Are you in the mood to read a page-turner? If you’re not afraid to read something in the mystery section at your local bookstore, try Paranoia by Joseph Finder. I keep hearing people talking about it, and it’s getting good reviews. Check out this one at Slate.com (the reviewer gets to it after he reviews John Le Carre’s latest, Absolute Friends).
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Publishers might soon change hands
Reuters is reporting that several prominent publishers, currently tethered to larger companies and media conglomerates, could be the target of bids from private equity firms looking for the steady cashflow that their backlists would provide. At the top of the list is Penguin, currently owned by Pearson, but News Corp’s HarperCollins and CBS’s Simon & Schuster could be separated from their parents as well. So far Houghton Mifflin is the only major publisher to have been extracted from its parent (Vivendi in this case) by private equity firms.Is this good news for publishers? Since they’re not very profitable, publishers are often forgotten alongside the other holdings of these large media companies. At the same time, however, private equity firms’ primary motive would likely be getting a return on their investment, so cost cutting could probably be expected.
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British History in Books
Melvyn Bragg, who hosts the terrific In Our Time program on BBC Radio, has put together a list of the twelve British books that have changed the world. The list is for a television series that he’ll be hosting. As an article in the Guardian explains, the most recent book on the list is from 1918, and there’s no fiction at all. What’s interesting about Bragg’s list is that they’re not so much books as they’re historical documents of political and scientific importance. The list:Principia Mathematica by Isaac NewtonMarried Love by Marie StopesThe Magna CartaThe Rule Book of Association FootballOn the Origin of Species by Charles DarwinOn the Abolition of the Slave Trade by William WilberforceA Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary WollstonecraftExperimental Researches in Electricity by Michael FaradayPatent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine by Richard ArkwrightThe King James Bible by William Tyndale and 54 Scholars Appointed by the KingAn Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam SmithThe First Folio by William Shakespeare
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A Good, New Book!
Ten Little Indians, a new collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie, came in today. I have read a few Alexie stories here and there as he appears often in anthologies and literary magazines, but until recently I had not been an avid fan. A month or so ago, however, a story of his “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” appeared in the New Yorker. It is a tremendous story, and the price of the book is worth that story alone. It has been exciting to hear that the rest of the stories meet that standard. I see this as, possibly, a breakthrough collection for him.Baseball: A Summer DiversionI was very pleased and a bit surprised to see that this week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review is devoted to baseball, leading off with a review of Game Time, collection of baseball writing by one of my favorites, Roger Angell. Game Time is sitting on my shelf right now, and a fully intend to read and savor it before the season is out. Also, reviewed is the baseball book of the moment, if not THE book of the moment: Moneyball. There are some other less well know books covered, as well as books by a couple of the country’s favorite chroniclers of our pastime: Roger Kahn and David Halberstam. I will probably talk about them more once the Times puts the new Book Review up on the website, and I can read the reviews at my leisure.
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Yardley’s year in books
My favorite book critic, Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post, has put out his list of the year’s best books. He also takes the opportunity to make some comments about the National Book Awards controversy.My own view is that the literary judgment of the National Book Award panelists was clouded by their desire to Make a Statement (as, for that matter, was the judgment of their compatriots on the nonfiction panel), but it’s just my opinion and is worth no more than the paper it’s printed on, if that.He self-aware enough to note that books he has chosen are “by men, and mostly men of a certain age, which as it happens is an age pretty close to my own.” I’m not sure if the other litbloggers – who went to great lengths to defend the five NBA finalists – will jump on Yardley because he seems to say that the five women are not worthy, but my feeling is that he, at least, makes it clear that these choices are about opinions, and his opinion happens to differ from the opinions of the judges. Now, on to his book choices: An Unfinished Season by Ward Just, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (excerpt), Nothing Lost by John Gregory Dunne (excerpt), Roads of the Heart by Christopher Tilghman (excerpt), and Human Capital by Stephen Amidon (excerpt). Yardley also lists his non-fiction picks in the column.Also out: 100 Notable Books of the Year from the New York Times.