Very interesting article from the NY Times today about Amazon and used books. Many assume that Amazon’s ample selection of used books represents a grave threat to authors and publishers, but some economists who looked into the issue found evidence that just the opposite is true. The key point: “When used books are substituted for new ones, the seller faces competition from the secondhand market, reducing the price it can set for new books. But there’s another effect: the presence of a market for used books makes consumers more willing to buy new books, because they can easily dispose of them later.” Read the whole article here.
The economics of used books
A Report on the Vonnegut Effect
Despite Breakfast of Champions' outraged pessimism, it was quite a lot of fun. I needed more.
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David Mitchell: The collected blurbs
Not too many David Mitchell blurbs out there, and some of them are quite brief - cropped for maximum impact by editors, I suspect. Note as well the extremely British use of the term "wrong-footed."For Strangers by Taichi Yamada: "Highly recommended. A cerebral and haunting ghost story, which completely wrong-footed me."For The Memory Artists by Jeffrey Moore: "combines smartness and wisdom"For Book of Voices: "A treasures box"For Silence by Shusaku Endo: "One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere... Flawless"For Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam: "It depicts an extraordinary panorama of life within a Muslim community... Thoughtful, revealing, lushly written and painful, this timely book deserves the widest audience."See also: Jonathan Safran Foer: The Collected Blurbs
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What people are reading
I spent a lot of time on the el yesterday riding all over Chicago, and there were lots of folks reading books. When you actually look at what people read, you realize that the reading habits of average folks range far beyond the coverage of newspaper book sections. In terms of what actually gets read, genre fiction certainly seems more popular than literary fiction. Here are the books people were reading on the red, purple, and brown lines yesterday.The Tristan Betrayal (a posthumous effort by Robert Ludlum that inspires PW to say "Perhaps it's time to let the master rest in peace.")Five Quarters of the Orange (Joanne Harris' follow-up to Johnny Depp-vehicle Chocolat)Dutch II (part 2 of a trilogy by Teri Woods - and put out by Teri Woods Publishing - that scores an Amazon ranking of 1,229)Devil in the White City (I think every resident of Chicago has read Erik Larson's account of murder at the World's Fair.)Great Expectations (I love it when I see people reading classic novels on the el - it can restore ones faith in society, I think)Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer is reaching the masses!)Hotel Pastis (Peter Mayle's "novel of Provence")Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen never goes out of style)Deception Point (The obligatory Dan Brown thriller - law requires that at least one Dan Brown novel be present in every train car and a dozen on every airplane.)Elantris (PW says: "[Brandon] Sanderson's outstanding fantasy debut, refreshingly complete unto itself and free of the usual genre cliches.")Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth (Lana Turner never goes out of style either)We Thought You Would Be Prettier (Laurie Notaro's "true tales of the dorkiest girl alive" - ranked 1,446 on Amazon)
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Blogging Around the World
Amar Bakshi was about five years behind me at my high school in Washington DC, but he has my dream job, traveling the world to author a blog for the Washington Post, taking on the charged topic, "How the World Sees America." I started reading it because of the high school connection (Amar is a friend of my little brother's), but I've become an avid reader of it over time as Amar follows in the footsteps of some of my favorite traveling journalists: Jon Lee Anderson, Paul Theroux, and, of course, Ryszard Kapuscinski. Unlike those masters of the form, Amar also carries a video camera with him to further chronicle his experiences. Since starting in May, he's been to England and India, and now he's back in the States hashing out plans to travel farther afield. It's an interesting experiment from a young writer. Worth a read if you're looking for another blog to follow.
An Ode to Reading on Public Transit
In the past six months, I’ve finished 15 novels. My thoughts have since kaleidoscoped; my dreams have evolved; my concentration has slowly but surely fortified over time. I use social media less and less each day.
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On Bloomsdays Past
We brought the world of Ulysses to, say, the Tivoli, or the Grand Canal, or the Art Museum and the Rocky statue.
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Happy Endings
I spotted this essay by James Wood in the Guardian about endings that disappoint. I agree that there is hardly anything more disheartening than a novel that just peters out at the end. To me reading a book is like making an investment. You put in the time, and at the end you hope to walk away with some pleasure. A bad ending screws up the whole arrangement. I tried to think of some really good endings and off the top of my head I came up with a couple. In terms of paying off on an investment, one of my favorites is John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. The "a ha!" moment is almost too perfect but Irving has set it up so well that you can't help but believe it. Another great ending that comes to mind is John Steinbeck's East of Eden. After such a long journey, one almost expects the book to run out of steam, but Steinbeck magnificently collects everything together at the end and sends you out of the book with real emotional force. When I read the last words of that book and put it down, I said to myself, "Wow, that was worth it."
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Food Fight: Anthony Bourdain Slams Rachael Ray
5/29/08: Welcome The Lede readers. Thanks for stopping by! Once you're done reading about Rachael Ray and Anthony Bourdain, check out some of our more recent articles or have a look at our Notable Posts, listed in the right sidebar. If you like what you see, subscribe to our RSS feed. --The MillionsWe've talked about Anthony Bourdain here before, I love food, hell, Millions contributor Patrick even has a food blog, so this is fair game. At Michael Ruhlman's blog Bourdain decided to go through the roster of Food Network personalities and either praise them or lambaste them. I have to say, I agree with him on most points (though I can't watch more than 30 seconds of Emeril without my eyes bleeding). Best by far, though, are his comments on Rachael Ray, and just in case you're too lazy to click through to read them, I'll paste them for you here because they are not to be missed:Complain all you want. It's like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can't cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She's selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She's a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that "Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!" Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, "Hell...I could do that. I ain't gonna...but I could--if I wanted! Now where's my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?" Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better--teach us--and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. "You're doing just fine. You don't even have to chop an onion--you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing...Just sit there. Have another Triscuit..Sleep...sleep..."Damn. (via Black Marks)Books for Anthony Bourdain fans:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary UnderbellyNo Reservations: Around the World on an Empty StomachThe Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and BonesBooks for Rachael Ray fans:Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats--A Year of Deliciously Different DinnersJust In TimeClassic 30-Minute Meals: The All-Occasion Cookbook
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