Some Light Reading for Thursday

Patrick — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:52:21 +0000

Later on today, I’ll be posting the latest in our fabulous video series, so that’s something to look forward to, right? In the meantime, check out these excellent articles:

At the Millions, Edan interviews Joe Meno, author of the tremendous new novel The Great Perhaps: “After I finished the first draft, I realized the book was about complexity, and the need for it, and how terrified we, as Americans, seemed to have become of anything complicated or uncertain.” Also worth a click is Meno’s “Book Notes” entry at Largehearted Boy, where he discusses, among other things, The Beatles “Yellow Submarine.”

At Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellogg interviews George Pelecanos. I think he distilled the relationship between power and evil in “The Wire” better than anywhere else I’ve seen it: “We were always on the side of labor, as I am. We were on the side of the police officers who walk the beat, kids on the corner who are selling drugs — anybody who was the working person. If you were in management, you were a bad guy.”

Who’s excited to see Angels & Demons? From A.O. Scott’s NY Times review of the movie: “The only people likely to be offended by “Angels & Demons” are those who persist in their adherence to the fading dogma that popular entertainment should earn its acclaim through excellence and originality.”

Malcolm Gladwell responds to criticism about his latest New Yorker piece about “underdogs.” There’s some interesting stuff here. I think critics of the piece seem to focus too much on the idea that the full-court press is the key to underdog success when it really seemed to me that doing something novel – changing the rules in a heretofore unexplored or unpleasant way – was what really led to success. Still, folks do have a point. That 1996 Kentucky team was loaded with talent (It’s also worth noting that the Kentucky team met a true underdog in the finals that year, Syracuse. How did Syracuse make the finals? By employing a two-three zone defense that gave opponents fits).

Random Thoughts for Wednesday Morning

Patrick — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:38:18 +0000

If “The Wire” were written today, would Barksdale’s crew be using Twitter in some ingenious way? I can just see Lester Freamon looking at photos of them typing away on their phones: “It looks like they’re texting, but nobody’s receiving the message.” I’d love to see the flip side of that scene, too. Stringer: “Bodie, you gotta holler bout that re-up, you feel me?” Bodie: “I tried but I kept getting the fail whale, String.” On a semi-related note, a Canadian judge recently decided to allow a journalist to “Tweet” a gang trial, despite concerns from lawyers that jurors might read the tweets.

Everybody is talking about digiARCs today, with Stephanie’s article in Shelf Awareness and Jessica’s post at The Written Nerd leading the way. I would LOVE the ability to read ARCs on my iPhone, as it would reduce the clutter in my apartment. As an inducement to publishers, it would probably make me much more willing to give your galley a shot. I can see resistance from publishers, though. If the physical ARCs they distribute now end up at The Strand, how long before the digiARC of Jonathan Lethem’s new book ends up on the internet somewhere, months before publication date?

On the subject of ebooks, there’s a good post about the customer boycott on Kindle ebooks priced over $9.99 at Conversational Reading. I’ve already left a comment on the post (click through to read it), but I’ll expand the point here. This boycott is wrongheaded and it’s bad for everyone involved. I think tiered pricing is the smartest, fairest model for e-content. It won’t be the format of a product but rather the speed and the timing of how and when the product is delivered that will determine the price. If you want a book within the first few months it is out, you will pay a premium for it. Not because it costs more for the publisher to make it (the cost of production, in this case, is wholly irrelevant to pricing) but rather because the demand for the book is high at this point. As demand drops, so does the price. Online music retailers have finally figured this out, so let’s all agree to skip the years of fighting about it and switch straight to a teired pricing system for ebooks.

Today would be John Fante’s 100th birthday. I think of Fante’s novel Ask the Dust as sort of the first LA novel. Indeed, from Stephen Cooper’s appreciation in today’s LA Times: “In Fante’s hands, the landscape of greater Los Angeles — from Pershing Square to the Santa Monica beach to Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley to Central Avenue and finally to the Mojave — became a three-dimensional character. Never before had the city been seen with such a penetrating, panoramic eye.”

The Inside Flap, formerly the excellent blog of Harry W. Schwartz Booksellers in Milwaukee, WI, is back in action despite the Schwartz’s closing. Hooray!

Vromans Bookstore Blog » “The Wire”

Some Light Reading for Thursday

Random Thoughts for Wednesday Morning