Archive for April, 2009
« Previous EntriesPenny Arcade on Book 1.0
Thursday, April 30th, 2009With the kindle’s buzz and iTunes ever expanding world, I often wonder if booksellers will be using this tactic in the future. It is a tongue in cheek kind of comic, but in all seriousness, what will the future generations think of shelves? Or is this why the minimalist interior design is taking off. No [...]
The printed book survives to fight another day.
Thursday, April 30th, 2009Nearly buried under news about Google’s rights to distribute ebooks was a quiet announcement of a long awaited change to the book industry. The Times was one of a fairly small number of media sources that covered the trial installation of the Espresso Book Machine, a print on demand book vending machine.
Unveiled last week [...]
New online course offering at McSweeney’s - ENG 371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
Thursday, April 30th, 2009For you fellow old fogies (in the internet age, that means anyone over 30) who lament the fall of the English language into some kind of weird pidgin language filled with “AFAIK” and “BOSMKL”. Robert Lanham’s got a fun piece on McSweeney’s called Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview. It’ll leave you, well, ROFL.
Just wo(a?)ndering [...]
Department of Justice opens antitrust inquiry into Google - finally!
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009In perhaps one of the best bits of book-world news that we’ve seen in awhile, the New York Times is reporting today that the US DOJ has finally opened an antitrust inquiry into Google’s book scanning project.
For awhile, it was really looking as if Google was going to get away with breaking copyright law and [...]
Coming May 1st - International Buy Indie Day
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Author Joseph Finder is trying to get a new “holiday” on the calendar: international buy indie day. This Friday, people everywhere are pledging to visit a local independent bookstore and make a purchase. Here’s to hoping you’ll be one of them!
Why, you ask? Why, because small businesses are superior to chains in nearly every way! [...]
How to clean and repair ex-library books
Monday, April 27th, 2009One very common question we receive from customers is, “how can I take all the library markings off of an ex-library book?
Its very tempting, as book collectors, to want to malign libraries for the damage they do to books. But as Stephen (whose parents were librarians) has often defended to me: “How many books do [...]
Bildungsroman Smackdown: Dickens vs. Adiga
Friday, April 24th, 2009I read two books simultaneously recently: Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Talk about a really fascinating juxtaposition!
Both are what you would call bildungsroman novels, meaning the plots center around the development of a central character. But talk about a brutal literary smackdown of Victorian vs. Postmodern. While others were staying up [...]
Emailing credit card numbers; a how-to guide
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009Ever wondered what the safest way to have a customer e-mail credit card data to you is? There isn’t one. In fact, asking a customer to transmit credit card information to you via e-mail can land you in very big trouble with the credit card companies. Like $500,000 big.
I am floored how common the practice [...]
Why should I care about e-books? Lessons learned the hard way from the newspaper biz
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009I had the dubious privilege of working in the newspaper industry in the final heady years before its collapse. It has often worried me that the book industry carries a similar hubris about technology as newspapers did in, say, 2001.
My job as director of online at the time was to usher in “new media” [...]
Books as contraband?
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009So, what really happens if CPSIA isn’t overturned? Those books you read and loved as a kid? Gone. Osbolete. Illegal, in fact. Books as contraband? Yes.
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