Summer Reads, how about 411,422 choices

An intertesting post from the Boston Globe reporting from Bowker, the publisher of Books in Print, that the number of book titles printed last year by American publishers was 276,649, a slight increase from 274,416 the year before. This includes discrete titles; that is, books with separate ISBN numbers. Bowker further notes that if you include public domain titles and print on demand titles that number grows to 411,422.

And the death of books is when? There was talk of this more than 10 years ago with the introduction of the e-book and it still hasn't happened. But there is always new technologies and ways to try to interest the public to publisher's offerings.

From the LA Times an article about new publisher tactics in getting the word out in new formats:

"At Random House, publishers produced four "webisodes" telling an original, live-action story that bridges the time from the end of one Dean Koontz "Odd Thomas" book to the next. More such videos are planned, possibly for other, less well-known authors."

"Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest book chain, has created an online "studio" with more than 1,000 author videos, making it one of the largest such online sites. The goal is to link the ambience of a bookstore -- including author appearances, musical performances and other events -- with desktops and mobile devices."

Innovation is always important in any industry but I can't imagine getting the "ambience of a bookstore" through my desktop. It just doesn't compare to visiting any of the local bookstores near you.

50 Best Cult Books, Or What Haven't You Tossed Since College

The London Telegraph has a great article of the 50 best cult books. I'm a sucker for book lists and I particularly like the British take on things.

"Cult books include some of the most cringemaking collections of bilge ever collected between hard covers. But they also include many of the key texts of modern feminism; some of the best journalism and memoirs; some of the most entrancing and original novels in the canon."

Is there anything better in the book review world than a terse British take on a volume? And this list is full of them. Here's their view on Iron John: a Book About Men by Robert Bly which took the world by storm: "For decades, the cowed menfolk of the world ambled about in pinafores, dusting ornaments and saying "yes, dear". Then Robert Bly wrote Iron John, invented mythopoetic masculinity, and the daft creatures all rushed off into the woods together, hugged, bellowed, wept, painted their furry parts blue and felt re-empowered to wee standing up."

They also point out beautiful novels that defy time:

"TheMaster and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967) Satan

live and in person, a man sized black cat, a magician and his
helpmate, Pontius Pilate… Classic text of dissident magic realism, banned for years under Stalin: now you’ll struggle to find a Russian who hasn't read it. Essential stuff, and with the finest description of a headache yet committed to paper."

It interesting to note what's left off, they include Ann Rand's Fountainhead but leave off Adam Smith, both canons of Republican sway.


And I can't imagine anyone involved in the home birth revival of the 60s without a copy of Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin by the bedside. But all in all, its a wonderful list to contemplate and to see if you still have many of these stashed beside all those colleges book you never tossed.

Candidate for UNESCO Post Theatens Book Burning?

An interesting post from the Israel News claims that the Egyptian culture minister, Farouk Hosni, said that he “would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries.” An interesting outlook for someone who's up for appointment for the cultural and education arm of the UN.

"The anger in Israel over Hosni’s statement is especially emphasized due to the fact that Hosni is Egypt’s candidate for the UNESCO position, as the United Nations’ education, science and cultural organization secretary-general, and he has good chances of being chosen."

The Botany of Farmers, Desired Again

Tacoma's downtown version of the Farmer's Market returns today and that's good news for anyone looking for healthy locally grown produce. I've been reading my way through Michael Pollan's great books about plants, farming, the follies of monoculture and the industrialization of the food chain. His trilogy of titles, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire explore the gross misstep's of our government's handling of the U.S. food chain. The problems of Iowa's reliance on the monoculture farming of corn, the push by industry for seeds that can't reproduce naturally (thus insuring a ready market for next year's planting), pesticides and the vast cities of penned-up cattle, hogs and chickens are all looked at from several different angles by Pollan. The story of what we eat, when we eat it, and how it gets to us is mesmerizing. Its not often that books stop me in my tracks, but there I was looking at a box of crackers in the grocery store and was just struck dumb by the packaging and claims on the box. The information is correct but as Pollan points out it's the process of how the contents get there that matter most.
His premise is that grass is king and the underlying nexus of our food problems. He visits farm that respect grass, the process of the pasture, and plan accordingly. The grass grows, cattle eat, drop manure which chickens then peck apart and process starts over again. It's a process that harkens back to the tenants of Rodale's Organic Gardening. Pollan also brings up the thoughts and agricultural concerns of Wendell Berry. An early proponent of localized food sources and the relationship of sustenance, people, and the land, Berry explains the importance of the short food chain and how we're all interconnected. Intoxicating reads and worth considering as the farm season warms up.

Best of the Booker Prize Goes Public, Vote!

The short list was announced today for the Best of the Booker Prize Award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize. The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known in short as the Booker Prize, is the literary prize awarded each year for authors of novels from England, the Commonweath, or Ireland written in English. It is considered one of the important literary awards of the year.

This year the Booker vote goes public as readers world-wide can cast a vote for the six novels on the short list, Pat Barker's The Ghost Road; Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda; J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace; JG Farrell's The Seige of Kishnapur; Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist; and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

This is great list of novels and its interesting that the Booker Prize is allowing public votes. What better way than this to get the public involved and turning its attention to some of the best novels written in the last 40 years.

Paper Science, Core Structures

From The Popular Edge, a pop-up books art site, comes an interesting look at Matt Schlian and his paper engineering project with the University of Michigan as they look at protein mis-folding of Alzheimer’s disease which Schlian works into paper models. Beautiful paper scuptures from a terrible disease.

"The root cause of Alzheimer’s disease is protein mis-folding. The modular arrangements in which protein strands are formed, break down and incorrectly fold. This causes a chain reaction of erroneous folding. My approach to understanding this is hands on; the microscopic folds can be mapped on a human scale out of paper and used as a basis for sculpture."

Paranoid Park Author Talks About The YA World

Blake Nelson is the author of "Paranoid Park" which was just made into a movie by Gus Van Vant.  It gets its release here in Tacoma at the Grand Cinema.  He was interviewed on Fresh Air about the movie, the book and writing young adult novels.  Its an interesting discussing about growing up and the ability of locking into the world of youths.  

Amazon Sues Over New York Sales Tax

From The New York Times a piece about Amazon filing suit over the collection of sales tax.  The state of New York wants anyone with a presence within the state to pay a sales tax on sales from Amazon.  Which could add up to a lot of money for the state coffers.  Is there any doubt that if this law holds up many more states will follow suit, and Amazon to counter.  

As the historical avenues of brick and mortar retail shopping are further eroded by on-line shopping this will have to be addressed at a national level at some point.  There's no question that retail growth is in the on-line sector and will continue, thus cutting into the local sales and taxes, and the challenge will be to the states that have a sales tax to offset this growth.  the larger question is soon to appear; when will the federal government feel compelled to install a federal sales tax? When will be the tipping point? 

What They Read, A Look into Literary Libraries and Bathtubs

An interesting link from PhiloBiblos from the VSL webpage covers the contents of famous libraries from the LibraryThing webpage. Its an interesting look to see what they held dear to their shelves.

Here's a link to a collection with the wonderfully offbeat name , The Bathtub Collection. "The Bathtub collection consists of fragments found in the old and rare bindings of the NLM’s rare book collection when items were rebound and conserved in the 1940s and 1950s. It is called the “Bathtub Collection” because then-curator Dorothy Schullian took the leftovers of conservation work home and soaked them in her bathtub to retrieve the often interesting bits and pieces of medieval manuscripts and early printed ephemera she found." Thanks to Sara Piasecki the History of Medicine Librarian at OHSU for the link.