Dispatches from the Red Center
George Eliot, Translator of Human Emotions
For the first time in more than a century, a new edition of George Eliot's translation of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics, will be made available.
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Smaller bits
The internet has allowed self-publishing to become tremendously popular, but writers have been limited in their ability to create custom designed books. A new site called Blurb is offering book creation software that allows you to build your own book. Then they print it for you. It’s meant for creating a one off gift or keepsake, and the prices seem somewhat steep, but it’s probably better than what you would get from a professional print shop.The Bookfinder.com Journal discusses the US Copyright Office’s new report on orphan works (“Orphan works are copyrighted materials whose owners are difficult or impossible to locate, meaning they can no longer be purchased, reprinted, cited at length, or otherwise built upon. Books can get ‘orphaned’ for all sorts of reasons.”) New rules will hopefully make it easier to republish out of print work that has disappeared because copyright holders cannot be found.The Baltimore Sun reports on a man who tried to build his book collection by checking out more than 402 books on as many as 10 different library cards. The fine? Three years in prison.
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Greatly Exaggerated
Whatever your thoughts on Will Self’s claim that the novel as we know it is dead, it’s important to keep in mind, as Daniel D’Addario helpfully illustrates, that we’ve heard this claim before. At Salon, he goes all the way back to 1902 to trace the legacy of a long-held fear.
A Sordid Affair
Has there ever been a decent television show about book publishing? Not yet. Liam O’Brien at Melville House explains how Showtime’s The Affair is the best one we’ve got–and by “best,” he means impossible and hilariously unrealistic.
Nikki Giovanni on Daydreams and Owning Yourself
The 77-year-old poet discusses politics, evening rituals, Cleopatra the dog, and her new writing collection.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Boyle, Marai, Baseball
New this week in the fiction aisle are T.C. Boyle’s When the Killing’s Done (our review) and Sandor Marai’s Portraits of a Marriage. Also, baseball fans, the 2011 Prospectus is out today.
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