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Monday Jun 15, 2009

Flat Stanley rides again, and other news from the land of books

If you need to be reminded why lit snobbery is bad:

"Eventually, my daughter finally read something that didn't have Stephanie [sic] Meyer's name on the cover. And then something else. And it turned out that she'd fallen in love with reading, not just with Twilight and Edward and Bella and the whole gang that Meyer had created."

See also:

"I'm sure the one thing most readers will take from the responses is the same thing I have - that there is no way to standardize the books that will impact a young girl's life. We all value radically different books for radically different reasons and yet we all have ended up here, the same place, as book lovers and writers."

I'm a sucker for Flat Stanley stories. Deal with it:

"It was fun for Humphrey to meet another character from a book."

A stunt that just might make a decent book (due out in November):

"It's been a little more than two years since Yann Martel, winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for fiction, started to send books of his own choosing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office on Parliament Hill. He continues to do so -- every two weeks."

Yes, this works for bookstores too:

"Here are five basics to keep in mind as you venture into the virtual world to sell your books."

Firsthand reports from the latest (very odd) censorship case:

"Attitudes of those who wanted the books censored really became clear when Alderman Terry Vrana said to me, 'I don't care what your policies are. I want those books off the shelf.'"

And an homage to librarians who make tough calls:

"Yeah, but how many of us would have made the same type of decision in those tense wartime years? It's easy to laugh at the stereotyped librarian-figure but, in truth, those pioneers were really tough -- and truly worthy of admiration. They were badasses long before the word was invented."

How does your store do genre?:

"I have to say I was rather pleasantly surprised at just how many people got involved in this discussion (we had well over 300 tweets in the hour long session), and I was delighted that there were such varied and interesting views on the idea of genres."

The Arbiter of Style wins the prize for best response to criticism this week:

"Our industry seems increasingly to feel embarrassed about traditional books, as though they were stodgy and outmoded and better disguised as newer, more popular media."

Posted at 11:56AM Jun 15, 2009 by Sarah Rettger in General | Comments[1]

Comments:

Thank for sharing

Posted by The Bestseller on June 20, 2009 at 09:59 PM EDT #

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