From The Paris Review: The summer that I did my chaplaincy internship was a wildly full twelve weeks. I was thirty-two years old and living in the haze of the end of an engagement as I walked the hospital corridors carrying around my Bible and visiting patients. “Hi, I’m Vanessa. I’m from the spiritual care … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: On the hot afternoon of July 6, 1758, advance troops of a vast Anglo-American army probed through forest toward the French fortress of Ticonderoga, in what is now upstate New York. As skirmishing suddenly erupted, the woods crackled with gunfire. Casualties were minimal but momentous: Shot through the heart, and … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Color is to the eye what birdsong is to the ear: a primal communion between ourselves and nature. The elemental power of color radiates from van Gogh’s shimmering wheat fields; in celestial photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope; and in the Technicolor fantasyscape that bursts onto the screen in “The … Read more
From veteran author and writing coach Dave Farland: I was at a writing conference last week and noticed that several times I passed groups of writers who were trying to figure out how to “Game the System.” In case you didn’t know it, every distribution industry tries to set up roadblocks for creators so that … Read more
From The New Republic: Seven years ago, when Amazon was in the midst of a contentious pricing battle with one of the country’s largest publishers, a group of famous authors banded together to make the case that publishing was a crucial industry for the nation’s cultural and intellectual life. “Publishers provide venture capital for ideas,” … Read more
From The New York Times: A children’s graphic novel by the creator of the popular “Captain Underpants” series was pulled from circulation last week by its publisher, which said that it “perpetuates passive racism.” Scholastic said last week that it had halted distribution of the book, “The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future,” … Read more
From CrimeReads: Reading has always been a great escape in my life. Books gave me joy, taught me much, but mostly, they were entertainment. . . . . My childhood favorites are similar to many writers in my genre: Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew; Agatha Christie and Lois Duncan. I graduated at age thirteen to … Read more
From Writers in the Storm: I’ve heard many authors—myself included—express our frustration and dismay at the expectation that we will not only produce wonderful books, but also carry out what amounts to a second full-time job as our own marketing team. Most of us don’t mind holding events, whether live or virtual, where we get … Read more
From Personanondata: Attorney’s Sperling & Slater acting on behalf of three eBook buying plaintiffs are suing Amazon and the “big 5” publishers (Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Harpercollins) for eBook price collusion in the Southern District Court in Manhattan. These plaintiffs are deemed representative of the following class: All persons who, on … Read more
Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have ‘essential’ and ‘long overdue’ meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some … Read more
From The Atlantic: In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower’s attorney general, William Rogers, read the paper with alarm. He learned that Random House intended to purchase the venerable publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Rogers began making calls to prod his antitrust division into blocking the sale. In those days, monopoly loomed as a central concern of government—and a … Read more
From Jane Friedman: I hate social media. It’s an addictive rabbit-hole. I just don’t have time. Social media takes away from my precious writing time. I’m no good at creating those visuals and posts. I hate all that self-promotion. I’ve heard many authors—myself included—express frustration and dismay at the expectation that we will not only … Read more
From The Los Angeles Review of Books: NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN CRITIC Hinton Rowan Helper left a lasting impression on how Californian culture is still viewed to this day through one mordant comment: I will say, that I have seen purer liquors, better segars [cigars], finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: A tale-telling axiom holds that complex narratives—whether from a writer’s quill, the pulpit or a Hollywood storyboard—are best broken into threes. From Sophocles to Coppola, the trilogy has thrived as a means to carve an enormous meal into manageable courses. World War II, history’s most complex bloodbath, often seems to require such … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: It’s time to celebrate the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth, born 250 years ago in a picturesque market town in northern England. One way to size up his achievement is to venture backward, beginning in the present day and drifting past the postmodernists, the modernists, the Edwardians, the Victorians, until we … Read more
From The New York Times: The killing of George Floyd has brought an intense moment of racial reckoning in the United States. As protests spread across the country, they have been accompanied by open letters calling for — and promising — change at white-dominated institutions across the arts and academia. But on Tuesday, a different type of … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: For Jack Lawson, “ten hours a day in the dark prison below really meant freedom for me.” At age 12, this Northern England boy began full-time work down the local mine. His life underwent a transformation; there would be “no more drudgery at home.” Jack’s wages lifted him head and … Read more
From Anne R. Allen’s Blog: A lot of authors get that deer-in-the-headlights look when I mention marketing books online. But it’s pretty much the only way to promote books during this “stay at home” pandemic. So we gotta do it. I understand your reluctance. Social media is full of trolls, scammers, and vast herds of … Read more
PG Note: Storytel sells audiobooks. From The New Publishing Standard: The only surprise with the latest results from Sweden-based Storytel would have been if subscriber rates and earnings had dipped amid a global crisis that has left print-focussed publishers imperiled. That of course did not happen, and while streaming revenue took a notional hit at … Read more
From Terrible Minds: I thought Terrible Minds would be the place to talk about the strange, horrible feeling of accidentally predicting the future, since Chuck did it too with Wanderers. It happens to pretty much any science fiction writer who writes in the near future. Worldbuilding is basically extrapolating cause and effect in different ways. You see a … Read more
From The Paris Review: W. H. Auden had rented variously inadequate apartments since arriving back in New York at the end of the summer of 1945, and had most recently been living with Chester Kallman in a warehouse building on Seventh Avenue, an especially unsatisfactory place that lacked both hot water and a functional front door. … Read more
Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have ‘essential’ and ‘long overdue’ meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some … Read more
While PG was checking some facts for his post about Red Star Over China which appears immediately below this one, he found the following account from The China Daily: A senior at Yenching University in Beijing (then Beiping) in 1936, I was preparing for the mid-June final exams when the American journalist Edgar Snow revealed … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Google said it would refuse to pay for licenses for previews of French news articles when the European Union’s new copyright directive goes into effect here next month, the first concrete signal for how the Alphabet Inc. unit plans to implement the divisive measure. Rather than paying, Google said it would show … Read more
From The New Yorker: A physical book is good for much more than reading. In our house, we have several large art books propping up a movie projector. A thin paperback is wedged under a couch leg in a spot where our old floors are especially uneven. One summer we pressed wildflowers between the pages … Read more
Based upon a comment to another post, PG refreshed his high-level knowledge of open-access academic journals. From The Lloyd Sealy Library at The City University of New York: Peter Suber has written extensively about open access, “Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” Scholarly … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: We Americans look to the Founding Fathers when we think about the American experiment in democracy. But to whom did the Founders turn for guidance? More than a few found inspiration in the England of the previous century, when the conflict between Parliament and King Charles I erupted into civil … Read more
From The Digital Reader: For the past couple weeks I have been working on a new project, and I think it’s gotten to the point where it’s ready for public testing and feedback. The project has the working title of “Author Website in a Box”, and it is intended to provide a complete author website … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Gary Beikirch returned from Vietnam filled with rage and racked by guilt and worried he’d kill the next college kid who spat on him. The former Green Beret medic let his mustache droop, and his hair reach his shoulders. He bought snow shoes and a thick down jacket and, in … Read more
From The Illusion of More: On Tuesday, Meredith Filak Rose of Public Knowledge posted a blog suggesting that a solution to rampant misinformation is to “bring libraries online.” Not surprisingly, she identifies copyright law as the barrier currently preventing access to quality information that could otherwise help solve the problem … “High-quality, vetted, peer-reviewed secondary sources are, unfortunately, … Read more
From All About Romance: Checking out eBooks at the library has come a long way since I bought my Nook Classic. Back then, most companies did not know how to make eBook lending from the local library work, and staff members at my local B&N had to pass out detailed instructions – that were at … Read more
From Fast Company: Ever since the invention of movable type, the debate has raged: Are two spaces after a period better than one? The French said “Non!” from the beginning, using one space only. The British said “Aye!” and established their own two-space rule. Now, three psychology researchers at Skidmore College are settling the debate … Read more
From The New York Times: Robin Sloan has a collaborator on his new novel: a computer. The idea that a novelist is someone struggling alone in a room, equipped with nothing more than determination and inspiration, could soon be obsolete. Mr. Sloan is writing his book with the help of home-brewed software that finishes his sentences … Read more
From The Literary Hub: The first person to photograph the underground of Paris was a gallant and theatrical man with a blaze of red hair, known as Nadar. Once described by Charles Baudelaire as “the most amazing example of vitality,” Nadar was among the most visible and electric personalities in mid 19th-century Paris. He was … Read more
From The Paris Review: I have nothing against rules. They’re indispensable when playing Monopoly or gin rummy, and their observance can go a long way toward improving a ride on the subway. The rule of law? Big fan. The English language, though, is not so easily ruled and regulated. It developed without codification, sucking up … Read more
Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed. ~ Cavett Robert
PG lives a sheltered life, so removed from modern culture and civilization that only this morning, he learned that the color of 2019 is Living Coral. From Time: Pantone has announced that Living Coral is the 2019 color of the year. The color authority has bestowed the honorable title on a special hue every December for the … Read more
From The Paris Review: As an undergraduate, I gave up trying to write fiction (my only completed story bore the decidedly unpromising title “Growing Marijuana”) and realized I wanted to write literary criticism instead. Troubled by the cavernous gaps in my reading, I sent a fan letter to James Wood, whom I didn’t know personally … Read more
From The Literary Hub: Lately, I’ve been thinking about ownership. I’ve been considering it within the context of writing and art making, wondering who has the right and responsibility to explore the problem of white supremacy, and how, or even if it can be done by white artists without furthering the trauma of marginalized people. I’ve been … Read more
From Quartzy: Wigtown is a coastal “book town” in Scotland that features an Airbnb rental where bibliophiles can spend their vacation living out the romantic fantasy of running a bookstore. And indeed, according to Shaun Bythell, a year-round bookseller in the same town, it’s deeply romantic work: The evocative smell of books, mixed with cat piss; … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: When the novelist Philip Roth died in May, the obituaries and tributes agreed that he was (to quote a few choice descriptions) “towering,” “pre-eminent” and a “giant of the American novel.” In the opinion of those who create the official narrative of American literature—the critics who write about it, the … Read more
From The Washington Post: Since 1954, the American Library Association has awarded a medal for lifetime achievement in children’s literature in the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The original impetus behind the honor was dismay. Librarians were “chagrined,” wrote historian Leonard Marcus, that none of Wilder’s eight critically acclaimed Little House books had been recognized … Read more
PG doesn’t want TPV to become a political blog, but with the shrill nature of political conversations in the United States, he thought a brief look at a real dictatorship where people are unable to say what they believe might be useful. From The New York Review of Books: Guo Yuhua is one of China’s best-known … Read more
From CNBC: Amazon has a solution for employees who no longer want to work there — pay them to quit. Once a year, the company offers to pay full-time associates at Amazon fulfillment centers up to $5,000 to leave the company. Employees are eligible after one year of service, but there is a caveat: Those who … Read more
From BookRiot: I’ve read a fair number of historical romance novels in my day, and though the genre has a wider range than its detractors would have us believe, there’s one thing that remains by and large consistent throughout: 90% of the main characters’ fathers suck eggs. Whether distant and cold, wildly irresponsible, or flat-out … Read more
From The Literary Hub: In 2014, the first-ever Independent Bookstore Day launched in California. It was conceived by bookseller and writer Samantha Schoech, who partnered with the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association to highlight the important cultural value independent bookstores bring to their communities. The following year, Independent Bookstore Day became a national event. Since … Read more
From CNN: Since January, each book at the top of The New York Times best-seller list has had one thing in common: President Trump. James Comey’s book “A Higher Loyalty” will surely keep the streak alive. Comey’s high-profile launch is also highlighting Trump’s broader effects on book sales. The No. 1 spot on The Times’ hardcover … Read more
From The London Review of Books: Nominally a book that covers the rough century between the invention of the telegraph in the 1840s and that of computing in the 1950s, The Chinese Typewriter is secretly a history of translation and empire, written language and modernity, misguided struggle and brutal intellectual defeat. The Chinese typewriter is ‘one of the … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Lawyers gathered at the Atlanta office of a big law firm were debating a head-scratching legal question. What does the emoji known as the “unamused face” actually mean? They couldn’t even agree that the emoji in question—it has raised eyebrows and a frown—looked unamused. “Everybody said something different,” recalls Morgan … Read more
From The Gray Market Weekly: On Wednesday, Michael O’Hare, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School, waded into the still-smoldering controversy over the Berkshire Museum’s deaccession plan in order to address what he sees as a much larger, more consequential problem: the behemoth number of inactive artworks shuttered away in institutional storage. At … Read more