The New York Times looks at new technological efforts to make book signings work in the age of the ebook. One idea is an e-reader add-on that lets the reader snap a photo with the author, which the author can then sign with a “digital stylus.” The photo is meant to make its way to Twitter and Facebook, of course. “Bragging potential? Endless,” says the Times. Authors: get ready to say “cheese”?
Book Signings in the Digital Age
Hot Air
The unwritten rules of steampunk declare that in every steampunk story, the Hindenburg never caught fire, the world never lost its desire for blimp travel and the skies are dotted with hot air balloons and zeppelins. As it happens, this element of the genre stems from old utopian narratives, many of which depicted a future of widespread balloon travel. At Salon, Kyle Minor reviews the audiobook of a new history of the hot air balloon, written by Richard Holmes, that shows how the rise of air travel changed the world’s imaginative territory.
Comma Confessional
“One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, Midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience. The popular image of the copy editor is of someone who favors rigid consistency. I don’t usually think of myself that way. But, when pressed, I do find I have strong views about commas.” Mary Norris‘s “Confessions of a Comma Queen,” from the New Yorker.
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Only a Gentile
Jeffrey Goldberg interviews Quentin Tarantino in The Atlantic and writes about why Inglorious Basterds is a very un-Jewish treatment of rage toward Nazis.
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Early Inspirations
Why do great books we read as children have a more profound effect on us than great books we read as adults? It’s hard to say, but YA novelist Anne Cardi comes up with a number of reasons, among them the ability of children’s books to permanently change our viewpoints. (FYI, we asked a bunch of teenagers to recommend last year’s best YA novels.)
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Conversations and Connections
Conversations and Connections is a Philadelphia conference offering editors, writers and publishers a chance to meet one another in a “comfortable, congenial environment.” The full day’s events are organized by Barrelhouse, and this year’s keynote speaker is The Odds author Stewart O’Nan.