I make things up and write them down. I hope that one day someone will read them and believe me and then print out a copy for someone else to read. Until then, would you believe me if I told you...
“Regardless of what kind of book it is, this is the way you’re going to visually preserve it first before you open it. But this doesn’t have much to do with someone buying it. People tell me they buy books for their covers. But it’s not a sales tool in the sense of you’re going to buy it because you like that cover. Really, what the cover should do is get you to open the book and start to read it and investigate it. And at that point, the book is going to sell itself to you, or not.” — Chip Kidd
The Hundred Story House is a piece of interactive public art. It is a miniature Brooklyn brownstone whose windows open upon shelves of books (about 100 of them) which can be borrowed by the community. Situated in the Cobble Hill Park on Clinton Street, the House is a tiny lending library open to all and operating on the honor system — take-a-book, leave-a-book. This is an effort to celebrate the BOOK as a physical object, and the pleasure of holding one in your hand. Or better yet, placing one in someone else’s.
If this writing thing doesn’t work out, forget the ice cream truck, I’m driving a bookmobile. And for your information, it will have the right amount of torque to turf lawns in case you fall behind on your tab.
The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you? Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing - that’s reassuring. Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.
“Literary adaptations look set to sweep the board in Hollywood this year.”
Six of the nine nominations announced this week for Best Picture are based on books, reflecting a recent pattern in which the Oscar lists have consistently and gratifyingly affirmed cinema’s dependence on literature.
This is worth reading to familiarize yourself with details to look out for when signing contracts. Certainly, things have changed with the advent of the eBook, and because that world is still in flux, you’d be smart to keep on top of what’s happening in the industry should you find yourself about to sign on the line.
“Neglected by publishers in recent years, the mass-market paperback format remains highly desirable for its accessibility, both in terms of portability/usability and its low production and purchase costs,” Michaels says. He believes the paperback provides the ideal format for creating experimental books and experimental design to enhance “a reader’s reception of content.”
Here’s the thing about book trailers: I feel there’s a collision of two artistic worlds where one most certainly loses out.
A book trailer immediately translates the book. It places specific glasses on the reader’s eyes. A reader loses the ability to recreate the story in his head. I become more interested, if it’s a well-created and visually appealing trailer, in continuing to see (or see as I’ve been asked to see) the story as a visual piece. I’m not automatically compelled to go and read the book now that my mind has been tainted.
A bad book trailer does nothing for the book or writer.
I don’t think I’ve ever been ashamed. However, I have felt that if my eyes wander, it means one or more of these issues:
My mind is focused on other matters.
The writing has issues, starts to lag, or fails to keep me.
I’m tired.
But if the second issue is the main reason, and if it occurs again and again, another problem arises: when do I scrap the book in its entirety? This bothers me more.
We live in a timed world. I buy faster than I can read. Spend more time on a book that may never recover? or move on?
