Bookslut has a nice post in their February online magazine by Heather Smith who writes the "Judging a Book By Its Cover" column. This month she covers "Books About Eating"She makes an interesting observation on the evolution of the food book market noting that they have gone from "books that were kind of eating porn, in which people traveled all over the world looking for the most perfect, exquisite loaf of bread, or the most tender baby sheep that charmingly scampers and gambols on the sun-dappled Tuscan hills and therefore is all the more delicious when it is cooked and...
The Top Writers of the Pacific Northwest Hit the Newspaper
Talk about a sense of place.Here are the first inhabitants of the new Seattle P-I Writers in Residence project:Sherman AlexieRebecca BrownCharles CrossPete DexterIvan DoigTimothy EganEllen ForneyDavid GutersonCharles JohnsonJonathan RabanTom RobbinsAnn RuleTell me one publisher that wouldn't want that lineup. A healthy dozen. The Northwest 12.Here's the plan:-One writer will be spotlighted in the PI each month.-The material can only be "new work, unpublished past work or work excerpted from upcoming books"Kudos to PI managing editor David McCumber for getting it going. He created the prototype for this when at the San Francisco Examiner but here the writers are strictly regional....
Libraries Need Computers – Libraries Need the Gates Foundation
The first shower of news from the ALA Mid-winter Meetings here is in Seattle was the Gates Foundation pledging another 5 years of support so "public libraries serving low-income communities continue to provide free, high-quality computer and Internet services and training to their communities".Some interesting numbers from the release:-14 million people rely on library computers to further their education, look for work and to get health and government information.-almost 40 percent of Americans are still lacking Internet access at home.-the Gates Foundations has contributed over $325 million to date to library technology initiatives to overcome the "digital divide"Our hats go...
Here Come the Librarians!
If you don't see your favorite librarian in the next couple of days there is a good chance he or she is here with us in Seattle.Thousands of librarians from all over the country are ascending to the Emerald City for the American Library Association (ALA) mid-winter meeting.The most literate city in America welcomes you to library heaven and we can't wait until you see our new downtown library!There are over 2000 meetings and events and over 100 different discussion groups, covering all the major topics affecting the trade today.There will be book parties and book related events all over...
Sales Damage and Low Self-Esteem
Bookweb.org, the website for The American Bookseller Association (ABA), has a story on how the recent storm that tore up the Pacific Northwest affected some of the regions new bookstores. Sounds like the worst physical damage hit Parkplace Books in Kirkland, WA tough every bookstore mentioned reported sales damage during and immediately after the storm hit. Though the story focused on only a handful of stores you can bet it is a good indicator for the whole bookselling community of the Northwest.Speaking of sales damage- Publisher's Weekly has an article titled "Year End Brings Indie Closings" Murder Ink in NYC,...