need to solve this right of first sale, because until an eBook can be re-sold or in some way traded after initial use they will always be perceived like a permanent rental and something you don't actually own.
In the Brave New World article they bring up an interesting service that I actually didn't know existed called ReDigi, who are currently being sued by at least one major record label.
Founded only last year ReDigi is different again and operates under the “first sale doctrine” legal concept, that allows users who buy a copyrighted item like a book or CD the right to sell it or give it away. ReDigi operates a ‘used music store’ where users upload unwanted songs and buy others at a discount. ReDigi claim that they can verify individual MP3 files were legally purchased and not ripped or downloaded from a file-sharing network. Interestingly the sellers must also install a ReDigi program on their computer that removes any copies of a song from the seller’s computer.
If publishers could get together and agree on a service like this which would allow the right of first sale to exist on digital files it would go a long way towards not only adopting digital media but literally "buying" in. This is, of course, assuming you do not already prefer physical books, are not a collector of books and said books are not first editions, signed copies, leather bound, etc. In those instances this discussion is moot.
What do you think about digital books? Would a legal re-selling service make you more likely to buy e-books?
[Now Reading: The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson]
Some good news for students looking for cheap textbooks or book lovers wanting to pick up the books they never received for Christmas. Both Alibris and AbeBooks are offering users of BookFinder.com a coupon for orders over a certain value.
Until February 5th 2012 orders on Alibris.com from BookFinder.com are eligible for $2 off an order of $20 or more, $4 off $40, $7 off $70, $10 off $100 and $30 off $300 and up.
Until January 19th, 2012 books bought on AbeBooks.com from BookFinder.com are eligible for $4 off an order of $40 or more, $5 off $50 or more and $6 off $60 or more.
Start searching now: Just remember to make note of the coupon code we display for you in your search results and apply it to your purchase on Alibris or AbeBooks. The code will be displayed on relevant searches like so:
I just found a very interesting interview with bookbinder Michael Greer. While some folks are quick to suggest that high quality bookbinding is a dying art Greer feels that this doesn't have to be the case. He sees the expansion of print-on-demand publishing as the perfect partner for his luxury craft.
In the US, hand bookbinding as a trade has been nearly dead for many years. A few of us quixotic dreamers hang on. Still, the revolution in the last decade in on-demand publishing could create a space for us. Twenty years ago, self-publishers paid a hefty sum to print maybe 250 copies of their family history. They gave away ten and the rest went into the attic. For about the same amount of money, I can print and bind ten full leather volumes and create others on demand. The difficulty is letting people know that this kind of thing exists. When I do fairs, people often approach my table full of books with a mystified smile and say, “I didn’t know anybody did this stuff anymore.” If bookbinders can get the word out, we might be able to carve out a place for our services in the growing world of digital publishing.
I think this is a fantastic coupling of old and new technologies. Imagine your own family history album, complete with photos, bound beautifully in leather and preserved for your grandchildren.
(Via Moby Lives)
The two time Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer will be knocked off the BookFidner.com Report next year now that fine press publisher Taschen has paired the text from his biography Marilyn with photographs of the bombshell by Bert Stern. The publishing house, who is famous for fantastically designed and exorbitantly priced art books such as the Muhammad Ali tribute G.O.A.T., will publish their version of the model's life later this year. You may recognize Mailer's biography "Marilyn" from its many appearances on the BookFinder.com Report, the book was first published in 1974 and was last published in the US in 1987.
In typical Taschen fashion no expense was spared on the final product and a "basic" version (shown below) of Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe by Norman Mailer will set you back about a grand, and the more elaborate "art edition" ends up costing a cool $2,500.
Do you love technology? Do you love books? Do you have great interpersonal and communication skills? Do you live to build and support great software teams? Do you thrive in a fast paced e-commerce environment? If the answer is yes please read on.
If you are a software engineer and want to live in the Pacific Northwest BookFinder.com is currently looking for two positions. 1) Software Engineering Manager and 2) an experienced Software Engineer to be a part of a small agile team in our Vancouver B.C. office
If you are interested take a look at the job postings which are located on our parent company’s website. All of the qualifications and contact details are listed there however please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have about the positions. We hope to hear from you.
[Now Reading: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald]
Our friends at AbeBooks.com are giving book collectors (or anyone with the slightest interest in book collecting) a chance to win a signed copy of Collected Books: The Guide to Identification and Values by Allen & Patricia Ahearn.
The book, now in it's fourth edition, is a fantastic reference for over 20,000 titles explaining publication dates, issue points, print runs, number of volumes and other vital bibliographic data.
AbeBooks is giving away one signed copy of the 2011 edition Collected Books. If you want to enter simply email contests@abebooks.com and tell them about the most prized first edition in your book collection. In the entry explain why the book is so special and describe its condition. AbeBooks say they may use this information in a feature highlighting first editions.
As usual don′t forget to include your name, hometown and state or province in the email, and include "First editions" in the subject line. It appears the contest is only open to US and Canadian residents and ends August 31, 2011. The winner will be selected in a random draw (the odds of being drawn are dependent upon the number of eligible entries received) and will have to answer a skill-testing question.
If you have ever considered self publishing a book, or wondered how much money a self published author actually ends up pocketing from your average self published book I found an interesting read. Most of the articles surrounding self publishing either discuss an amazing success story, or the thousands of titles which never sell a single copy. This may be why I found this article written by Keir Thomas very interesting. Keir Thomas is a technical writer who has written a number of books, which were published by various major publishers, about the Linux operating system; and this is his experience with self publishing.
In 2008 he had the idea to write the Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference (Ubuntu is a Linux operating system) but he was unable to print though his usual publishers because, as a pocket guide, the book would naturally have a fairly low price point. He understood where the publishers were coming from but still thought the book could be useful. So he decided to try a self-publishing experiment. I encourage you all to read the article in full as it's quite interesting, but here are the nuts and bolts of how he did:
Aside from writing the actual text and editing (Do you love how I am glossing over this huge task?) the first thing he had to do differently was find a way to promote the book with essentially no budget. To do this he gave the ebook version which did in fact net a bunch of publicity including reviews and recommendations from tech journalists and bloggers:
The eBook is hugely popular. I average around 400 visitors a day at http://ubuntupocketguide.com, peaking at 40-50,000 every now and again. The website advertises the print edition of the book, as does an advert within the PDF itself.
I’ve lost count how many people have downloaded the eBook but the last time I audited the figures, which was around six months after the book’s release, it’d seen around 500,000 downloads. I suspect that number has doubled since then. I encourage people to redistribute the PDF, including via BitTorrent, so auditing is practically impossible. (Redistribution is fine, but not modifying; the book uses a standard copyright.)
So his community knows about it, and it turns out people do find it quite useful, but how was the print edition selling?
Since going on sale at the start of 2009, the book has made me $9,000. Bearing in mind the book took three months to produce, that’s a salary of $3,000 per month, although costs such as hosting have to be deducted, and I also spent quite a few days marketing the book once published.
I’ve had worse salaries in my life, and I’m very grateful, but I know total royalties would probably have been higher had I gone through the traditional route of working with a mainstream publisher.
Thomas finishes by suggesting that self-publishing might not be the best option for you if you really want to make money, but it can be a great way to get your ideas out there if you only need to cover your costs
I have a bit of a PSA today, one of our readers emailed us to let us know that they are involved with a school fundraising project this weekend just outside Washington D.C. Bethesda–Chevy Chase High School is hosting an annual book sale over 20,000 used books to raise funds to support various programs run by the Parent-Teacher-Student Association which include Extracurricular clubs, after-school tutoring, student publications and other quality endevaours.
All hardbacks are $3, paperbacks are $2 and on Sunday you can pick up a full bag of books for $10. The sale runs Saturday March 26th from 10am-4pm and Sunday March 27th from 10am-2pm.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School is located at 4301 East-West Hwy. in Bethesda. Free parking is available at the school; it is also accessible by Metro Red line, Bethesda stop.
If anyone makes it to the sale drop us a comment and let us know how it went.
The American Library Association (ALA) once again released it's list of books which were most often challenged by the public to be banned from libraries in America. As usual most of the books are children's or YA titles and are challanged by parents who believe they are targeted to an age group too young for the content.
Top 10
1. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: Insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit
4. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
6. Lush by Natasha Friend
Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
7. What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
Reasons: Sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: Drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint
9. Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: Homosexuality, sexually explicit
10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, violence
One of our bookselling partners, ChrisLands, is having a birthday this month. It has been ten years since they opened up shop as tool for independent booksellers to set up their own e-commerce websites (ie: sites which can take credit card details and sell online). James, the site's creator, just sent us a note mentioning that as part of their celebration they are having a special offer for booksellers
In their 10 years, ChrisLands established themselves as a well-respected member of the online bookselling community. Well known for understanding the needs of independent booksellers, they continue developing their base product, updating old features, and adding new features based entirely on booksellers’ needs.
As their birthday gift to you and to celebrate 10 years in business, ChrisLands has a special birthday sign-up offer of 50% off the signup fee for new stores from now until June 30th, 2011. Don’t miss this opportunity to get your own online bookstore. Visit ChrisLands.com to learn more about the features and benefits of this company and to see examples of great ChrisLands sites.
At BookFinder.com we think it's great because every time a bookseller opens a ChrisLands account it means that there are more interesting books available online for all of us to find when we need or want them, and remember this is another good way to make your books searchable by BookFinder.com if they are not already.
[Now Reading: Indignation by Philip Roth]
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By: Scott Laming,
on 5/26/2011
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Apparently the future is now and it's library is the University of Chicago’s new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. You enter into a 8,000 square foot dome called the Grand Reading Room, which is nicely lit and contains a vast number of tables with chairs and computer terminals. The thing you won't find in this dome are bookshelves.
The books themselves are housed in an underground storage facility located directly beneath the dome, and when you want to pull one of the 3.5 million books you just make a request on your computer terminal and a computer activated robotic crane pulls the book and sends it up to the circulation desk. The whole process apparently takes about five minutes, which should give you enough time to get up and walk to the circulation desk. The same crane system re-shelves the book when you are finished with it too.
There are a few more details as well as a neat video showing some of the underground storage in this article from Singularity Hub
Reading a Moby Lives article this morning (fantastic blog BTW) and they posted two surveys taken by author Nathan Bransford where he asked people what they thought an ebook should cost if the hardcover retailed at $25.
He ran the first survey on June 14 2010:
And then ran the exact same survey again on February 2, 2011:
The polls are entirely unscientific but it appears that all the $9.99 pricing pushes that have been going on for the past year or two are really leaving their mark.
By: Scott Laming,
on 8/25/2011
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If you are at all familiar with BookFinder.com you probably know all about our annual BookFinder.com Report which tracks the demand of the 100 most sought-after titles which are no longer in print in the United States. The list differs from year to year as trends change and books get republished (Indie publishers take note, there may be a hidden gem in the list for you.) This list is no different as number of titles from last year’s report have been republished in the past twelve months including The Sixteenth Round: from Number 1 Contender to #45472 by Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Old Southern Apples by Creighton Lee Calhoun and Aran Knitting by Alice Starmore, leaving room for some new additions.
In fact Alice Starmore, a superstar in the knitting world, took her own spot on the list. Aran Knitting lived on the BookFinder.com report for years before getting re-published in 2010 and now another one of her works, Tudor Roses, has jumped onto the list to take its place. Tudor Roses is interesting because it includes a number of sweater designs inspired by the Tudor royals (eg. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) and their over-the-top gold embroidery, velvet, jewels and lace.
Current events also have an impact on the list. In A Payroll to Meet, David Whitford discusses the incidents surrounding Southern Methodist University's (SMU) receiving the "death penalty" from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); which involves banning the school from competing in a sport for a year or more (two in SMU's case). This book has been out-of-print since 1989 but scandal in college football has never been more in vogue. The recent rash of cheating, bribing and recruitment scandals to hit Ohio State, Southern Cal, Auburn, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, LSU, and the Hurricanes in Miami have renewed the interest in the grandfather of college football scandal. I somehow doubt this book will see reprint but it’s always interesting to well researched books jump back into the spotlight because of current events.
View all 100 books in the 2011 BookFinder.com Report
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