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
Earnest Jest
For Atlas Obscura, Tucker Leighty-Phillips writes on how a Portuguese-to-English phrasebook, introduced to English readers by Mark Twain, became a comedy sensation. Pair with this Millions piece on Twain’s travels.
The Great (Literary) Depression
“Ageists who want to fault millennials for the continual decline in literary reading are wrong to do so. Across the board, there wasn’t much considerable variation in the amount literature age groups read. Everyone is hanging out in the 39–49% range.” Is America in the midst of a literary recession? According to the National Endowment for the Arts, 2015 marked the first year in 33 cycles of research that the percentage of adults who read literature had dropped below 45% to a dismal 43%.
The Secret History of Black Chefs
“Back in the 1800s, for instance, when white women began recording their family food traditions, they took credit for their slaves’ handiwork. ‘You owned Sally, you owned her recipe,’ Toni Tipton-Martin reflected on an episode of the podcast Gravy.” At Mother Jones, read about the secret history of black chefs in America.
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In Memoriam, Edward Albee
“For example, I don’t feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward.” The Paris Review offers a manuscript page from playwright Edward Albee, who died this past weekend. See also: this amazing piece of lore behind the titling of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Two Previously Unpublished Lucile Clifton Poems Make Their Debut
Dive into summer with two never-before-seen poems by award-winning poet, Lucille Clifton: "poem to my yellow coat" and "bouquet."
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How the Sausage Gets Made
“Being a judge for the Man Booker prize has at times felt like being part of a team of archaeologists excavating some vast buried city. Once the dust has settled – after nine months of reading – you stand back to survey your labours and realise all that’s left is a small pile of gleaming fragments. I hadn’t expected the process to be quite so emotionally exhausting. Nor had I thought it would be quite so exhilarating.” In case you’re curious, a Man Booker Prize arbiter offers up his reflections on the judging process. See also: the shortlist itself, which has surprised many readers!
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On Reading and Personality Disorders
“Six thousand books is a lot of reading, true, but the trash like Hell’s Belles and Kid Colt and The Legend of the Lost Arroyo and even Part-Time Harlot, Full-Time Tramp that I devoured during my misspent teens really puff up the numbers. And in any case, it is nowhere near a record. Winston Churchill supposedly read a book every day of his life, even while he was saving Western Civilization from the Nazis. This is quite an accomplishment, because by some accounts Winston Churchill spent all of World War II completely hammered.”
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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.