While the book had the power to captivate us, so did the author. Oscar Wilde, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway – to name a few – were just as bizarre and compelling of characters as the ones they gave life to in print.
So what happened? Where have our eccentric writers gone?
Eccentric authors didn’t just write books. They sold them. When readers purchased a copy of “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” they were never just buying a book. They were buying Hemingway.
If you ever get a chance, watch the hour-long, BBC 1978 documentary on Thompson that appears on the second disc of the Criterion Collection version of the film, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” It follows Thompson as he displays his now-famous brand of eccentric and sometimes dangerous behavior patterns. Not behavior to be endorsed by any means, but it shows how Thompson’s personality gave his work an added dimension. That added dimension is what makes many great works timeless.
Now, don’t take this as a call for today’s major authors to start firing handguns off rooftops while stone drunk. It’s more of a musing as to when the publishing industry decided to replace “personality” with “celebrity.”
Go into a Barnes & Noble nowadays, and there’s an entire section devoted to fictional works written by “celebrity authors” such as actors Steve Martin and Ethan Hawke.
But at least these books are original works.
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Terrell Owens (a character in his own right) already has released two autobiographies (“Catch This: Going Deep with the NFL’s Sharpest Weapon” and “T.O.”), a children’s book (“Little T Learns to Share”) and a fitness book (“T.O.’s Finding Fitness: Making the Mind, Body, and Spirit Connection for Total Health”). He is 35 years old. He released his first autobiography in 2004 and his second in 2006.
Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin called herself a “lame duck” when stepping down from office – in the middle of her first term. Upon her resignation, the 2008 vice presidential candidate signed a book deal with Harper Collins, who will co-release her memoirs with its subsidiary, Christian publishing house Zondervan. Palin’s rumored asking price for a book she will co-pen? $11 million. She may not get that much, but many analysts expect her to get more than former President George W. Bush received for his memoirs.
“Celebrity” over “personality.” “Style” over “substance.” Call me crazy, but I just don’t see these titles stacking up against “The Catcher in the Rye” or “The Great Gatsby” in the long run.
A side note: If you have a Facebook account, try taking the “Which Crazy Writer Are You” quiz. Post your result on your homepage and here on Delmio.
The beauty of Hollywood is that it’s just that. Hollywood. With full license to create, embellish and pull rank, even great authors find their stories changed when books morph into film scripts.
Milan Kundera had the right idea. He didn’t like the movie adaptation of his “Unbearable Lightness of Being,” so has never allowed another adaptation of his work. His choice.
The running debate, over when Hollywood’s creative liberties go too far, surfaced again over some current films. In one case, “My Sister’s Keeper” author Jodi Picoult indicated that she enjoyed the recent film adaptation of her book while many of her fans did not.
Writing on her Web site, www.jodipicoult.com, Picoult says, “Yes, I know the ending is different. Yes, I know some of you are very upset. I didn’t change it… Please don’t e-mail me asking me why I changed the ending, or ‘let’ Hollywood do that – it wasn’t something I had any control over.”
Her message makes the point: We’re talking two different mediums, producing two different sets of experiences. That’s why, in the credit lines, you see that certain films are “based on” a particular book or real-life experience. It’s as good as saying ideas were borrowed – with creative license.
This is art. It’s not history, biography or documentary. And the art of film, with its immediate and visual impact, creates a separate experience from that of a novel, with a more complex and fully developed storyline. Plus, the bottom line is business, and what sells in books may not sell at the box office.
Still, these artistic debates are refreshing, if only because true artists care about such things. An example is “Watchmen” director Zack Snyder, who after a rough first cut of the film, was told by studio executives to cut two scenes: the Comedian’s funeral, which establishes tone and introduces key characters, and Dr. Manhattan’s reverie on Mars, where he narrates his origin story and muses on the nature of time.
Both were crucial scenes in the graphic novel, so Snyder fought to keep them in the movie. He prevailed, even through he still had to cut 30 minutes from the film.
As consumers of art, it’s good to remind ourselves that if through art we imitate the perfection of the universe, then we need to be satisfied with different methods of imitation to suit different artistic forms. As Brian K. Vaughan, “Y: The Last Man” creator and “Lost” writer, commented in Wired Magazine, regarding the adaptation of “Watchmen” before its release: “It’s like making a stage play of ‘Citizen Kane.’ I guess it could be OK, but why? The medium is the message.”
Much like our deepest feelings, art just is. One could write a book about this. And it would be very different from the film.
As we approach the Fourth of July weekend, we prepare to celebrate our many precious freedoms – two of those essential ones being freedom of speech and expression.
Freedom, of course, requires tolerance – tolerance to those of different race, creed and belief. However, tolerance doesn’t mean we compromise our values as Americans. A governor or public official that lies and cheats, a financier or corporate executive that commits fraud; all should accountable. Public pressure should side with honesty and honor.
So why is Hyperion Books so casual about author and journalist Chris Anderson using unattributed passages — closely mirroring material from Wikipedia and other sources –in his soon-to-be-released book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.”
Anderson is no novice. He is editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, and his previous book, “The Long Tail,” became influential in business circles. Yet now, in a simple blog post, he has confirmed the use of unattributed material by saying it was his “screwup.” His explanation: That in the “rush” to finish the book, credits were omitted, and that passages in question “were mostly on the margins of the book’s focus, mostly on historical asides.”
For its part, Hyperion said it was satisfied with the explanation – kind of like the teacher satisfied with the lame, “dog ate my homework” excuse.
Hyperion now plans to work with Anderson to make corrections for an electronic version of the book and subsequent hard copies. The 80,000 first-print copies have already been shipped.
Interestingly, Anderson’s new book talks about the wisdom of free products on the Web. He said he depended on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia of free user-contributed articles generally considered “questionable” as a reliable source of information, to describe meanings of phases such as “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The Virginia Quarterly Review discovered the borrowing of text and ideas.
Ironically, the controversy has been noted on Anderson’s Wikipedia page.
At a time when book publishers have been repeatedly called into question for intellectual honesty, Hyperion and Wired, for that matter, made it easy on themselves while protecting a financial investment. In this case, tolerance short-shifted the ethics that are sacred in journalism and publishing.
Anderson now joins a long list of authors called into question for plagiarism, with lawsuits even extending to “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.
In Anderson’s case, his acknowledgments are on the table. Sure, you can say it’s a small thing, involving information in the margins. But that’s like saying a small lie is acceptable, or perhaps a small incident of fraud.
Tolerance in such cases reduces our collective expectations, and the unwritten standard to which we hold journalists and authors. We all lose when we lower our standards.
At the very least, I would have felt better to hear a serious mea culpa from Anderson and his publisher.
Looking for something to do this summer? Go to the library.
You might find more than you expect. And the best part is it’s free.
In addition to innovative summer reading programs and other interesting activities, libraries are also a source of free computer access.
This is a big deal for many communities. In one recent survey, more than 70 percent of libraries identified themselves as the only source of free access to computers and the Internet in their area, according to the American Library Association (ALA). And, Internet services are escalating rapidly within the nation’s libraries. The ALA also reports that more than 76 percent of all public libraries provide Wi-Fi access, up from 65.9 percent one year ago.
In the national debate over stimulus spending for broadband networks, library proponents make an effective argument that libraries can play a significant role in bridging the digital divide. In a recent conversation, Sari Feldman, president-elect of the Public Library Association (a division of ALA), pointed out that libraries not only provide public access to Internet service, but they also give people needed support – in figuring out how to fill out an online job application, for example. A majority of large retailers, Feldman noted, now require online applications.
The Cuyahoga County Public Library in Northeast Ohio, where Feldman is executive director, is an example of a library system with dozens of programs that help level the playing field for those with no Internet access in their homes. People receive help with job searches and applications, for example. In another initiative, college-bound students learn to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
These are ways libraries stand to further elevate their relevance as places where people can go to help improve themselves and seek new opportunities. They can be a place to go, especially for those otherwise shut out of opportunities that require Internet access.
No surprise libraries figure prominently in the debate over how to provide Internet access to those under-served or not served at all.
Yet even in the best-case scenario, one where all public libraries provide public accessibility to high-speed, high-capacity Internet service, that alone isn’t enough to break down economic, social and educational barriers that result from the digital divide.
The other part of the equation: People must take the personal initiative to use the services available to them in order to reap the benefits.
I’m reminded of my 83-year-old dad who not long ago went to the doctor complaining of various aches and pains. He was really complaining of being shut out – of playing golf, for example, or bocce.
“Go to the gym,’’ the doctor kept telling him.
Finally, after hearing it enough times, he went to his version of the gym – the one he set up in his basement. His health improved dramatically.
Looking for a new job? A more effective, efficient ways to learn new skills? How to do better in school? Ways to beat the summer heat?
The declining state of traditional book publishing could be read very clearly at the recent Book Expo 2009 tradeshow in New York. If anything, the show exposed how an elite industry is having trouble coming to terms with an information-based culture, full of self-publishers with digital devices that know no barriers to entry.
The annual Book Expo is where publishers typically come out in force to tout new titles and cozy up to customers, including the nation’s librarians. But since the last Expo in New York in 2007, the number of attendees this year dropped by 11 percent to about 12,000, not counting exhibitors.
A few telling nuggets from this year’s event:
* Major publishing houses, such as Random House and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, cut so far back on floor space that they held meetings in windowless basement rooms.
* The Associated Press described this year’s Expo as “a low-budget, low-celebrity convention, with fewer parties and fewer advanced copies of books than in the past, and a sense that the best way to meet expectations was to lower them.”
* Instead of continuing as a three-day weekend show, next year’s Expo is likely to be scaled down, maybe held mid-week over two days, and maybe open to the public. In detailing the despair evident at this year’s Expo, New York Magazine’s Boris Kachka suggested that opening next year’s event to the public would turn the Expo into “a nerdier Auto Show or a less nerdy Comic-Con.”
(Never mind that comic-book publishers – large, small and independent – have taken advantage of the interactivity to showcase new titles and products while allowing fans to meet the industry’s top artists, writers and creators.)
In fairness, Expo organizers did try different strategies this year, such as promoting the new, iPod-inspired e-reader, Cool-Er, and handing out 1,000 copies of Joshua Ferris’ second novel, “The Unnamed.”
But writing in their blogs, even exhibitors at the show questioned its future.
Clearly, digitals formats have turned traditional publishing on its ear – in effect toppling the Ivory Tower where publishers once lived. Now it’s as if the industry is becoming unmasked.
We always knew it was smug. But we could at least hope for a level of respect, or even a desire to understand the real customer, which is the everyday reader.
What would happen if the public were invited in, say to stand in line for free copies of Ferris’ novel?
Publishers would come face to face with the customers they are trying to know better. They might also learn a few things about what average readers think, what they want and how they intend to consume books in the future.
There is an old saying in business, something along the lines that if you don’t eat your lunch, someone else will eat it for you.
The threat to publishers is not whether the public will come to next year’s convention. The threat is that the tables will turn, and elitism will take such a turn that the book-buying public will one day say to publishers, “Let them eat cake.”
Book News: Deaf Biker Lady’s new book is based upon her personal road journeys and love for the open road and riding motorcycles.
Amazon.com is now selling First Editions of Hard Road, Easy Riding: Deaf Biker Lady.
About Deaf Biker Lady: She is a motorcycle journalist and writer of the book Hard Road, Easy Riding: Deaf Biker Lady, which captures the spirit of a woman riding motorcycles on life’s open highways. She lives in Norfolk, Virginia, but she can usually be found riding the highways on a motorcycle she affectionately calls “Run Escape.”
For more information, visit www.deafbikerlady.com.
Mothers teach — sometimes without even knowing it.
Ever take a packed lunch to school as a child? Ever look inside to find a small note from mom next to your pudding snack?
In that instance, mom taught that the written word sends a message — no matter how brief.
Mother’s Day is this coming Sunday. But if your sentiment simply won’t fit on a note or greeting card, try a book.
You can pick a book to send almost any message you’d like to your mother (or to the woman in your life who most fits your ideal of a mother). Motherhood is one of those subjects that literature has conferred blanket coverage — on par with love, heartbreak, war and peace.
As children, we learn about Old Mother Hubbard, who sets the stage for the extent to which mothers fuss. Old Mother Hubbard goes everywhere — to the baker’s, the tavern, the tailor’s and so on — and that’s just to pamper the dog.
As we grow, literature breaks the news to us (in case we missed the point in real life) that a mother’s role can get a lot more complicated.
In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, for example, Ma Joad shows how a mother’s courage and wisdom can keep a family going in the really tough times.
Or take the figure of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Karenina shows that even when a mother’s personal life goes really astray — to the point of desertion — her connection to her child can transcend even the worst behavior.
Most of us probably have mothers somewhere in the spectrum between Ma Joad and Anna Karenina. (Hopefully closer to Ma Joad.) Regardless of where a mother’s virtue lies, Mother’s Day is an occasion to put her under the spotlight.
If you are looking for a book to give your mom, to express warm feelings or to make her laugh, here are a few titles on display at the Chautauqua Book Store inside the nonprofit Chautauqua Institution in western New York: (While summer programming doesn’t open until June 27, the bookstore stays open year round.)
—Dear Mom: Thank You For Everything or The Incredible Truth About Mothers, both by Bradley Trevor Greive. Both titles feature nature photography with captions reflecting thoughts you might expect from a mother. For example, next to a sleeping polar bear cub, a caption reads, “A child’s dreams are tomorrow’s reality.”
—Thoughts with Love for Mother, by Anne Geddes. This is a little book of sayings, such as this one by Cecilia Lasbury: “There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children. One of these is roots. The other, wings.”
—Zelda’s Moments with Mom, part of the Zelda Wisdom series by Carol Gardner and Shane Young. Again, photos with captions, such as “Being a mother also means enthusiastically sharing dreams, however unrealistic as in, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a cowboy.’”
—Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice, by James Lileks. It’s a humorous look at parents who figure things out for themselves and do just fine.
Tor.com, purveyor of sci-fi and fantasy lit, gives away a fair amount of its properties no doubt in hopes of luring dollars from grateful readers.
This can present some risk. What if readers don’t like it? Or worse: What if they just go on reading the freebies, sponging all these books and short stories without ever spending a dime?
Well, it must work on some level, because Tor keeps doing it. A recent endeavor is a whacky short story by Terry Bisson, TVA Baby.
TVA Baby starts out in the skies over the Tennessee Valley, or the Mississippi River, depending on who’s right, and things (literally) take a rapid descent from there. It’s a bumpy ride, narrated with a unique point of view. Some comments by readers that followed found the occasional lapses in logic and continuity annoying, which might miss the point. See for yourself.
Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader continues to give rise to speculation on how we will digest books in the future. In a guest viewpoint in this week’s Wall Street Journal, for example, author Steven Johnson looked at how the “digital-books revolution” might change the very way we read and write.
Johnson talked about having an “aha” moment relating to the “great promise and opportunity” in the transformation to digital formats.
As someone with two daughters in college, I’ve just had my own “aha” moment: Why aren’t we seeing more digital textbooks?
Once, my older daughter asked me to stand in a line at her school, where students go to “sell back” their books. I walked in with about $500 worth of textbooks and walked out with about with $16 cash. The alternatives: Haul the books home knowing they would never be opened again, or simply throw them away.
Sometimes I wonder where all these used books go. While information does constantly change, does the 7th edition of some textbooks really differ that much from the 8th edition?
It doesn’t matter whether you choose to use a Kindle or some other e- reading device. What it should come down to is this: What is the best deal for students?
The university press, in particular, can make a difference. College textbooks are the products of both commercial publishing houses and university press operations.
Recently, in announcing a move to almost all digital publishing, the University of Michigan Press pointed out that digital books of the future would emphasize interactive components including hot links, graphics, 3D animation and video. U-M Press held out the promise for students to get more, as authors communicate subtleties through various multimedia options.
It’s hard to say where the future of the novel is going. Some of us still like to curl up on a chair with printed pages we can touch and turn.
Textbooks aren’t like that. Most universities now have digital processes and products in place.
So what are we waiting for?
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A note on author J.G. Ballard, who died Sunday at age 78 after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer:
Ballard was best known for “Empire of the Sun” and “The Kindness of Women,” both fictionalized autobiographies. “Empire of the Sun,” an international best seller, related to his childhood in a Japanese internment camp outside Shanghai. Director Steven Spielberg later made it into a film.
Great Britain’s Telegraph described Ballard as having an “uncanny feel for the dark undercurrents of modern life,” and on a personal level, being as kind and generous as his fiction was eerie and hostile.
HarperCollins canceled plans to publish Ballard’s most recent project, “Conversations,” when it became clear the author was too ill to continue. The book was to reflect Ballard’s conversations with British oncologist Jonathan Waxman.
Diane Evans is founder and president of DelMio.com.
A young co-worker has been trying hard to turn me into a reader of the graphic novel.
Now with the film release of Watchmen, it’s time at least to get up to speed. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s “100 Best Novels from 1923 to the Present.”
Other indicators, too, point to the emergence of graphic novels as a legitimate literary form. Visit any number of public libraries and see the prominent displays of graphic novels. Librarians I know not only respect this genre, but also see it as a means to engage younger audiences in reading.
I began reading a graphic novel for the first time recently – titled Kabuki: Circle of Blood, by David Mack. I’m not hooked on the graphic novel style, but I do recognize the artistic value.
So here are some of the things I’m learning from my co-worker, who is in the die-hard fan category: We as readers (read: over age 40) need to grow up and move past the misconception that comic books and graphic novels are nothing more than pseudo-literary fodder for children and “nerds.” Within the past 20 years, the comic book industry has seen individual publishers move into self-censorship, doing away with the more restrictive rules of the Comics Code Authority. As a result, graphic novels have grown up, their pages filled with more psychologically complicated characters and mature themes.
The form isn’t limited to stereotyped spandex-clad heroes fighting super-powered battles on fictional planets anymore. Characters now deal with serious moral, ethical and social issues.
In the first volume of Mack’s Kabuki, you’ll find a physically powerful and beautiful Japanese woman so deeply affected by a painful past that she can only relate to her present world through the safety of a kabuki mask. Her quest throughout the book forces her to come to terms with her family, history, culture and mother’s death while coming into direct conflict with the powers she serves.
Here are some of my co-workers recommendations, in addition to Watchmen and Kabuki: Circle of Blood:
Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection, by J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell – This fast-paced novel reads and feels exactly like an action movie, with artwork just as gripping as the storyline. Danger Girl follows adventuress Abbey Chase as her life dramatically changes once intertwined with a black-ops team. Imagine Indiana Jones meeting James Bond.
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Speigelman – One of the premier nonfiction graphic novels, Maus recounts the struggle of Spiegelman’s father to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew and draws largely on those personal experiences. The book also follows Spiegelman’s troubled relationship with his father and the effects of war as it reverberated through generations of a family.
Amazon’s explanation that the removal of certain sexually explicit materials from its sales ranking over the weekend were a clumsy accident didn’t do much to placate angry advocates of said materials.
Media portrayals (Oh, wait – we’re media too) of the wounded parties as primarily gay-rights activists seemed to only annoy critics even more.
The Seattle Times reports that Amazon is chagrined: ” ‘This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection,’ said Drew Herdener, Amazon’s communications director.
” ‘It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles — in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing books from Amazon’s main product search.’
“Amazon previously blamed a ‘glitch,’ which seemed to intensify anger among some gay and lesbian activists who suspected homophobic censorship.”
Could this become yet another Seattle-based company that has become so large and ubiquitous that it has become the Seattle behemoth we all love to hate?
Well, Amazon is the nation’s largest online retailer by far (with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of runner-up Staples, according to Wikipedia). A quick Google of “I hate Amazon” yields “about” 4,500 matches, and Yahoo finds a robust 13,800 “I hate Amazon” matches. Lotta hatin’ goin’ on.
Microsoft and Starbucks are two other Seattle bigs that have legions of haters. Perhaps Amazon’s success has made this status of “most-hated” inevitable. Perhaps Amazon will view it as a badge of honor. You hate us – you really hate us! Oh, joy!
There have been no reports of mass Kindle burnings or “Seattle Tea Parties” or other pointless gestures of futility at this juncture..
(Editorial aside – the editor here really dislikes the use of impact as a verb, as in “it impacted 57,310 books” as quoted above – we thought you should know this.)
Dave Wilson’s Our Daily Red is seldom daily and rarely red, but it is full-bodied, piquant and tannic. It does not necessarily represent the views of DelMio.com, its sponsors or its editor’s mother – and, in fact, his mom probably has not given a whit of thought to Amazon.com’s handling of sales rankings.
The author: Russ Vernon, a famous Akron, Ohio, grocer who started working at his father’s upscale food market at age 8, still going in regularly even in retirement.
The book: “West Point Market Cookbook,” published by the University of Akron Press as a series on Ohio history and culture.
The quality of the book is as high as Vernon’s standards for his store. That explains why local shops around town have it on display, and why more than 5,000 copies have sold. It also points to the value of the often-overlooked university press as a source of occasional gems.
Around the country, university press operations are under pressure, not just as a result of a bad economy, but also because of the challenges facing traditional print media as digital publishing increases in popularity.
The Utah State University Press, for example, is in danger losing university support. Recently, the University of Michigan Press announced it would eliminate most of its print operations and move primary to digital publishing.
The print vs. digital debate aside, what’s important is to preserve the place of the university press. In addition to scholarly work, these university publishing houses are valuable for preserving regional history and culture.
“With larger publishers deciding not to invest as much in books of local culture, the university press becomes a means for serving that market,” said Tom Bacher, director of the University of Akron Press. “This is a way the university press can help with community engagement.”
The West Point cookbook is a case in point. The store is part of local history.
In a forward to the book, Akron writer David Giffels described the best kind of provincialism as “life in a place that enjoys certain flavors exclusively.” It’s not just the flavor of food, either.
At West Point, the elitism of the gourmet surroundings is tempered by a reaching out to the whole city. If the Easter Bunny is going to be there, people from all over town show up. Plus, Vernon likes to shower attention on customers, often sharing the kind of insights you’ll find in the book.
A few excerpts:
On picking produce: “As a boy, I watched and learned from my father. … When farmers shouted out, ‘Just picked _ red, ripe strawberries! Fifty-nine cents a quart!’ he knew to inspect the bottom of the strawberry basket. … You have to be patient and careful when it comes to selecting the finest quality produce, whether it’s for your business or the family dinner table.”
On salad dressing: “I prefer to make my own salad dressing. In the past, I experimented with different recipes, and the result was always too acidic, too messy or just too much waste. A simple oil and vinegar mix is easy.”
On making an omelet: “Don’t worry about using one of those cute two-sided pans or omelet forks. I’ve been using the same ten-inch sloped-sided pan and a regular fork for 15 years and the omelet always slips easily on the plate. As with any art, it takes practice.”
Around the time of John Updike’s death, writer Charles McGrath of the New York Times was asked to read poems from Updike’s last book of poems, Endpoint, which he composed and arranged on his deathbed.
McGrath obliged, but professed to being a tad intimidated at being asked to vocalize the words written by a writer who was himself a well-known “superb” public reader.
Wrote McGrath: “My only qualifications, if you can call them that, are that I knew Updike and that I used to read a lot to my kids. From years of fidgeting and nodding off during poetry readings, though, I know just how hard it is to read verse well. Moreover, Updike wrote many of the poems in Endpoint while literally on his deathbed. They’re heartbreakingly sad, and I wasn’t sure I could get through them without blubbing.”
But oblige he did, and The Times posted the results for the world to hear.
Your humble editor considers Updike one of the great writers of his time. Some critics accused him of being sexist or this or that – I say he was a product of his time who learned and grew enlightened, but remained informed by those formative years, much like his characters.
Rabbit comes first to mind.
But that character kept re-emerging, slightly different, but still (perhaps in my mind) harboring Rabbit’s voice, whether the checkout clerk in the grocery store enchanted by the slightly chubby girl in the swimsuit, or the Tyrannosaurus or Iguanadon at the cocktail party During the Jurassic.
Our Daily Red is rarely daily and seldom red, but it is written by DelMio editor Dave Wilson.
Here are a few upcoming books likely to gain attention:
• Columbine, by journalist Dave Cullen
This 432-page narrative will be released April 6, just two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Cullen spent nearly 10 years researching the lives and events surrounding the tragedy that saw two students kill 12 classmates and a teacher, wound 23 others and kill themselves.
• Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died, by Edward Klein
Klein, the controversial writer of five earlier New York Timers bestsellers on the Kennedy family, adds yet another title to the growing list on ailing Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.
The new book, due out in May, includes a look at Sen. Kennedy’s relations with the Kopechne family and niece Caroline Kennedy’s decision to withdraw from consideration for a New York senatorial seat.
In the 2003 release The Kennedy Curse, Klein drew criticism from Kennedy friends for his portrayal of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s marriage to Carolyn Bessette. Klein claimed the marriage had devolved into disaster, with incidents of infidelity, drugs and even violence.
• It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita, by Heather B. Armstrong.
A new memoir quickly gaining attention, this book is an offshoot of Armstrong’s popular blog (www.dooce.com), which she has used since 2001 to write about depression, childbirth and parenting. USA TODAY reports the site averages 1.5 million visitors a month.
In an interview with the paper, Armstrong commented, “People come to me because I will say what they’re afraid to say. It’s really raw and unfiltered, a little rough around the edges. Sometimes it seems like I’m going off like a fire hose.”
Last year for the first time, a blog that give way to a book made USA TODAY’s list of top 50 bestsellers. The book, I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun, came from the Web site www.icanhascheezburger.com, featuring pictures of cats with captions.
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Speaking of blogs, I recently discovered http://inkwellbookstore.blogspot.com, which offers book news, reviews and recommendations from the staff of The Inkwell Bookstore in Falmouth, Mass. It is an independent bookstore owned and operated by two women. The site has universal appeal with a Boston flavor.
Here is an excerpt from a blog entry on The Tomb of Zeus, by Barbara Cleverly: “The twists of the plot and the wonderful characterizations add to the storytelling, however it is the well-researched, fascinating tidbits about the history of Crete and the ancient Minoan civilization that delight the reader. … It also reads like a good travel essay by sparking an urge to explore Crete.”
In fact, Orman is very much a by-the-bootstraps success story who long ago confessed that she did not know how to write, even as bids were piling in for her second book. Lucky for her, her message was more important than her literary talent.
Portfolio.com tells the tale:
“The bidding was going up and up and up,” says Orman, “I said, ‘Stop the bidding, Binky (Urban, her agent). I can’t take it anymore. Somebody’s going to pay me $800,000 to write a book. I can’t write. I’m a finance person.’” She continues: “I told Chip Gibson [then the head of Crown Publishing], ‘Sir, before I sign this contract I have two things to tell you. No. 1: I don’t know how to write. So I don’t want you giving me $800,000 to write. And No. 2: Are you aware that I’m a lesbian?’
“As it happens, neither turned out to be roadblocks. For one, Orman was a personal finance expert, not a movie star. And for another, Gibson says, ‘We weren’t hiring Suze to win the Nobel Prize in literature.’
“Urban seconds that. ‘I just thought, ‘Great. Finally an author who knows she can’t write.’
“Orman’s book was called The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom; it drew heavily on her New Age sensibility and sold over 3 million copies. From there, shows like Today and Oprah came calling and money began to pour in.”
Cuts in the publishing industry continue, whether it’s a round of layoffs at National Geographic, or the University of Michigan Press abandoning print to go digital.
The pattern is clear: As a society, we’re opting for digital reading formats. And that’s been hell on local booksellers.
It’s the cost of progress. Progress brings change, and change disrupts old ways of doing business.
But there is a solution, and that’s to change with the times.
In short, evolve or die.
That’s why it’s getting old to hear local, independent booksellers cry about hard times. Yes, we’re talking about many great places. But as digital formats continue to grow in popularity, and broadband infrastructure opens up previously unimagined possibilities, merchants need to change how they do business and find ways to remain relevant and profitable in an economic environment reliant on technology.
In a recent blog posting, Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer of the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo., unwittingly told why clinging to old ways won’t work. In a blog post titled “Hachette Gets Cheap, Real Cheap,” Kashkashian lamented Hachette Book Group’s decision to eliminate a program that benefited independent booksellers.
The program allowed booksellers to receive credit for promoting Hachette titles. Kashkashian estimated the loss would “cost many independent stores $3,000 in the upcoming year.”
“In most businesses, $3,000 might be a fairly insignificant amount,” he wrote. “In the bookselling world where a profit of 2 percent is considered stellar, it is a critical sum.”
He went on, saying a bookseller makes so little that $3,000 is enough to pay for one hour of work every Monday through Saturday all year long. He also added that some booksellers are already trying to recoup by buying cheaper toilet paper and paper towels.
Dear Mr. Kashkashian: Saving on toilet paper won’t help you. Neither will some of the tips you’ll find on the Web site of the American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent booksellers since 1900. The ABA site offers tips such as, “Give your customers something to think about: Ten reasons why shopping local and independent is so important.”
As times change, the appeal of a local bookseller must go beyond emotional, altruistic reasons. The appeal must relate to new approaches, made possible through 21st century technological advances.
One example: Improved literacy is a goal of broadband network expansion. How can local booksellers work with schools and other civic organizations to collaborate on new solutions to meet community literacy needs? Are there ways for these booksellers to become leaders in offering online literacy programs for adults?
The answers are far less clear than the questions. However, to survive, local booksellers need to get in the game. Becoming part of the discussion is a first step toward becoming part of 21st century solutions that can keep more local merchants in business and contributing to the vitality and fabric of their local communities.
Diane Evans is a former Knight Ridder columnist and is president of DelMio.com.
When Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father was published in 1995, the book didn’t sell enough copies to pay back his $30,000 advance, says the New York Times. At least not right away.
Along comes the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and this kid from Chicago makes a splash (a more positive impact than a certain former president-to-be made in a similar setting in 1988). Sales skyrocket, Obama follows with The Audacity of Hope and now he’s a millionaire. So he packs up his things … and you know how it goes from there.
Now the president has an agreement to publish a slimmed-down version of Dreams From My Father for young readers. He apparently has a deal to produce a third nonfiction work, to be published after he leaves office because, well, he’s kind of busy right now.
On another presidential front, George W. Bush has inked a book deal worth $7 million, according to Lynn Sherr, a former ABC News correspondent. Tentatively title Decision Points, the book will focus on important life decisions, Bush told The Associated Press.
When former president Bill Clinton spoke recently before the Association of American Publishers in New York City, he focused on the economy and the new stimulus plan approved by Congress.
For publishers, nothing is more important – especially given industry consolidation as a result of economic pressure and new technologies that threaten the market for printed books.
Clinton’s very speech – about the complexities of the economy – reinforced why we need books. His point: That books are as important as ever in our age of blogs and Tweets, because facts alone aren’t enough; we also need “perspective and linear argument.”
“You ought to feel that you are in a noble profession,” Clinton told publishers. “You ought to pollute it as a little as you can and make some money. … I don’t care what will happen with technology, we’ll all still need to read.”
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Is Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s statesmanship so great, that despite the mark of scandals in Chappaquiddick and Palm Beach, his legacy will be on par with that of Daniel Webster?
So says Peter S. Canellos, the Boston Globe Washington bureau chief and editor of a new biography on Kennedy. The book, Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, is by a team of Boston Globe writers who covered Kennedy over the years. It includes previously unpublished family letters and interviews.
Speaking of Kennedy’s nearly five-decade legislative career, Canellos told The New York Times via e-mail: “There’s no question in my mind that he’s the greatest legislator in American history. That sounds like a glib superlative. But when you do all the research – and we did – there’s really no other conclusion.”
Kennedy’s quip to a family member, when told about the Webster comparison: “What did Webster do?”
The book suggests that after Chappaquiddick, Kennedy spent the rest of his life soul searching, as he also took on the role of father figure to 13 nieces and nephews who had no fathers.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s own memoir is scheduled for release this fall, sooner than originally planned. The book, titled “True Compass,” reportedly fetched an $8 million advance for the Massachusetts Democrat. Part of the proceeds will go to charity.
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A note on novelist James Purdy, who died in New Jersey last week at age 94:
In a 2005 New York Times essay, American novelist and playwright Gore Vidal commented on why Purdy received limited success and acclaim for his dark and sometimes comic fiction, with subjects ranging from ghosts to gays.
“The walls of Jericho remained standing and still stand to this day despite a unique and varied body of work,” wrote Vidal. “But then certain writers are simply not allowed to pass because, at some level, they genuinely disturb, causing the Confederacy of Dunces to cart away their most vivid works like so many pillars of salt to be set up in that deadly desert that separates our Oz from the real world.”
Purdy once offered this explanation: “Reputations are made here, as in Russia, on political respectability or commercial acceptability. The worse the author, the more he is known.”
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Diane Evans is a former Knight Ridder columnist and is now president of SunLit Communications and DelMio.com, an interactive online magazine on books for writers and readers.
Edward Kennedy at one time was a name synonymous with “scandal.” Often regarded as a pampered playboy, Teddy languished in the shadows of his brothers, John and Bobby, whose shadows seemed to have been made longer by their deaths in the 1960s.
But over the decades in the Senate, Kennedy accumulated a substantial body of work. Now, as the senator faces his own mortality with the diagnosis of a brain tumor, the staff of the Boston Globe has crafted Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy.
In his review, Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Tim O’Brien rattles off a list of scandals, enough scandals to keep the tabloids in business for years. The drinking and carousing, the academic misdeeds, and more:
“Last Lion explores all of these incidents, and it doesn’t give Kennedy a hometown discount. Chappaquiddick (the one-word incident that revolved around the death of Mary Jo Kopechne), the writers say, was ‘a failure of princely indulgence, assuming he could do anything and have others clean up, or something closer to the opposite — the faltering of a grief-stricken and damaged psyche, unable to confront his responsibilities.’ ”
The Globe staff, which probably knows Kennedy better than anyone else could, provides a unique view of the Massachusetts senator, the liberal’s liberal who has forged unlikely alliances and deep friendships with the likes of conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
So what happened? Where have our eccentric writers gone?
Cuts in the publishing industry continue, whether it’s a round of layoffs at National Geographic, or the University of Michigan Press abandoning print to go digital.
Edward Kennedy at one time was a name synonymous with “scandal.” Often regarded as a pampered playboy, Teddy languished in the shadows of his brothers, John and Bobby, whose shadows seemed to have been made longer by their deaths in the 1960s.
