After our discovery yesterday that The Pale King was already on sale, the New York Times finds lots of angry booksellers, but not much by way of explanation.
Pale King Confusion
The First Perec
On the rediscovery of Georges Perec‘s first novel, Portrait of a Man Known as Il Condottiere, a book “connected by a hundred threads to every part of the literary universe that Perec went on to create—but not like anything else that he wrote,” from the New York Review of Books.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Basu; Fuller; Bollen; Spencer; Fallon; Laird
Out this week: The Windfall by Diksha Basu; Quiet Until the Thaw by Alexandra Fuller; The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen; River Under the Road by Scott Spencer; The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon; and Modern Gods by Nick Laird. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
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Carl Köhler in Toronto
An exhibition of the authorportraits of Swedish artist Carl Köhler, whose extraordinary portraits of artists and intellectuals we’ve displayed here at The Millions, opens in Toronto on January 11th at the Robarts Library of the University of Toronto, 130 St. George St. For more information call 416-971-3131.
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Colors: Definitions and Names
Kory Stamper, one of the lexicographers responsible for Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, describes the pleasures and poetry to be found in the Third Edition’s “color definitions.” Take vermillion for example, which is listed as “a variable color averaging a vivid reddish orange that is redder, darker, and slightly stronger than chrome orange, redder and darker than golden poppy, and redder and lighter than international orange.” (Related: how colors got their names; who names colors what.)
The Best Comics of 2013
Want to get rid of some of that holiday money? Timothy Callahan’s list of The Best Comics of 2013 is a good place to start.
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The Heyday of Memoir
Recommended Reading: This review of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir over at Slate. For a bit on Karr and some other Catholic writers with whom she is often associated, here’s an essay from The Millions.
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OK, this seems to be telling a different story than yesterday’s discussion, when it seemed that bookstores also got the book early and could start selling…
Yes. It appears that there was some miscommunication, with some in the supply chain focusing on the 4/15 date and others not. I know that Amazon’s policy is that unless there is a specific “do not sell until” date specified by the publisher, they will start shipping the book as soon as they have copies to ship.
Yeah, now I’m frustrated and angry on behalf of others. If it just went out early all-around, then I wouldn’t see the deal so much, but with it not going out early all-around and with some, such as City Lights, apparently having been told that the there was a specific “do not sell until” date, there’s reason to be upset.
Interestingly, last I checked the Kindle version was still in pre-order, ready for release 4/15.
While I understand the frustration that independent bookstores must be feeling right now, I do not understand how there is a bookseller in Brooklyn who’s real name is Zack Zook.
*Sorry, that should read “whose real name.” I feel like a real Zook right now.
First, the whole strict on sale/lay down/street date is a pain in the ass. Is it really that hard to ship books to arrive simultaneously? You know…man on the moon and all that. Most booksellers now do not seem to know the difference between strict on sale and pub date, so if you call to find a book you get some really inaccurate information.
I found out that Pale King was available when I checked the St. Mark’s (Bowery, NYC) regular Wednesday New Titles list and saw they had 35 copies on hand. I found my copy yesterday at The New England Mobile Book Fair in Dedham MA. Both are independent bookstores.