Come on, Baby, Light My Fire

Posted 21 November, 2007 in Book News | No comments

Amazon’s Kindle e-reader was released on Monday, to almost universally dismal reviews. Steven Poole at the Guardian lists fourteen things that a traditional book does that the Kindle device doesn’t do, and suggests that these fourteen things — such as never needing recharging and the ability to convert into a flat surface suitable for rolling cigarettes without fearing that stray leaves will slip into the device and short-circuit the motherboard — are a bare minimum for what a viable e-reader should boast. In a similar vein, Ed Champion provides a list of ten reasons books are superior to a Kindle. Cory Doctorow, one of the earliest and most vocal “information wants to be free” advocates, explains why he won’t be buying a Kindle, but fails to explain how he reconciles this with accepting money from Amazon for selling his blog’s feed (which is free online) via Kindle. And the website dive into mark has a terrific satirical post about what’s wrong not just with Kindle, but with e-readers in general.

My own view is that the Kindle is fundamentally flawed at the conceptual level, as are all e-readers that have been marketed to date. Why? Because they don’t do anything that traditional books don’t already do, and they have significant drawbacks that books don’t.

You might recall my reaction to the Sony Reader earlier this year. Not much has changed where the Kindle is concerned.

In its promotional video, Amazon touts the various benefits of the Kindle as against previous e-readers and, indeed, traditional books. According to the video, the Kindle “lets you read books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs anywhere, anytime.” Really? How about reading in the bath? Make sure the water’s not too hot, because the steam might damage the delicate circuitry, and for pity’s sake don’t drop the thing.

The Kindle is roughly the size of a typical trade paperback and weighs 10.3 ounces. Great. It’s lightweight and portable. So are books.

It uses E-ink, which eliminates the eyestrain of many earlier readers, and the screen is not backlit, which is also easier on the eyes. However, traditional ink-on-paper is also easy on the eyes, and books aren’t backlit, either.

According to the video, “Kindle automatically saves your place in everything you’re reading so you can always pick up right where you left off.” Funny, I can do this with books, thanks to this nifty new gadget called a bookmark. Most bookstores give them away for free, but in a pinch you can also use business cards, subway transfers, or that phantom scrap of paper that seems to perpetually reside in your coat pocket.

It’s got a rechargeable battery that can last for days. Books don’t need a battery: they last in perpetuity.

Most New York Times bestsellers are available for purchase at the low, low price of $9.99 or less — after you’ve forked over $400 for the unit itself. And if you lose or break the Kindle, never fear: Amazon keeps a backup copy of your reading material, which you’re welcome to access once you’ve paid another $400 for a replacement device.

Matthew Ingram, writing in today’s Globe and Mail, compares the Kindle to the Segway, the two-wheel scooter that dropped like a lead balloon when it was released: “Cool device, great idea, but nobody wanted one, apart from a few rich bored geeks.” He’s right, as is the Guardian’s Poole: until e-readers can — at minimum – duplicate all the positive features of traditional books while eliminating most of the drawbacks of earlier devices (including, but not limited to, the prohibitive price), they’re not likely to make much of an impact on the reading public.

P.S. I’m not the first person to point this out, but I wonder if the marketing geniuses at Amazon could have come up with a worse name for their device? A unit associated with books and reading whose name evokes fire and stuff burning. Brilliant.

Johnson Cops National Book Award

Posted 14 November, 2007 in Book News | No comments

Denis Johnson won the 2007 National Book Award for fiction for his acclaimed Vietnam novel Tree of Smoke. The nonfiction award went to Tim Weiner for his book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, which beat out the heavy-hitter in that category, Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great.

Robert Haas won in the poetry category for Time and Materials, and Sherman Alexie won for young adult literature for his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Joan Didion was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American letters.

Trying Desperately to Hold My Tongue

Posted 9 October, 2007 in Book News | 6 comments

M. G. Vassanji is now poised to be the first person in the fourteen-year history of the Scotiabank Giller Prize to win the award three times.

It is by no means a certainty, however the appearance of his novel, The Assassin’s Song, on the prize shortlist, announced this morning at a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, brings him one step closer to that milestone.

Vassanji faces some high profile competition. Also on the shortlist are Elizabeth Hay, for her novel Late Nights on Air, Michael Ondaatje, for Divisadero, and Alissa York, for Effigy. The fifth place, traditionally the dark horse spot, went to A Secret Between Us, by Daniel Poliquin, with a translation by Donald Winkler.

Clearly eschewing last year’s template, which favoured short stories, works in translation, and books published by smaller presses, the 2007 jury, composed of novelists David Bergen and Camilla Gibb, and poet and artist Lorna Goodison, have settled on books by big names, published by major houses. York’s novel is published by Random House, Hay and Ondaatje are published by McClelland & Stewart (which is effectively the same thing),* and Vassanji is published by Doubleday, which published last year’s winner, Vincent Lam. The odd men out here are Poliquin and Winkler, whose novel in translation is published by Vancouver-based Douglas & McIntyre.

The biggest disappointment of the year must be for HarperCollins, which had no fewer than five titles on the longlist, not a single one of which made the final cut.

At the press conference, prize founder Jack Rabinovitch praised the jurors, who read 108 books from forty-six different publishers in order to determine the five finalists.

Rabinovitch went on to mention the longlist, now in its second year, calling it “a wonderful way of letting people know that there are more than just the five shortlisted authors … that there is a tremendous depth of talent in this country that has not only been nationally recognized but internationally recognized.”

John Doig, vice president for marketing at Scotiabank, referred to “the rich culture and heritage that defines our great country,” and asserted that “we are full of pride when we see the Scotiabank Giller Prize come to the attention of media and cultural communities, helping raise awareness of great Canadian authors here and abroad.”

Suzanne Boyce, president of creative content for CTV, the network that will broadcast the awards ceremony live on November 6, said in her comments that “there is nothing more delicious than to pick up a book by an author one does not know and just to go into that world.” (Which seems like an odd thing to say, given the preponderance of names such as Ondaatje and Vassanji on this year’s shortlist, but nevermind.)*

Rabinovitch went on to mention a conversation he had at Word on the Street in Toronto with last year’s winner, Vincent Lam, who had just returned from a publicity trip to the States, where he said that people were “envious” of Canada’s Giller Prize and the focus it brings to the literary community. “Traditionally Canadians have looked south,” Rabinovitch said, but when it came to “that televised show on literature in Canada,” Lam was surprised to be told that “what we’re doing here, they haven’t done there.” (Which strikes me as yet another instance of a kind of insidious parochialism on the part of Canadians — particularly those of us who work in the arts — who seem to assume that our culture has little value unless we’re able to make Americans take notice. But, again, nevermind.)*

So, let the horse-race begin. There is sure to be much chatter, conspiracy-theorizing, cavilling, and grandstanding in the days ahead, so stay tuned. This year, your humble correspondent will take it upon himself to read the five shortlisted titles and provide some chatter (and probably no small amount of grandstanding) of his own.

*I tried, okay, I really, really tried.

The Book Closes on BOOKED!*

Posted 28 September, 2007 in Book News | No comments

Quill & Quire is reporting that the organizers of BOOKED!, the Toronto literary festival staged to coincide with the Book Expo Canada trade show and conference in June, will not resurface in 2008.

You’ll recall that the inaugural 2007 event was a bit of a mixed bag: certain high-profile events (featuring authors such as Stephen King and James Patterson) were well attended, while others were sparsely attended or cancelled altogether.

Apparently the organizers of the festival have decided that the lacklustre showing in 2007 did not have to do with first-time hitches, but was the result of more systemic problems. The Quill quotes from the weekly newsletter of the Canadian Bookseller’s Association (one of BOOKED!’s sponsors), which says the reason for next year’s cancellation is that “formidable competition for the public’s attention from events like Luminato [a new Toronto arts festival], consumer shows and, frankly, good summer weather, have led the BEC Task Force to conclude that repeating the event will not achieve the desired results.”

Hmm … I wish I’d said that.

*Sorry: I’m feeling dreadfully uninspired today.

Promoting Books in the Internet Age, and Other Thankless Endeavours

Posted 24 September, 2007 in Book News, Publishing | No comments

Further to last Thursday’s post about publishers focusing on splashy openings for big books, then summarily abandoning them, this article in the New York Times analyzes the difficulties inherent in trying to manage a mega-opening without doing irreparable damage to relationships with media outlets and readers alike:

The task of unveiling a big book— especially one with great news interest or enormous popular demand — has changed dramatically in recent years as players in an increasingly competitive news media seek to be the first to unveil content, and the Internet makes it more difficult to keep books under wraps.

Increasingly, publishers have been relying on embargoes of books they think are going to be blockbusters, such as the latest Harry Potter novel and high-profile books by George Tenet, Bob Woodward, and, most recently, Alan Greenspan. These titles have been subject to sales embargoes and embargoes on reviews and commentary, often because the publishers have promised the first kick at the can to a particular media outlet.

In the case of the Greenspan book, The Age of Turbulence, the publisher, Penguin Press, gave the promise of being first out of the gate to 60 Minutes, which was scheduled to interview Greenspan on Sunday, September 16, the day before the book’s official release. That promise was broken when the Wall Street Journal leaked information online about the book the previous Friday. The New York Times and the Washington Post followed suit on Saturday, effectively scooping 60 Minutes‘ exclusive.

The lesson for book publicists may be simply this: in the Internet age, it’s virtually impossible to keep something big under wraps, so why expend so much energy trying? As the Times article points out, “The gentlemen’s agreements that once existed between publishers and media outlets have long since fallen by the wayside, as embargoes are seen as catnip to reporters chasing news.”

In the case of the Greenspan memoir, it was established news organizations that broke the embargo. But the growing army of “citizen journalists” online love to scoop the traditional media outlets, and don’t necessarily have any qualms about breaching copyright laws to do so. The first review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows appeared in the New York Times, it’s true, but the person who took digital photographs of the book and posted them online was apparently unaffiliated with any major media organization.

The harder publicists try to keep information under wraps, the harder the Net denizens are going to work to uncover that information. There is evidence that certain publishers understand this and are trying to use it to their advantage. In Canada, both Anansi and HarperCollins have reading groups on Facebook (you can find them under Anansi Review Crew and HarperCollinsCanada — The Reading Group, respectively), which offer participants advance copies of books in exchange for online reviews and discussion of the titles. (Anansi stipulates that in addition to providing a review, the person receiving an advance reading copy must also supply five contacts to whom the review will be forwarded online. The HarperCollins reading group currently has no such stipulation.) Instead of fighting the Net’s “citizen journalists,” Anansi and HarperCollins have essentially co-opted them, making them de facto partners in publicizing the houses’ books.

The Anansi group is instructive in this regard. The rubric on the Anansi Review Crew page offers group members the “opportunity to read and review our books months before they are available to the general public,” which essentially feeds into the “first-past-the-post” mentality that is so prevalent amongst the mainstream media these days. That, along with the opportunity for members of the general public to get “an insider’s look” at new titles prior to publication, seems to be the major selling point used to attract members to the group.

As for whether these groups are an effective alternative means of promotion, Deanna McFadden, digital marketing manager at HarperCollinsCanada says, “Absolutely.” According to McFadden, “There’s a lovely element of word of mouth attached to the group — not just in attracting new members but in our readers taking their experiences and sharing them offline.”

This method of promotion must seem like an enticing alternative to increasingly unworkable embargoes and easily broken promises of exclusivity to media outlets that are constantly falling over each other in their attempts to be first with a story. The danger of cutting these media outlets out of the equation, of course, is the concurrent loss of accountability and professional standards that this entails.

The worry here is not just that if the burden of publicizing books is downloaded onto “citizen journalists” at the expense of professionals, people like me will be out of a job (book reviewing doesn’t pay that much, anyway). There is a real danger that the “reviewers” chosen by publishers to receive free books will feel compelled to say nice things about those books, if only so that they can continue to receive them.

McFadden downplays this concern as regards the HarperCollins group. “We’ve tried to create a space where our members can speak freely about the books they receive,” she says. “We actively try to foster discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the reading copies are given away.” And perhaps this won’t have the effect of creating unreasonably biased readers: after all, professionals get thrown free copies of the books they review, too.

Regardless, with embargoes routinely being broken, and with news organizations lowballing publishers on serial rights (Newsweek reportedly payed $1 for the first excerpt rights on The Age of Turbulence, in part because they suspected that it would be publicized elsewhere before their excerpt ran), the idea of grassroots publicity over the Internet must seem like an attractive alternative to publishers. Whether it will have a beneficial effect on sales in the long run is still an open question.

New Kid on the Block … Sort of

Posted 18 September, 2007 in Book News | 1 comment

Okay, so obviously Ben McNally isn’t new to the world of bookselling in Toronto, but his newly opened Bay Street bookstore — the eponymous Ben McNally Books — is.

It’s got its own Web site and has already been profiled in the Globe and Mail, wherein McNally, with characteristic sly humour, defers a query about his benefactors in the new endeavour:

He is vague about his backers, offering only that they were people who had a specific interest in him and who also had low financial expectations. “They’re not neophyte businessmen,” he says. “They knew that this wasn’t the best use of their money.”

I haven’t had a chance to check out the store yet, but I fully intend to. If you’re in Toronto, you should do likewise.

Contact info is as follows:

366 Bay Street
Toronto, ON M5H 4B2
Tel. 416-361-0032
info@benmcnallybooks.com

Go on, support independent bookselling. You know you wanna.

[UPDATE: The Quill & Quire online is reporting today that there is a bit of controversy surrounding the old Books & Brunch series that McNally administered while he was manager of the Toronto location of Nicholas Hoare Books. Seems McNally has inaugurated his own Sunday brunch series, called the Globe and Mail / Ben McNally Brunch Series, prompting Nicholas Hoare to suggest that McNally “poached” the idea when he left.

For their part, Nicholas Hoare Books have hired Nicholas Pashley, former purchasing manager for trade publications at the University of Toronto Bookstore, who enjoyed a restful retirement of two months’ length, to act as “ambassador at large” for the store. One of Pashley’s duties will be to administer a rebranded version of Books & Brunch, which they are calling Hoare’s High Tea.

McNally may have Globe sponsorship, but there’s no question in my mind who’s got the better name.]

Scotiabank Giller Longlist Announced

Posted 17 September, 2007 in Book News | 6 comments

And it can be summed up in one word: boooooring.

This is apparently the year that Giller runs home to mama, after last year’s dominance on the shortlist of two smaller houses, Cormorant and Anansi (neither of which is represented at all on this year’s longlist). Of the fifteen titles on the list, one is from Arsenal Pulp (Soucouyant), one is from Porcupine’s Quill (Zero Gravity), one is from Brindle & Glass (The Reckoning of Boston Jim), and one is from Douglas & McIntyre (A Secret Between Us). The other eleven are from large multinational houses, a staggering five from HarperCollins (Helpless, The Book of Negroes, Stormy Weather, Lauchlin of the Bad Heart, October).

And there are a goodly number of familiar names on this longlist: Barbara Gowdy, Elizabeth Hay, Michael Ondaatje, M.G. Vassanji, Richard Wright. The last three of these have all won Gillers before, in Vassanji’s case, twice.

Barring the unlikely eventuality that four of the five shortlisted titles end up being from the smaller or regional houses, it looks like Giller is playing in the big leagues once again.

The longlist in full:

• David Chariandy, Soucouyant
• Sharon English, Zero Gravity
• Barbara Gowdy, Helpless
• Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air
• Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes
• Paulette Jiles, Stormy Weather
• D.R. MacDonald, Lauchlin of the Bad Heart
• Claire Mulligan, The Reckoning of Boston Jim
• Mary Novik, Conceit
• Michael Ondaatje, Divisidero
• Daniel Poliquin (Donald Winkler, trans.), A Secret Between Us
• M.G. Vassanji, The Assassin’s Song
• Michael Winter, The Architects Are Here
• Richard Wright, October
• Alissa York, Effigy

[UPDATE: From the Quill & Quire OMNI: “Asked about trends among the 108 books submitted, [Giller juror Camilla] Gibb cited ‘a real return to historical fiction’ as well as ‘explorations of our geography.’” Like I said: boring.]

Man-Booker Shortlist Announced

Posted 8 September, 2007 in Book News | 2 comments

Michael Redhill’s novel Consolation didn’t make the cut, but McEwan’s on the list, giving him the opportunity to become only the third author (after Peter Carey and J.M. Coetzee) to win the award twice.

The shortlist in full:

• Darkmans, Nicola Barker
• The Gathering, Anne Enright
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
• Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones
• On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
• Animal’s People, Indra Sinha

ReLit Award Winners Announced

Posted 8 September, 2007 in Book News | No comments

The mighty Bill Gaston has won the ReLit award in the short fiction category for his collection, Gargoyles. Ivan E. Coyote won in the novel category for Bow Grip; the poetry award went to Daniel Scott Tysdal for his book, Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method.

Congratulations all around.

Clearly I Was Born in the Wrong Century, Part Deux

Posted 24 August, 2007 in Book News | 2 comments

So far, ebook technology has failed to catch on, largely because the market for this technology — dedicated readers — remains wedded to books. Not just as information storage-and-retrieval devices, but as physical objects that can be held, flipped through, underlined, and annotated. One of the great joys of books is their sensuous aspect, their tactility and the smell of the ink on the pages.

Before you assume that I’ve gone right off the deep end for mentioning the smell of books, consider this recent post from Engadget, which reports that “ebook content provider CafeScribe is going pretty low-tech to give your laptop screen the same scent as a textbook: the company is shipping ‘musty-smelling’ scratch-and-sniff stickers with every ebook order.”

To me, this idea is, well, nutty. Not only does it take the one advantage ebooks boast — their technological innovation — and marry it to something self-consciously retro, but it begs the question, if readers enjoy the smell of books so much, why would they not just, you know, read actual books?

Just wondering.

(via The Shifted Librarian)