The Border's Trilogy. Sponsored by the Oprah Book Club who's latest pick The Road by Cormac McCarthy...We won't get into the possible psychological motives for such a choice but let's just say that I can't understand half of what McCarthy writes, he is a bit reclusive and has given one interview in the last 40 years and he is going to Oprahland!As surprising as this pick is for Oprah is how unsurprising the recent news is from Borders.New CEO George Jones laid out his blurred strategic vision for the company.It includes a new and less improved loyalty programand "significantly reducing...
The Prince of the Literati: Glenn Horowitz and Bookselling
There is no one like Glenn Horowitz. He is the loose cannon of the bookselling world.He is not a member of the most prestigious organization of Antiquarian Booksellers, the ABAA, yet he handles some of the choicest literary material that appears on the market.Rachel Donadio profiles Horowitz in this Sunday's NYT Book Review section.What makes Horowitz so successful?He is a businessman and a bookseller. It is not a question of whether he loves or appreciates books it is the fact that he can negotiate and seal the deal that makes everyone happy. He understands that these days it is simply...
The Powell’s Surprise
It was great to see an article on a book scout get coverage in the blogosphere and in the papers, GalleyCat covered it and the Seattle times picked up the AP story as well.The article, "Rare Finds Make Stacks of Cash for Book Scouts" was written for the AP by Kevin Sampsell.The problem is that the article is more of a commercial for Powell's than an appreciation of book scouts.Why:The article was written for the AP by Kevin Sampsell, a long time Powell's employee and the scout that is the subject of the article Wayne Pernu used to work for...
Book Blindness
A couple of weeks ago the Seventh Annual Weblog Award nominations were announced and for the seventh year in a row there wasn't a book related blog anywhere near the stage. There are categories for best food blog, best sports blog, best weblog about music, politics,entertainment and even one for best writing of a weblog but no book blogs.Now there is a new story out at Forbes called "An Exercise in Collecting". It appears in the Art & Collectibles part of the Personal Finance section.It starts off with this quote "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the...
BookWise: The Book Worlds First Pyramid Scheme
I know the book industry is changing but this one takes the cake.What is BookWise:"BookWise is a book-club / network marketing company with a structure that is not only unique to both the book and network marketing industries, but takes the best from both worlds to help our Associates build a library as well as a lucrative home business.""BookWiseTM is the brainchild of #1 bestselling author Richard Paul Evans. Shortly after Evans wrote his internationally bestselling financial book The Five Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Wealth, he began looking for ways for his readers to "win in...