While so much energy is focused on the present or future state of bookselling little goes toward the much more vital issue of who is going to buy our books.The non-new book community calls this species book collectors while the new book community calls them readers. Though this post focuses on the antiquarian slant it is not a far reach to substitute 'reader' for 'collector'. This is a pressing issue for anyone who sells any type of book.Bruce McKinney of Americana Exchange took a film crew and headed to the Bay Area to talk with four preeminent booksellers. The topic:...
The Seeds of Frankenstein
We know that on a dark stormy night in 1816 Lord Byron read some ghost stories to his guests and then asked them to write their own version. Mary Shelley was one of those guests and that is when and where the gothic masterpiece Frankenstein was born. In her introduction to the Third Edition of the book Shelly says: When I placed my head upon the my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think...I saw--with shut eyes, but acute mental vision--I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put...
Did I Write That?
Here is a good one.What do these people have in common :Dick Cheney's wifeBarbara WaltersDan 'Divinci Code ' BrownFormer NJ Governor Jim McGreeveyLewis Scooter Libbyand Bill O'ReillyHmm. How about they all have published a book earlier in their career that they would probably do anything to make disappear but "thanks to the Web, literary fiascos may never again slip softly into the safety of oblivion. "Out of print" no longer means not available".Claire Zulkey exposes these 'literary tragedies' in her amusing piece for Radar.com "Read in the Face: From Barbara Walters to Dan Brown, the embarrassing books they wish we'd...
Threats Close One Bookstore Customs Threaten Another
Prairie Lights Bookstore, located in Iowa City, needed to close it doors early on Tuesday night after the store received both threatening phone calls and letters in response to an event scheduled to take place that evening. The event was a reading by Krista Jacob, the editor of the recently released book Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice. The book is a collection of essays by a number of feminist writers that explores the impact of race, economics and culture on women's reproduction rights and women's attitudes toward abortion."This bookseller doesn't understand the impact of this [decision]....
Book Fountains
Though water is traditionally one of the greatest enemies of books these three fountains show us that water and books can live in harmony.Outside the Cincinnati Public LibraryPublic water fountain in RomeModel for proposed Fountain of Knowledge to be placed outside the University of Idaho Library. I am not sure if it was ever built.