Archive for April, 2009
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Open Veins of South America – Hugo Chavez presents book pick to Obama
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez recently presented US President Barack Obama with a copy of Eduardo Galeano‘s Open Veins of Latin America, prompting an enormous surge in interest in the 1971 work. He even inscribed it: “To Obama, with affection.” – now how’s that for a very cool association copy? Reportedly the publisher is scrambling to [...]
Nabokov’s Last Novel to be Released in November
Monday, April 20th, 2009Penguin Classics has announced the release date for Vladimir Nabokov’s last manuscript, “The Original of Laura.” Nabokov, author of “Lolita” and “Pale Fire,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
As deadline looms, opposition to Google’s book scanning mounts
Monday, April 20th, 2009The Internet Archive has thrown in its opposition to the Google book scanning settlement, requesting they be allowed the “same limitation of potential copyright liability as Google.” In fact, we think that if Google is given this broad indemnity against copyright infringement, every individual and institution in the US should be given the same. The [...]
Amazon censoring gay-themed books?
Monday, April 13th, 2009This story is still developing, but according to this PC World arcticle and other various news sources, Amazon dropped certain books from its sales rank lists over Easter weekend due to a “glitch.” Most of these, as discovered by publisher Mark Probst, were gay-themed or LGBT-classified books, igniting a widespread uproar from Amazon customers, as [...]
CPSIA, Schmipsia – Who cares?
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009Childrens’ book author Carol Baicker-McKee does. She is doing what many others should be doing – taking an activist approach to the unfortunate CPSIA bill and putting a little heart and soul (and sweat) behind it. She’s devoted most of her blog recently to covering CPSIA as it related to childrens’ books – well worth [...]
Some Good News for Independent Bookstores in the New Economy
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009Indiebound.com mentioned a heartening story from the Boston Globe about an independent brick and mortar bookstore in Coolidge Corner, Massachusetts that is succeeding in the face of direct competition from a major national chain rival. Maybe this is an isolated case, but I tend to believe that the current economic environment is forcing people to [...]
Marcel Proust – the Grandfather of Tweeting?
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009What would happen if Marcel Proust or Jimmy Joyce lived in the age of Web 2.0? Answer: the tweetbook. This tweeter (twitterer, twittee?) has published a book through Lulu comprising 270 pages of his 4100 tweets from the past two years. Best of all, its Volume I, so the voracious reader can look forward to [...]
American Library Association urges citizens to take action on CPSIA bill
Monday, April 6th, 2009The ALA (American Library Association) is urging citizens to take action on the CPSIA bill, and urge their representative to support the amendment recently put forward by Rep. Fortenberry of Nebraska that would exempt childrens’ books from the burdensome legislation. The ALA has made it very easy – please take a moment now to use [...]
Notes from the NY ABAA fair and a preview of the new ABAA site
Monday, April 6th, 2009This past weekend, Stephen and I endured months of delays and canceled flights with the singlepurposed intent of attending the ABAA’s New York Antiquarian Book Fair and unveiling a preview of the new upcoming ABAA listing site.
Google book scanning settlement slowly becoming recognized as monopolistic
Saturday, April 4th, 2009It appears that people are slowly waking up to the realization that the Google book scanning settlement is a really, really bad thing. The head of Harvard’s library system is quoted as saying: “Google will be a monopoly.” We’ve blogged here a few times about the fundamental problems with allowing the Google scanning settlement to [...]
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