From The Economist: Aaron was winding up a work call as his partner Jim waited at the dinner table. “I’ll just be a minute or two here,” Aaron whispered, cupping his phone. “No probs,” Jim whispered back. Minutes passed and Aaron was still pacing around the apartment with the phone to his ear. Turning to … Read more
From Fortune: On Feb. 14, 1904, someone curious about the emerging possibilities of a key force of nature checked out James Clerk Maxwell’s “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity” from the New Bedford Free Public Library. It would take 119 years and the sharp eyes of a librarian in West Virginia before the scientific text finally … Read more
From The New Publishing Standard: And somehow Daunt magically beat the ogre at its own game and apparently, they will all live happily ever after. The Forbes headline ran “How an Englishman In New York Turned The Page On Barnes & Noble”. Unfortunately there’s not much “how” in this Forbes post. Hedge-fund buys B&N, appoints British CEO. … Read more
Not exactly to do with books, but definitely regarding paper — From Atlas Obscura: IN 1990, FACED WITH THE imminent fall of a five-decade reign in Albania, the Communist government needed to destroy immense amounts of paperwork. As the country held its first democratic elections in 50 years, some 29,000 files disappeared—generally assumed to detail … Read more
Robert Graves was the son of a Gaelic scholar and poet and a mother who was related to an influential German historian of those times. Graves turned down a scholarship to St. John’s College, Oxford, to join the British Army. While serving, he published his first book of poetry in 1916. The title was Over … Read more
From Wired: WHEN VOICE ACTOR Heath Miller sits down in his boatshed-turned-home studio in Maine to record a new audiobook narration, he has already read the text through carefully at least once. To deliver his best performance, he takes notes on each character and any hints of how they should sound. Over the past two … Read more
From The New York Times: On Jan. 28, 2019, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who has been a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine since 2015, came to one of our weekly ideas meetings with a very big idea. My notes from the meeting simply say, “NIKOLE: special issue on the 400th anniversary of African slaves … Read more
From Time: A few months after posting a message on Goodreads about the imminent release of a new book, Indie author Beth Black woke up to an all-caps ransom email from an anonymous server, demanding that she either pay for good reviews or have her books inundated with negative ones: “EITHER YOU TAKE CARE OF OUR NEEDS … Read more
From Writer Unboxed: When I was young, writing didn’t feel mysterious or difficult. I wasn’t curious about other writers’ processes, or searching for the “best” way to develop a story. Writing was just putting pen to paper and seeing what came out. It was a way to pass the time contentedly. It was a way … Read more
From long-time visitor to TPV, Harald, a GoodReads article of an aspect of cover design PG hasn’t seen discussed elsewhere. From GoodReads: The Grayscale Test Some background first. Most humans see the world via three color channels or receptors in the eye’s retina. With the Additive Color System (the one used for projected light as … Read more
From Margie Lawson: In January, I’m teaching Advanced Craft, for journeymen writers who have mastered the basics, but want to take their writing to the next level. We cover everything from big things, like beginnings and backstory, to small things like adverbs, writing tight, and the subject of this blog: overused words. We all have them. … Read more
From Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris: In the early days of self-publishing, authors who didn’t know know coding had to hire formatters to make their books cyber-ready. Since then, formatting has become part of many writing programs. Word processors like MSWord, Scrivener and Pages will output ebook files and apps like Vellum (Mac … Read more
From ALLI: As the world effectively went into lockdown in response to the COVID-19 crisis, we wrote about the mental and emotional challenges these new conditions were generating: fear of the disease, distraction, lack of stimulus, disrupted routines and rituals, the effect of a diet of constantly depressing news. Having good creative processes that limit … Read more
From The New Republic: Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Jim Webb might have seemed like a weird candidate to give the keynote speech to a roomful of antiwar activists, journalists, creative writers, and academics in New York City. Remembered today as a rigid one-term Democratic Virginia senator who rode an anti-Bush wave to … Read more
From The New Yorker: At the end of “Crime and Punishment,” which was completed in 1866, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s hero, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, has a dream that so closely reflects the roilings of our own pandemic one almost shrinks from its power. Here’s part of it, in Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s rendering: He had dreamed that the … Read more
From The Kashmir Observer: A dystopian novel about a deadly pandemic wreaking havoc across the world that was rejected 15 years ago has finally been published after reality once more proved itself stranger than fiction. Scottish author Peter May, 68, a former journalist and BBC screenwriter, wrote Lockdown in 2005, imagining London as the epicentre of a global outbreak, only to see his manuscript turned away by … Read more
From Publishers Weekly: Public libraries around the world generated a record level of digital content circulation in 2019, providing patrons access to more than 326 million e-books, audiobooks and digital magazines, a 20% increase over the previous year, according to a report by Rakuten OverDrive, a digital distribution vendor for libraries According to the report, … Read more
From Creative Future: Here we are … again. Mark Zuckerberg was chewed out (again) on Capitol Hill. Google enraged their employees (again) by trying to spy on them and for siding with China (again). Cloudflare was outed (again) for refusing to crack down on criminal behavior on their network. In other words, here is the … Read more
From CinemaBlend: Over the last six years there has been a huge resurgence in story-based point-and-click games all thanks to Telltale Games. The company got eyes with the return of Sam & Max but it turned heads with the first season of The Walking Dead. The follow-up of The Wolf Among Us kept fans hanging on for more content from … Read more
From The New York Review of Books: “Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.” Re-reading Elizabeth Strout’s breathtakingly exquisite novel My Name is Lucy Barton in preparation for seeing the theatrical adaptation—directed by Richard Eyre and starring Laura Linney … Read more
fdFrom MSN: Free speech just isn’t as cool as it used to be, according to a Gallup and the Knight Foundation study of college students’ views on the subject. The news isn’t great for this bedrock principle in America’s higher-learning institutions. College students overwhelmingly support free speech in the abstract, but when it comes to the real … Read more
From The Literary Hub: Making personal work has always been a part of my practice. In fact, until a few years ago, my only job was being a bartender, and my personal illustration work was my single source of visual output. With a little luck and a lot of help, I stumbled into my career … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Here’s the surprising post. Many of you who read this blog regularly probably think that I’m opposed to major marketing campaigns. I’m not. I’m opposed to them when they’re done incorrectly. What’s incorrectly? Pretty much everything you see from traditional publishing to most indies. You have to look outside of publishing … Read more
From the New York Times: In March 2009, an eternity ago in Silicon Valley, a small team of engineers here was in a big hurry to rethink the future of books. Not the paper-and-ink books that have been around since the days of Gutenberg, the ones that the doomsayers proclaim — with glee or dread … Read more
From The Paris Review: “What do you do with the old magazines when the new issues come out?” I asked the librarian. “At the end of the year, we donate them to neighborhood schools so kids can cut them up and make collages,” she replied. Our small public library is relatively new, sparsely filled with … Read more
From Sherwood News: Fan-fiction writers have for decades parlayed their passion for writing stories based on movies, TV shows, and books into careers as best-selling genre authors. But they haven’t often advertised to readers their pseudonymous identities as fan-fiction writers when they were published under their real names: Naomi Novik’s fan persona as author and … Read more
From The Paris Review: When I talk to non-Chinese readers like yourselves, I often find that you are interested in hearing about what distinguishes me as an author but also what distinguishes my country—and particularly details that go beyond what you see on the television, read about in newspapers, and hear about from tourists. I … Read more
From Public Books: Over a stunning career, which has lasted more than half a century, the historian Richard Slotkin has devoted himself to documenting the stories we tell ourselves about nation, violence, inclusion, and exclusion. From his trilogy on the place of guns in American culture—starting with Regeneration Through Violence in 1973—Slotkin has defined the … Read more
From The Economist: In 2019 a federal judge named Alan Albright gave a presentation to a group of lawyers. His courthouse in Waco, Texas, where he is the only judge, sits near a sweet shop. The talk was called “Why You Should File Your Next Patent Case Across the Street from the ‘Hey Sugar’”. The intellectual-property … Read more
From Publishing Perspectives: This month’s column describes Mensch Publishing’s transition from a mixture of traditional print and distribution to a wholly digitally driven model. The Downsides Change is hard and frequently expensive. The files I’d created for the traditional route and held by my publishing partner were, it turned out, formatted to the first, normally … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: The dogs of the neighborhood perk up to greet me at Benny Morris’s front gate in this middle-of-nowhere town in central Israel. The great historian, shaggy-haired, in T-shirt, open flannel and socks, has recently returned home from the U.K., where the barking did not cease. He was there to debate a … Read more
From The Paris Review: While reading Maradona’s autobiography this past winter, I found that every few pages I would whisper or write in the margins, “I love you, Maradona.” Sadness crept up on me as I turned to the last chapter, and it intensified to heartbreak when I read its first lines: “They say I … Read more
Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris: THE OFFER I’m writing this guest post from behind two boxes of books just delivered from the publisher. When I pried one open, the cover of the novel I’ve labored over for so long was revealed, and I laughed out loud, like a schoolgirl. I couldn’t stop. The … Read more
From The Paris Review: What can’t be contained? Not much. We are given the resources, mental or physical, to contain our emotions and our belongings. Failing to do so often registers as weakness. The smallest container you can buy at the Container Store is a rectangular crystal-clear plastic box available in orange, purple, and green. … Read more
From The Economist: Frank Herbert, the author of the science-fiction novel “Dune” on which a new blockbuster film is based, would have been amused to learn that ecologists along the Oregon shore are ripping invasive European beachgrass out of the ground. As a young journalist in the late 1950s, Herbert derived his inspiration for a … Read more
From Persuasion: I was sitting across from the professor as she went over my latest piece. This was 1986, Columbia School of Journalism, Reporting and Writing I, the program’s core course. At one point, in response to what I don’t recall, I said, “That doesn’t bode well for me.” I could have been referring to … Read more
From Writer Unboxed: As some of you may already know, in addition to being a highly sought-after shirtless model for romance novel covers, I am also a longtime professional musician, having earned my first money for playing drums at the ripe old age of 14. In fact, music was my fulltime profession until my late … Read more
From The New Statesman: “She was no longer a milkmaid, but the visionary essence of woman,” Hardy says of his most famous creation, Tess Durbeyfield: “a whole sex condensed into one typical form.” Tess, who is lovely and spirited, proves hardy, in the sense of long-suffering, at the hands of her seducer, Alec D’Urberville, and … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: The queen of the football romance is not Taylor Swift. It’s Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Phillips, whose tenth lusty NFL novel comes out next week, is widely credited with starting the sports romance genre more than three decades ago. She is a 79-year-old grandma who lives in Naperville, Ill., “where the … Read more
From ABC: Elementary and middle school students have only made up some of the losses in math and reading they experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report finds. For the report, published Wednesday, a collaborative team at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, looked at the … Read more
From The Economist: “I’m a little intoxicated, not gonna lie. So what if it’s not even 10pm and it’s a Tuesday night?…Let the hacking begin.” So typed a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, liveblogging from his Harvard dormitory as he began work on a website called Facemash. The site displayed randomly selected pairs of students’ mugshots, harvested … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Every three months, the Performing Rights Society of Britain sends me royalties on “Caught Steelin’,” a country-funk instrumental I co-wrote and recorded 20 years ago. Whenever it appears on the soundtrack of, say, a daytime TV show about antiques, I receive about 12.5% of the royalty pie. I receive thinner … Read more
From 1843 Magazine: Are we truly so precious?” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, asked me one Wednesday evening in June 2020. I was the editorial-page editor of the Times, and we had just published an op-ed by Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, that was outraging many members of the … Read more
From The Economist: Are we we truly so precious?” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, asked me one Wednesday evening in June 2020. I was the editorial-page editor of the Times, and we had just published an op-ed by Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, that was outraging many members of the Times staff. America’s conscience … Read more
From Jim Wilbourne: Have you ever wondered: what’s the real DNA of contemporary Fantasy and Science Fiction? What do they share, and where do they diverge? And what about their future? Hey guys, it’s Jim Wilbourne, author of The Continua Chronicles, and today we’re discussing the beginnings and current state of The Contemporary Era of … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: The British explorer Ranulph Fiennes is the first person to have crossed Antarctica on foot and the only living person to have circumnavigated the planet by its poles. In 2000 he fell through the ice while walking solo to the North Pole, leaving the fingertips of his left hand severely … Read more
From The Paris Review: Last spring, a friend of a friend visited my office and invited me to Langley to speak to Invisible Ink, the CIA’s creative writing group. I asked Vivian (not her real name) what she wanted me to talk about. She said that the topic of the talk was entirely up to … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: In the popular perception of the typical white-collar case, a judicious government prosecutes a mendacious executive on a mountain of incontrovertible evidence. Think Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried. Then there’s Michael Milken, the former “junk bond king” from the infamous “decade of greed.” If there were a Mount Rushmore of … Read more
From Jane Friedman: Imprints have long been getting closed, merged, reorganized, and reborn over publishing’s history, but this summer raised new frustrations and fears among authors about how and why it’s happening. In June, Penguin Random House (PRH) announced they would merge the long-respected Razorbill into Putnam Children’s (retaining the full team in doing so); … Read more
From Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris: As last September ended, a report from the Association of American Literary Agents painted a bleak picture of the American literary agent — working long hours and struggling to pay the bills, worrying for their future. Among the members of the author community who had ever received a rejection … Read more