Links in the Afternoon

For the discerning reader:

• Why do ebooks cost so much? I mean, it's not like they need to print them, right?
  

• R. Crumb is publishing a literal adaptation of the Book of Genesis.

• It's Rooster time again. The Morning News' annual Tournament of Books is about to begin. You can check out the contenders here. More to come later, but there are a few obvious favorites (although last year's debacle with The Remainder should remind everyone that upsets do happen).

• Have any of you read the 33 1/3 series? I really enjoyed John Darnielle's Master of Reality, and now I'm about half-way through Amanda Petrusich's Pink Moon. Really good stuff. Are there any others I should check out? I hear good things about the Celine Dion.
  

Huh?

About a week ago, the New York Times posted an article about how e-books are catching on (finally), and cited Amazon's undisclosed Kindle sales stats to support its argument. I'll likely have more to say on e-books as the year progresses, but I couldn't help but point out this incredible letter to the editor that the Times received in response to the article:

Print book lovers are not the only ones who are turning to e-books. People like me who couldn’t find time to read books for leisure are rediscovering the pleasure of reading because of the convenience of pocket-sized electronic devices that make it easy to download a variety of books, access them instantly anywhere and any time, and replace idle time with enriching, enjoyable reading time.

Dorlene Kaplan
New York, Dec. 24, 2008

Let me see if I get this straight: Dorlene wasn't reading because she didn't have the time. Thanks to e-books, now she has time. Why? Do the books read themselves? I'm led to conclude that purchasing the books - in person or online - was what took too much time. These are the sort of people who would be in favor of a "meal pill" replacing lunch. Still, her letter to the editor doesn't come close to topping this one, the Heavyweight Champion of Crazy Letters to the Editor for 2008.

The Big Book

James Gleik in the New York Times on November 29:

As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. Likewise, the bicycle is alive and well. It was invented in a world without automobiles, and for speed and range it was quickly surpassed by motorcycles and all kinds of powered scooters. But there is nothing quaint about bicycles. They outsell cars.

This is what I've always said, and my morning commute just reaffirmed my beliefs. I'm reading Bolano's 2666 right now, and yes, it's completing amazing. I haven't been this sucked into a book in a long time. But what I was thinking about today was how corporeal the experience of reading it is, how physical. Here's this book, this big, badass sprawling novel that took years to write. It should weigh something. It should remind you, physically, that it's there. To be blunt, it ought to be a pain in the ass to carry around.

Marc Jacobs once said that Louis Vuitton wasn't about subtlety, it was about being a little bit of a showoff. Let's face it, lugging around 2666 is kind of the same way. It's a big flag that says, "Yeah, I'm reading this." Across the aisle from me was a woman reading something on her Kindle. She might have been reading 2666, too, but for all I know, it was a romance novel. The point is, I didn't know. And where's the fun in that? It did make for an interesting picture of the current reading climate. There we were, commuting, reading, each in our own way. There was room for both of us in the train and for both of our "books" in the market.

Was this woman the trailblazer while I was the troglodyte? Possibly, except that as I looked around the train, I spotted a lot of people reading. More to the point, they were all reading big, thick novels. What were they all reading? Twilight, Eclipse, New Moon, and Breaking Dawn. Is it a coincidence that the bestselling books, the hottest books are these huge, weighty tomes? Probably, but let's, just for a second, imagine that these books represent a statement about the importance of physicality, the vitality of the printed word and the value of paper.

A Breakfast of Links

It was a busy weekend in the cyberworld, and Vroman's got a decent share of the attention. Interesting hypertext links follow:

• Martha Stewart was here yesterday. It was a packed event, full of enthusiastic fans. I spotted Martha as she walked into the store, and then again as she walked out. In between, I was outside with the folks waiting to get in. The event has been written up a few places, including here and here.

• Speaking of Vroman's events, here's a thoughtful post about our recent panel on independent bookselling. The panel turned into a forum on bookstores, e-books, and new media, all subjects of interest to me.

• Speaking of digital books and whatnot, much is happening on that front the past few weeks. Google has jumped into the fray, and now the New York Times is taking note. In today's LA Times, Beau Friedlander asks if we can all just get along? And this guy wouldn't have bought a Kindle if he'd already had his iPhone.

• Stuart Evers has an excellent piece on the Guardian blog called "You Don't Get to Choose Your Literary Heroes." He describes his affection for George Orwell's character Gordon Comstock: "It was enervating, and nasty and that was good. I saw nothing of Comstock's borderline monomania, but instead saw a rage and a bitterness that I wanted to share."
  

Monday Morning Blogging Fun

It's Monday, people. What'd ya do over the weekend? I saw The Dark Knight (good, not great, but Heath Ledger was tons of fun), I ran six miles (not all at once), and I made pizza. Yum. Here's what they're talking about out there on the internet:

• Edan has a terrific interview with Joan Silber at The Millions, where she touches on, among other things, how it felt to be nominated for the National Book Award: "TM: Ideas of Heaven was nominated for the National Book Award in 2004, and you were one of five women finalists. I was dismayed by the outcry following the nomination announcement; how did you deal with such reactions? JS: I think critics felt left out of the loop, since they'd never heard of us. (I'd heard of most of us, actually.) Their strongest objection was that we weren't famous, which we already knew. I didn't immediately think the criticism was anti-female, but after a while I came to think that some of it was."
  

• From the New York Times, the fine line between young adult and adult fiction (via Maud Newton). On that subject, I just snagged a galley of Kelly Link's new story collection, Pretty Monsters, only to discover that it is YA. Do I keep said galley? I think I will.

• Forget the Kindle, it may end up being the iPhone that finally makes the ebook mainstream.