The Iraq Study Group Report is fast on its way to becoming a bestseller. It has already gone into a third printing with about 250,000 copies in print and the report has also been downloaded for free over 700,000 times.Like the "The 9-11 Commission Report", which was released two years ago and sold more than 1 million copies and received a National Book Award nomination, the Iraq report is a government document. Historically, government documents where printed, published and distributed by the government. It is only recently that these reports have started being published by mainstream publishers. Yes, each publisher...
Emerald City is a Wiz at Reading
That is part of the headline from USA Today's article on Seattle claiming the top spot as America's most literate city for the second year in a row. USA Today presenting an article on literacy and using the word 'wiz' in the title really opens the door for some fun but we will leave that for another time. Here are some highlights: Seattle's remains #1 overall in the Bookstore category which uses the following three variables- 1. Number of retail bookstores per 10,000 population2. Number of rare and used bookstores per 10,000 population3. Number of members of the American Booksellers...
Save the Libraries-Save the Earth- NOW
The libraries and the content of the libraries of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency!) are in serious danger. The administration is attempting to weed out any questionable material that might put the corporate and fossil fuel gods at risk of losing their thrones. What began as a $2 million budget cut (out of a total library services budget of $2.5 million) in the President's 2007 budget for the EPA's library services is now an all out assault on the precious information housed in the EPA libraries. Here is just a snippet from the in-depth coverage this travesty is getting by...
The O. J. Book Toss
So let's follow the bouncing OJ book: New Book-Recalled Book-Scarce Book 1. Tremendous hype precedes the scheduled Nov. 30th release of "If I Did It" being published by Judith Regan's ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers both owned by head Fox Robert Murdoch. 2. Tremendous public outcry forces the publisher to cancel publication. 3. The books that did make it to market begin making their way to the used book, auction world (or the resale market as the USA today article calls it) with lucrative results. USA Today story on this here. Where will the book bounce next? Back in...
New York Times Does Letterpress
Nice article in the NYT Sunday Arts & Lesuire section entitled "Retro Printer, Grounding the LaserJet"Of course there is the customary "In the compter age, the old-fashioned letterpress is enjoying a resurgence" line that we have been hearing pretty much yearly for the last 20 years but hey at least they keep writing about it.My favorite line comes from Kitty Maryatt, director of Scripps College Press, who says "It is the romance of the impression of letter pressed into paper" Wow! Love thy printer now!To keep the momentum going here are some letterpress related links:First this great video "Leader's in...