Our writers have been around books for a long time and are never shy to share their opinions…
I have a bunch of articles on the burner, but when I heard of Hitchens’ death, and read some obits, I thought I’d comment. I’ve not read any of his books. I’ve seen him on various talking head shows, including The Daily Show, and I generally knew what he was about. It wasn’t until reading … Read more
Richard Russo interviewed several best selling authors about the recent amazon trickery, and the results were comforting, at least. The authors, including, Scott Turow, Stephen King, and Dennis Lehane all found amazon’s tactics less than a stellar business practice. However, the comments to the article were typical in the ‘oh you elitists’ and ‘poor amazon’ … Read more
You know, I honestly used to enjoy buying certain books from this giant non taxing paying Walmart in the ethernet sky. That was before slave labor was discovered, and the foisting of kindle on the masses began. This new development takes the slime bucket award. Mysterious Galaxy, a fantastic indie bookstore featuring mystery and science … Read more
The Format Wars have begun! To arms! To arms! Choose your weapon, grab your hardcovers for close-in combat, your paperbacks for ranged attacks. Get your kindle and hope that the screen doesn’t shatter on the first impact! A month or so ago I read the headline “Barnes & Noble Pulls Watchmen, Sandman And 100 DC Graphic Novels From … Read more
New legislation to impose state sales tax collection requirements on Internet retailers such as Amazon.com is in the works according to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander. Legal confrontations between the giant Internet retailer and state lawmakers have been occurring for years as cash-strapped states continue to pressure Amazon to comply. However, the tide seems to be … Read more
I ran across an article about challenges the Canadian libraries and school libraries faced for the year 2010. Despite lagging a year behind in their statistics, the outcome was quite pleasing to me, as someone who has written so much on banning books from school and public libraries in the US. Report of the Annual … Read more
I thought I’d throw this little snippet up because the wonderful posters about banning books are all gathered onto one page, and it’s amazing what books were banned over the years. Some of the slogans are dead on, perfect expressions of the need for freedom to read, whatever we want. Anyhoo–if interested : http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150354437251662.342497.20181651661&type=1
An interesting article once again explores the impact of print on demand books. A offbeat attitude is displayed by the author of the article, Clive Thompson. It’s his contention that PODs will lead to *more* physical books, not less, actually he thinks in 20 years we will all be ‘neck deep’ in them. It’s what … Read more
