August 6, 2014
Wednesday Starbucks
by Alex Shephard
This August, as we prepare to unleash a truly remarkable fall catalog, MobyLives will be taking a bit of a breather. We’ll still post the occasional news item or feature, but for most of this month we’ll be posting a roundup like this every morning. We will, of course, remain active on Twitter and Facebook. We hope you have a great August, and that you’ll keep checking in with us!
- In an interesting piece for Medium, Toby Mundy asks if the notoriously price-obsessed Amazon cares about the value of what it sells—specifically the value of ideas. In many ways, Mundy’s argument is similar to one that we (and others) have made for quite a while: Amazon does not regard books as being special, it sees them as widgets. But Mundy also frames the argument in broader, important terms: the argument that everything has gotten more expensive over the last twenty years except information is particularly compelling. His essay is a great entry-point for Amazon’s damaging effect on American culture; it’s also an excellent rebuttal to the business press’s failure to give this story the in-depth treatment it deserves. (Medium)
- Speaking of giving the Amazon/Hachette story the treatment it deserves, Carolyn Kellogg does an excellent job parsing Amazon’s most recent statement. “The main cost behind a book is not its printing or its shipping,” Kellogg writes, “it’s the creation of the work, from inception to publication. Most important, this means, as Harlan Ellison famously (and profanely) said, pay the writer. In addition to the author, there is the author’s agent, as most authors who make it to publishers have one; there is the editor who works on the book, an assistant editor, a proofreader, a copy editor, a fact-checker; a cover designer; a layout person; a marketing department; a dedicated publicist. Whether a book is printed or digital, all those people are still involved in bringing the book to market.” Hear hear. (The Los Angeles Times)
- Carolyn See is retiring from the Washington Post. Her first review appeared in the paper’s pages in September 1987. Ron Charles, who has been her editor for the last ten years, writes, “She has been a reliable source of encouragement, humor and defense against the self-indulgent melancholy that can prey on an editor’s mind.” (The Washington Post)
- Traditional publishers put out 5,045 fewer books in 2013 than 2012, a decrease of 1%, according to Bowker. Print on demand numbers have evened out from previous years, reflected in a 45% decrease. (The Bookseller)
- Scrabble has added 5,000 new words to the official Merriam-Webster Scrabble Dictionary. The list includes four 2-letter words, and QAJAQ, which is the Inuit word for kayak. (Yes, it would kill on a triple word score, but not as much as you might think, since one of the Q’s would, by necessity, be a blank tile.) USA Today‘s FTW blog has helpfully organized the new additions into three categories: words your grandmother says (sudoku, schmutz); words only a teenager would say (chillax, dubstep); and words only a 34-year-old trying to sound like a teenager would say (vlog, bromance). (USA Today)
- i09 has collected the “most disastrous typos in Western history” and there are some doozies: a 1631 Bible forgetting the “not” from the Seventh Commandment (“Thou Shalt Commit Adultery”), 1830’s “The Vocabulary of East Anglia” kicking off with a “Peeface,” and a missed hyphen by NASA dooming 1961’s Mariner 1 mission to failure. (i09)
- The Monte Cristo Bookshop in New London, CT is converting from a privately owned business to a nonprofit cooperative, co-owner and -founder Christopher Jones announced this week. He’d earlier expressed concern that the store (while profitable) wasn’t bringing in enough money to support his growing family and might have to be sold, but going co-op will allow the downtown area’s only bookstore to keep its doors open. Jones told The Day in an interview: “This is exciting. The way the store was put together and the way it was run has proven to me the community has what it takes to support something like this.” (The Day New London, CT)
- The writer Helen DeWitt moved to a secluded cottage in Vermont to finish her novel in peace. What she didn’t count on was an extremely friendly neighbour, whose interest in her escalated into that of a threatening stalker. “Escalating neediness may or may not be stalking; it’s a professional catastrophe for a writer who needs Woolf’s room of one’s own.” (The London Review of Books)
- Which Porter Square Books Bookseller are you? You all are Josh Cook, because you all love reading on the porch while enjoying an adult beverage. (Playbuzz)
- Tor has revealed the cover art for the re-release of a children’s book by George R.R. Martin, because sure, he seems like the kind of guy who should be writing for kids. The Ice Dragon first came out in 1980, and will be published in a new edition by Tor Teen this October 21, with 30 interior illustrations and cover art by Luis Royo. (Tor)
- In an unlikely partnership, an exclusive extract from Will Self’s forthcoming novel, Shark is available to download via wetransfer. This isn’t a leaked manuscript, but a marketing collaboration between Penguin and the file sharing site. Users can click on the book’s artwork to access the extract. I guess we all need something to read while we wait for our files to upload. (wetransfer
- “Sherlock Holmes is really, really in the public domain—really” Really? Really! About damn time. Coincidently my first novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Erotic Adventure of the Third Stain: And This Time It’s THAT Kind of Stain drops later this month. (The Los Angeles Times)
Today’s Melville House book: Wittgenstein Jr. by Lars Iyer
Today’s passage from Moby-Dick:
BY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEANING AGAINST IT.
My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock’s run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again.
[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FORECASTLE.]
Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! ’tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,—as wild, untutored things are forced to feed—Oh, life! ’tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but ’tis not me! that horror’s out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!–Chapter 38
Today’s song: “Girl From The North Country” by Link Wray
Alex Shephard is the director of digital media for Melville House, and a former bookseller.