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. 5.12.12 There's a new page in town. I have put up a page showing the newest books that have come home with me from the bookstores I browse through. I'm not including everything that Vicky is buying, but it's not unusual that many of the books she buys end up in front of my reading eyes.  What's John BUYING now? _____ 5.8.12 We have lost the wonderful Maurice Sendak at age 83.  ...more _____ 4.20.12 The Huffington Post has stepped in Since the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction award wasn't chosen this year, and it caused quite a stink, Huffington put up the three Pulitzer-nominated books to be voted on, right there on their website. Though I voted for Train Dreams, SWAMPLANDIA! won with more than 40% of the vote. more HUFF POST BOOKS information _____ 4.18.12  BOOK AWARD NEWS Pulitzer Prize Winners - Don't look for a fiction winner, there is none.    The Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University in New York, which administers the awards, did not name a winner in the fiction, or editorial writing category. The last time no winner was named for fiction was in 1977.    Jonathan Galassi, the publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, said he was “shellshocked” by the lack of a winner in fiction. “It’s a missed opportunity,” he said. “Awards are very important to focus attention on books. So when one isn’t given, it’s a missed boat, and I’m sad about that.”    The absence of an award for fiction was the most shocking result of the committee’s voting. A winning book can be an instant boost to sales and is one of the most closely watched awards in the publishing industry. Finalists in the category included Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, who died in 2008. poetry Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith biography George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis nonfiction The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt history Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable read what Ann Patchett had to say about the absence of a fiction award >>> Orange prize 2012 shortlist announced Six novelists were named as contenders for the 17th annual award of a prize dedicated to excellence in fiction written by women. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick The overall winner will be announced on May 30 at a ceremony in London's Royal Festival Hall. _____ 4.9.12 Email >>> CATCH UP  I've been going through my email and have much to share. Read whatever interests you. Competitive: '10.5 Ways Local Bookstores Beat Amazon' The Boston Globe's Christie Matheson offered reasons why you’ll get a lot more than books if you buy from local stores":  1. They entertain your kids.  2. They stock literary treasures.  3. They bring celebrities to town.  4. They educate you.  5. They have real people on hand to help you.  6. They offer great book groups.  7. They can help you write.  8. They keep you in the know.  9. They reward loyalty. 10. They support your community. 10.5. They sell online, too. >>> 10 Things E-Books Won't Tell You Cautioning readers not to "dismantle those bookshelves just yet," SmartMoney considered the reasons "why e-reading is still far from perfect."  1. "We're not one-reader-fits-all."  2. "Sometimes you're buying spam."  3. "Good luck grabbing our sales and freebies."  4. "Our prices are under investigation."  5. "Better watch your data bill."  6. "Borrowing isn't as easy as we make it out to be."  7. "We don't have much marketing clout..."  8. "...But our presence is still killing bookstores."  9. "The extras will cost you." 10. "E-books are the new latte." >>> an interesting site — www.bookbrowse.com >>> In a speech during Liberty Media's annual investor meeting yesterday, Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said the company "expects the size of the print book market to decrease by a third by 2015, while the e-book market grows by 700%." >>> Amazon's $34 billion annual revenues are larger than the GDPs of half of the countries in the world. >>>    A little while back, the good people of Hardwick, Vermont, got together to help move the Galaxy Bookshop to a new, more centralized location.    The owner said, "I believe bookstores play a vital role in the life of a town or city. Bookstores are where people, books, ideas and information can swirl and find each other. I believe that they are places of civic engagement that we cannot afford to lose. They are places where kids run around and scream about their favorite books, people meet the author they have long admired, customers connect with each other about books, and booksellers array collections of books for customers to respond to. It is my belief that a bookstore in downtown Hardwick still belongs."    We have been to their old location, which was in a great old bank building and the store had a good selection and an interesting look. Another interesting look is shown below—of one of the people helping them move. >>> Scott Turow on the Agency Model    As the debate about agency pricing continues, Scott Turow, president of the Authors Guild, called the Justice Department probe of Apple and five publishers "grim news for everyone who cherishes a rich literary culture," adding that ironically "our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition."    Among his arguments for the agency model for e-books is that it helps maintain bookstores: "Our concern about bookstores isn't rooted in sentiment: bookstores are critical to modern bookselling. Marketing studies consistently show that readers are far more adventurous in their choice of books when in a bookstore than when shopping online. In bookstores, readers are open to trying new genres and new authors: it's by far the best way for new works to be discovered. Publishing shouldn't have to choose between bricks and clicks. A robust book marketplace demands both bookstore showrooms to properly display new titles and online distribution for the convenience of customers. Apple thrives on this very model: a strong retail presence to display its high-touch products coupled with vigorous online distribution. While bookstores close, Apple has been busy opening more than 300 stores."    Moreover, a world dominated by Amazon will be harder for lesser-known authors, Turow wrote. "The high royalties of direct publishing, for most, are more than offset by drastically smaller markets. And publishers won't risk capital where there's no reasonable prospect for reward. They will necessarily focus their capital on what works in an online environment: familiar works by familiar authors." >>> Amazon: Patron Saint or Patron Devil? Another week, another Amazon.com feature.    Salon.com looks at Amazon.com's program of giving grants, usually $25,000 each, in an effort "to make friends in the book world" at a time when "much of the literary world is in full-throated revolt against Amazon's dominance."    Grant beneficiaries include the Brooklyn Book Festival, the PEN American Center, the Los Angeles Review of Books, One Story, Poets & Writers, Kenyon Review, 826 Seattle, Girls Write Now, the Lambda Literary Foundation, Voice of Witness and Words Without Borders. The program is estimated to amount to $1 million a year, or about 40 grants per year, and is said by some recipients to provide "crucial--if ironic--support."    Salon's conclusion: "In the future, publishers large and small may be forced to live in an Amazon world in which the company produces most books and sets whatever prices it wants. Everyone else, meanwhile, will fight for crumbs from one of Amazon's $25,000 grants. These grants may continue to buy bits of gratitude and goodwill expressed in tight smiles, but it is unlikely to result in genuine affection for its corporate soul."    And speaking of moral dilemmas, Changing Hands and many other brick-and-mortar bookstores are at it again with Amazon, whose seemingly unstoppable march continues to move forward. Amazon continues evading sales tax collection, slashing prices below cost on books, and selling Kindles at a loss to increase market share, trying to ensure a captive audience for years to come. Now the biggest online retailer in the world is beginning to amass a stable of authors whose books Amazon will publish, sell on their website, and whose e-books will be exclusive to Amazon alone.    Amazon's actions are not in the best interests of the reading public, or of the publishing industry. As they seek to secure authors, they are simultaneously pursuing a strategy of locking in e-book exclusives which other retailers will not be allowed to sell. If this speaks to you of monopolies and predatory vertical development, you're in good company with many authors, publishers, and booksellers across the country. >>> from the clever people of Diesel >>> Home Depot To Stop Selling Books    The nationwide retailer has announced it will no longer be selling books. A Home Depot official stated that, after considering “over a year of intense analytical information both internally and with our book suppliers,” as well as “customer insight surveys,” the home improvement superstore is going to discontinue the “book subclass” in order to “better optimize the space in the front end of the store.” The move is part of a wider strategy of “front end transformation.”    The news from Home Depot comes at a time of mounting fear among publishers that, as bricks-and-mortar sales slow, big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target might abandon bookselling. 4.6.12 Fewer people are reading - but at least they're reading more, and in more formats than ever. That is, according to the results of a series of telephone surveys carried out by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which were published yesterday. The report showed that as of February 2012, 21% of Americans had read an e-book, and that owners of e-readers read an average of eight books a year more than people without the devices (24 vs 16). The surveys of 2,986 respondents, carried out in English and Spanish at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, also showed that the average (calculated by mean) American reads 17 books a year. However, 19% of respondents aged 16 and over said that they hadn't read a single book in any format, over the previous 12 months - the highest since such surveys on American reading habits began in 1978. If this figure is accurate, that means more than 50 million Americans don't read books at all. Technology ownership had shifted significantly since previous surveys. In November 2010, 6% of Americans reported owning an e-reader; the figure is now 19%, with females aged 30-49 years old the most represented group. Amazon's Kindle is by the most popular device, owned by 62% of e-book readers; Barnes and Noble's Nook has 22% of the market. When tablets are also factored in, the survey suggests that 28% of Americans aged 18 or older own a portable device that can be used as an e-book reader, not counting cell phones or computers. However, it remains to be seen how much more the e-reader market can grow, without a major shift in attitude: 85% of respondents who don't currently own such a device said they had no interest in ever owning an e-reader. Santa Claus, take note. Perhaps most interestingly, e-book readers are still voracious consumers of print books too; 58% of e-book owners said that they were reading a print book the previous day. And 5% of respondents reported reading 50 or more books over the past year. That's down from 13% in 1978, but still: who are these people and how do they find the time? See the graph below for why respondents prefer one medium over another. How many books do you think you read last year? _____ 4.3.12 The Seattle Times newspaper take a hard look at the states that have been fighting Amazon over sales tax. Amazon only collects sales tax in five states and has deals to start collecting in several more in coming years. But they have constantly threatened cancelling or removing warehouses from states that don't give them special exceptions and deals, AND promising to build huge warehouses in other states that give them up to a 10% advantage over bricks and mortar retailers in those states. take a look at the article   _____  3.26.12 Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic has won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The judges considered more than 350 books from 2011. The winner will receive $15,000, the other four finalists will receive $5,000 each. The other finalists were: Russell Banks’s Lost Memory of Skin Don DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda Anita Desai’s The Artist of Disappearance Steven Millhauser’s We Others _____ 3.16.12 Do you need some great music in your life? Have you enjoyed the music of Robert and Leonard before in your life? Get these two CDs and your life will improve. OLD IDEAS by Leonard Cohen    We have both loved listening to these two CDs and enjoyed them immensely. It been several years since Cohen has had a new CD and the wait was certainly worth it. Got a chance to even hear this CD on a really good stereo that let his deep, hypnotic voice fill the room. Leonard Cohen can almost become a religious experience—I feel that there is a connection there far beyond some old guy singing away—it's primal and moving. And, it's got a good beat, and he is very funny at times. CHIMES OF FREEDOM: The Songs of Bob Dylan    Let me start by saying that tribute albums are generally my least favorite animal in the musical zoo. Chimes of Freedom is a major exception to this preference...this is a wonderful album. Most of these performers are long-time favorites, but there are many people singing who were new to both of us, and we want to know more, they're sooooo good. Having listened to Bob for many decades (man, I sound ready for the dirt nap) it was transcending to hear those familiar songs being taken down, changed around, and being performed as if they were "owned" by these singers. The way many of them where biting off the words, it was hard to fathom that they hadn't written the songs themselves. I was amazed that hearing a new and different version of a familiar Dylan song could be so much fun—time and time again, over 4 CDs and 75 songs by 75 different performers, it truly worked. That has been part of the excitement of a new Dylan album or performance, the way he played with, and changed up his own songs. There have been so many different versions by Bob over the years, that to have so many new, stellar interpretations by someone fresh, was a trip to a good place.    I will get back to you on my favorite cuts another day, but remember, there's golden sounds out there on little plastic discs.    leonardcohen.com amnestyusa.org/chimes bobdylan.com _____ 3.14.12 It's THAT DAY, the one that rolls around every year. This year it's more of a milestone—25 years ago, today, we opened the doors of our very first bookstore, Mansion Book Merchants, in a subterranean space in Davis, California. We had been working for months to create something out of nothing, and it took a whole lot of work, sweat, sawdust, and connections to bring it off. To kick it all off, we had to quit our jobs at WaldenBooks and set off to do something with a different style, and a different soul from the corporate model. We knew so many things that we wanted to do differently—our way. Yet, at the same time, we brought with us many of the skills we had picked up in other bookstore jobs.    In the beginning, Vicky and I had another partner, Karl, and a great employee in Megan. We didn't know if our new venture would last even six months. We never dreamed that it would keep going for more than 22 years. Looking back on it now, I wouldn't give up those years of experiences for anything. We have always told anyone who would listen, it was the best job either of us ever had.    After being forced by our huge debts to finally close the doors of our last bookstore, Raven's Tale, up in Placerville, we still talk to each other about doing something—winning the Lotto and opening another bookstore. Yes, we're hopeless bookstore lovers.    If you have shopped at any of our bookstores over the years, thanks for your support, you made it all possible. If you worked for us in any of our locations, thanks for your efforts, and we hope you enjoyed yourself, and learned a thing here or there.    If you find yourself thinking about taking the leap into starting your own business, starting your own dream...don't put it off because you want to play it safe, and avoid the risks. Get out there and create something new. Hell, you could find yourself in 20 years, looking back on some pretty fantastic memories, instead of always wondering...what could have been? Only you can create something your way, something unique.    Just so that you're in the know, that's an ocean photo of the surf off of Sea Ranch, that I took a few weeks ago. These are enough of my words for this very unique day in my life.    Thanks for reading. - John      _____ There's a new webpage for the Alliance With Main Street. This is the organization fighting for a level sales tax playing field for bricks and mortar merchants up against those online merchants making an end run around tax laws in this country. _____ After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print, and will only be available online. Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered reference books that were once sold door-to-door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued. In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age—and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia—EB will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds, and cost $1,395.    “It’s a rite of passage in this new era,” Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a company based in Chicago, said in an interview. “Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”    Sales of The Britannica, the oldest continuously published encyclopedia in the English language, peaked in 1990, with 120,000 sets were sold. Only 8,000 sets of the 2010 edition have been sold. _____ 2.29.12    Davy Jones of The Monkees has died at 66. I am still sorting out my strange attachment to the group and why I was so moved by this loss. read more _____    In the February 13 & 20 issue of The New Yorker magazine, there was an incredible article, titled The Plagiarist's Tale,  on wild plagiarism by the author of Assassin of Secrets. Quentin Rowan, whose penname is Q.R. Markham. He knew NO bounds. His favorite writing spot was a very large table, one that allowed him to gather round ALL the books, and other sources, that he "used" in "his" work. It would be amusing, if it weren't so very sad. At one point, the article is naming a long list of sources that he copied from, and it even contained liner notes written by Pete Hamill, for my favorite Bob Dylan album, "Blood on the Tracks." Find this article, it's just unbelievable! Yet, with the state of our culture, a free-for-all of "creating" by using other people's art, music and words, I must admit—I'm a believer.  _____ 2.10.12 Curious Numbers    I just came across these numbers about the 2007 certified a class-action lawsuit that disgruntled readers brought against James Frey for putting "fiction" in his supposedly-nonfiction work, A Million Little Pieces. In the resulting settlement that offered a refund to anybody who bought the book before the falsehoods were acknowledged.    Only 1,729 people asked to be reimbursed, costing Random House $27,348. The attorneys in the case were paid $783,000 in fees. This is how our legal system works!    What was it that Shakespeare wrote? ... "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." (Henry VI), Dick the Butcher to Jack Cade _____ 2.7.12 It's been 200 years for Charles John Huffam Dickens since his birth on February 7, 1812 The Charles Dickens Museum in London _____   2.3.12 Writers speaking out against ebooks & more Jonathan Franzen "The technology I like is the American paperback edition of "Freedom." I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it's pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now… "I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change… ""The Great Gatsby" was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?" Maurice Sendak "I hate them. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book! A book is a book is a book." Ursula Le Guin "Anything longer than a letter or a poem is tiresome for me to read on the screen. I read fast, carelessly, superficially on the screen, and don't enjoy it... I'll read what I can on paper, and make do with text on screen only if I have to." Sherman Alexie "Jeff Bezos has been quoted as saying "he wants to change the way people read." I don't know what he means... But 75-95% of music is pirated... I'd be really worried if I was a writer of bestsellers and all my books were digitized, how easy it will be for their books to be pirated." Penelope Lively "It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd." Ray Bradbury "Those aren't books. You can't hold a computer in your hand like you can a book. A computer does not smell. There are two perfumes to a book. If a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better. It smells like ancient Egypt. A book has got to smell. You have to hold it in your hands and pray to it. You put it in your pocket and you walk with it. And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn't do that for you." Stephen Colbert "You can't burn a Kindle." _____ Think of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, "We don't want any of THOSE apples." Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million have announced that they won’t be carrying any Amazon-published titles. Publishers Weekly asked a number of independent booksellers whether they’d be stocking Amazon-published books, and answers ranged from “No” to “Hell, no.” This isn’t the first time a bookselling giant has muscled into the publishing side of things. Barnes & Noble acquired a publishing company named Sterling Publishing in 2003. Sterling has been around since 1949 and was a quality publisher of nonfiction titles, especially in how-tos, self-helps, and reference topics. Shortly after the purchase, both Borders and Costco announced that they would no longer be carrying Sterling titles. UPDATE: Barnes & Noble now has Sterling up for sale, so they can be more devoted to the Nook. _____ 1.26.12 The 5 Books That Inspire the Most Tattoos Gabe Habash / Source: Rate My Ink I don't vouch for any validity for this, but it's interesting. — John 1. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 3. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 5. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk _____ ALL RIGHT Maurice Sendak You want some fun, take a look at the recent two-part interview Stephen Colbert did with a very surprising Maurice Sendak. The author and illustrator contemplates the complexity of children and the simplicity of Newt Gingrich. take a look _____                           BLOG ARCHIVE - former BLOG & news items		ALTernative NEWS simple PHOTOS from our life what have we seen?       what did we think of them? Please check out our page for my movie comments. _____ OTHER STUFF Time for a little politics. Back in August, Dylan Ratigan really let loose on his MSNBC show and made a lot of sense about money and politics. Some are calling his heated words, his Howard Beale "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" moment—as in the movie Network. getmoneyout.com _____ I've felt for decades that changing the funding of our politics was the key. Yet, as time has moves on, only more and more money has poured in AND government gets less and less accomplished. When will our government serve more of the people, EVEN the people without big money, those in real need? These are tough times and it's hard to see where things have a chance of improving. Maybe everybody (not just the deluded tea party people) needs to get angry and demand change. - John _____ Every year on March 14th, I look back, way back to March 14, 1987…back more than 25 years ago. That was when we opened the doors of our very first bookstore, Mansion Book Merchants in Davis. It was a very good day, one of the best in my life. It was a day full of hope. Who knew then, how many more days we would have, opening other doors, in other locations? _____   Check out where words run free and sometimes simply stagger about. _____
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