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| . 2.10.12 Curious Numbers I just came across these numbers about the 2007 certified a class-action lawsuit that disgruntled readers brought against James Frey for putting "fiction" in his supposedly-nonfiction work, A Million Little Pieces. In the resulting settlement that offered a refund to anybody who bought the book before the falsehoods were acknowledged. Only 1,729 people asked to be reimbursed, costing Random House $27,348. The attorneys in the case were paid $783,000 in fees. This is how our legal system works! What was it that Shakespeare wrote? ... "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." (Henry VI), Dick the Butcher to Jack Cade _____ 2.7.12  It's been 200 years for Charles John Huffam Dickens since his birth on February 7, 1812  The Charles Dickens Museum in London_____  2.3.12Writers speaking out against ebooks & more  Jonathan Franzen "The technology I like is the American paperback edition of "Freedom." I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it's pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now… "I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change… ""The Great Gatsby" was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?" Maurice Sendak "I hate them. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book! A book is a book is a book." Ursula Le Guin "Anything longer than a letter or a poem is tiresome for me to read on the screen. I read fast, carelessly, superficially on the screen, and don't enjoy it... I'll read what I can on paper, and make do with text on screen only if I have to." Sherman Alexie "Jeff Bezos has been quoted as saying "he wants to change the way people read." I don't know what he means... But 75-95% of music is pirated... I'd be really worried if I was a writer of bestsellers and all my books were digitized, how easy it will be for their books to be pirated." Penelope Lively "It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd." Ray Bradbury "Those aren't books. You can't hold a computer in your hand like you can a book. A computer does not smell. There are two perfumes to a book. If a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better. It smells like ancient Egypt. A book has got to smell. You have to hold it in your hands and pray to it. You put it in your pocket and you walk with it. And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn't do that for you." Stephen Colbert "You can't burn a Kindle." _____ Think of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, "We don't want any of THOSE apples." Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million have announced that they won’t be carrying any Amazon-published titles. Publishers Weekly asked a number of independent booksellers whether they’d be stocking Amazon-published books, and answers ranged from “No” to “Hell, no.” This isn’t the first time a bookselling giant has muscled into the publishing side of things. Barnes & Noble acquired a publishing company named Sterling Publishing in 2003. Sterling has been around since 1949 and was a quality publisher of nonfiction titles, especially in how-tos, self-helps, and reference topics. Shortly after the purchase, both Borders and Costco announced that they would no longer be carrying Sterling titles. UPDATE: Barnes & Noble now has Sterling up for sale, so they can be more devoted to the Nook. _____ 2.2.12 HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!  my own groundhog infowww.groundhogday.org_____ 1.26.12The 5 Books That Inspire the Most Tattoos Gabe Habash / Source: Rate My Ink I don't vouch for any validity for this, but it's interesting. — John 1. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 3. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 5. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk _____ Is Amazon taking over the world? Take a look at this article from Bloomberg Businessweek. _____ ALL RIGHT Maurice Sendak You want some fun, take a look at the recent two-part interview Stephen Colbert did with a very surprising Maurice Sendak. The author and illustrator contemplates the complexity of children and the simplicity of Newt Gingrich. take a look_____ Where the Readers Are: 'Most Literate Cities' in U.S. Washington, D.C. topped the list of the most literate cities in the U.S. for the second consecutive year, in the statistical survey released annually by Central Connecticut State University President Jack Miller, and "based on data that includes number of bookstores, library resources, newspaper circulation and Internet resources," USA Today reported. The top 10 for 2011: Washington, D.C. Seattle Minneapolis Atlanta Boston Pittsburgh Cincinnati St. Louis San Francisco Denver _____ 1.19.12Indie Bookseller Looks Forward to an 'Even More Exciting' Year "One thing that we all observed was how often customers told us they were choosing to shop with us to support an independent bookstore and local business. While we often receive comments like these, the staff was struck by their frequency and the apparent conviction behind them.... "It is clear that the rumors of the demise of independent bookstores have been greatly exaggerated. Entrepreneurs continue to enter the industry, reimagining how the printed word is distributed to passionate readers. It has been an exciting year, but we promise you that the coming year will be even more exciting." — Jeff Mayersohn, owner of the Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass. _____ Jonathan Lethem: Bookselling Was 'My University' "I think of bookstore jobs as my university. The physical trade of books was a hallowed way to become a writer in the pre-MFA era. It was the only work I wanted to do, and the only work I was qualified to do.... With bookstores, you go in and you find the things you weren't looking for. The clerk is doing that 24/7--my reading was shaped by what was left behind. And you develop a loathing for the false canon--the two books each year that everybody is supposed to read.... You can't hang onto those sacred quarantines when you see the mad diversity around you." — Jonathan Lethem, recalling his time as a bookseller (Moe's Books) for a Salon article on the vanishing bricks-and-mortar shop clerk _____ author quotes "Nonsense wakes up the brain cells." — Dr. Seuss "Good prose is like a window pane." — George Orwell "What is written without effort, is in general read without pleasure." — Samuel Johnson "When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." — Raymond Chandler "Writing is my only interest. Even speaking is an interruption." — Isaac Asimov (author of 500 books) "My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, and a little whiskey." — William Faulkner "Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale." — Hans Christian Anderson _____ IT'S A SHAME - converting bricks & mortar in showrooms for online sellers A recent survey conducted by the Codex Group, a book market research and consulting company, showed that 24% of the people who bought books from an online retailer said they had looked at the same book in a brick and mortar bookstore before making that purchase. In the case of customers purchasing from amazon.com, that number jumped to 39%. more on this from Bill Petrocelli _____ Charlotte Brontë's Million-Dollar Manuscript The Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris purchased a manuscript by Charlotte Brontë for$1.1 million dollars at a Sotheby's auction in London. The Guardian reported that the "miniature booklet, one of six handwritten 'Young Men's Magazines' made by the author when she was 14," was sold for more than twice the pre-sale estimate. The museum plans to put the manuscript, which "contains 4,000 words over 19 pages small enough to fit in the palm of a hand," on display next month. _____ 12.8.11ABA Responds to Amazon App Promo This week Amazon.com announced that customers who go into bricks-and-mortar stores on Saturday, December 10, use the company’s smartphone price check app on select products, and then purchase that product from Amazon will receive a discount of up to $5. While books were not included in the promotion, indie bookstores, like other Main Street retailers, were outraged by the online giant’s latest move. ABA CEO Oren Teicher has written an open letter (below and here in PDF format) to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos that highlights the glaring discrepancy between the company’s recent statements in support of sales tax fairness and this latest exploitation of an inequitable strategic advantage. Dear Jeff Bezos, We’re not shocked, just disappointed. Despite your company’s recent pledge to be a better corporate citizen and to obey the law and collect sales tax, you created a price-check app that allows shoppers to browse Main Street stores that do collect sales tax, scan a product, ask for expertise, and walk out empty-handed in order to buy on Amazon. We suppose we should be flattered that an online sales behemoth needs a Main Street retail showroom. Forgive us if we’re not. We could call your $5 bounty to app-users a cheesy marketing move and leave it at that. In fact, it is the latest in a series of steps to expand your market at the expense of cities and towns nationwide, stripping them of their unique character and the financial wherewithal to pay for essential needs like schools, fire and police departments, and libraries. But maybe we’ve misunderstood. Even though you’ve spent millions on lobbyists, fired affiliates in seven states, and threatened to shut warehouses to avoid collecting sales tax, maybe you really mean it now when you say you support a level playing field. It’s up to you to show us. In the meantime, indie retailers remain the heart of countless communities — offering discovery, energy, support, and unique experiences. See you on Main Street. Sincerely, Oren Teicher, CEO American Booksellers Association _____ 11.23.11TRIVIA time - just so you'll know Ship's Bell Story Mariners have used a unique bell code to tell time at sea for hundreds of years. The code is based on the crew's typical workday routine while the vessel is under way. A ship at sea requires constant attention throughout the day's twenty-four hours. The day is therefore divided into six four-hour periods, each called a "watch." Similarly, the crew is segmented into three divisions. Division members then stand their individually assigned duties on two watches per day, with eight hours off duty between watches. To rotate each division's watch times, the Evening Watch is periodically divided into two watches. These are called Dog Watches because they "dog" the watch schedule for all divisions ahead by one watch period. First Watch 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. Mid-Watch (also Black Watch) 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. Morning Watch 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. Forenoon Watch 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Afternoon Watch 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Evening Watch 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The watch officer struck the ship's bell every half hour to apprise the crew of the time. A single bell denoted the end of the first half hour and one bell was added each half-hour. Eight bells therefore signaled the end of each four-hour watch. - from a Thos. Moser catalog |  ALTernative NEWS  what have we seen?what did we think of them? Please check out our new page for my movie comments. _____ OTHER STUFF  One of our favorite Oakland places is the Mountain View Cemetery at 5000 Piedmont Avenue. I've been a graveyard lover since I was a child visiting old New England resting places of all kinds. Mountain View is a grand place (over 200 acres) and we get out there at least once a month. It a wonderful place to take pictures, relax and reflect, and to bring a picnic and a good book. They give very interesting guided tours, the architecture is spectacular, and the grounds were designed by none other than Frederick Law Olmsted (of NYC's Central Park fame) and it all started back in 1863. more about Mountain View Cemetery: livesofthedead.commore about graveyards: association of graveyard rabbits _____ Time for a little politics. Back in August, Dylan Ratigan really let loose on his MSNBC show and made a lot of sense about money and politics. Some are calling his heated words, his Howard Beale "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" moment—as in the movie Network. getmoneyout.com_____  I've felt for decades that changing the funding of our politics was the key. Yet, as time has moves on, only more and more money has poured in AND government gets less and less accomplished. When will our government serve more of the people, EVEN the people without big money, those in real need? These are tough times and it's hard to see where things have a chance of improving. Maybe everybody (not just the deluded tea party people) needs to get angry and demand change. - John_____  Every year on March 14th, I look back, way back to March 14, 1987…back almost 25 years ago. That was when we opened the doors of our very first bookstore, Mansion Book Merchants in Davis. It was a very good day, one of the best in my life. It was a day full of hope. Who knew then, how many more days we would have, opening other doors, in other locations? _____  9.20.11 Mysterious Trees Appear—made from books. The mysterious case of Edinburgh's beautiful paper sculptures, which have been placed by an anonymous artist in various locations as gifts "in support of libraries, books, words, ideas," began last March. a whole forest of these great creations._____ United Republic, a new organization fighting the corrupting influence of well-financed special interests over American politics and government._____ Here's a link to a very cool little space that can be made just for reading — the Prefab Read-Nest. If I had a spot of land, something very much like this would be sitting there. Oh, to dream._____ Learn more about this November 2012 ballot initiative, Regulate Marijuana Like Wine, and start thinking about where you stand on the issue. So much is changing on this states rights vs federal power issue and who knows where it will stand by the end of next year. Fascinating to have this conflict so much in the news right after Ken Burns has his three-part special about Prohibition on PBS. States rights? Telling people what to do? Legislating behavior? Click on the image or name above and educate yourself. home | blog | site map | reviews | bookstore traveler | book awards  "to the top" . | ||||