The Puget News

Just a reminder from the Event Calendar that Jay Rubin, translator and writer, will be speaking at 7:30 Elliott Bay Book Co. tonight. Jay is perhaps most well known for his translation of Haruki Murakami’s works but he’s recently translated 17 stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (including Rashomon) and has also published his own book, Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words.

I’ll be there with a friend. If anyone else wants to meet up for a pint afterwards, let me know!

Jay Rubin, Haruki Murakami, and Ryunosuke Akutagawa on Technorati.

Jim Butcher came to town yesterday in support of his new book, White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9). The series, for those of you unfamiliar, is about a wizard detective named Harry Dresden. I was unfamiliar with Butcher’s printed work and went to this “non-reading” (more on this in a moment) because I’ve been enjoying the new “Dresden Files” show on the Sci-Fi Channel and I thought it might be fun to see what the books and author are like. There’s usually interesting fodder for questions when a writer’s work gets adapted for tv or film.

I wasn’t really prepared for the mob of people that would be in attendance. Typically, when I show up 20 minutes early for a reading, as I did last night, I have my pick of where to sit. Last night, I could hear the “standing-room only” audience upstairs at the University Bookstore long before I saw them. The place was packed down the aisles with enthusiastic fans, some of which apparently showed up at 1 (the event was at 7). It turns out that this was all for good reason since Jim Butcher proved himself to be a “fan’s fan” - a highly caffeinated, energetic, and funny presenter who kept answering questions until he was told that he needed to stop and sign books so they could close the store.

I’d definitely check out Jim Butcher the next time he comes to town and I may even try reading some of the Dresden books before he comes back. They’re pulpy (I read the first two chapters of the new book while waiting for him to come on), but they’re fast reads with fun characters, lots of crime scene dialog, and a funny hero who gets persistently beaten down.

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Charlie Stross has posted a long-ish piece with some great thought on why the commercial ebook market is failing and why he believes it continue to fail for the forseeable future.

He points to several core problems:

• lack of inexpensive ereader hardware
• crippling DRM
• insane pricing

While I agree with those points, I have issues when he calls hogwash on the “hardware problem.” Stross misappropriates a most-excellent piece by Cory Doctorow to make the point that we already spend a lot of our time reading off all sorts of computer, PDA, mobile screens. That’s true, but it misses a wide swath of what people actually read. What Cory takes the time to explain in that article is that these form factors we’re using have drastically altered the forms of the content and thereby what he calls the “cognitive style” of engaging with them. I’m not reading “The Adventures of Huck Finn” on my phone and neither are you, even though it’s part of the public domain and avaiable for free.

I don’t cook turkey in my bed and I don’t read novels in my office. We have not created a compelling digital device for reading long-form narratives in the normal places we are used to doing so. You techno-geeks might think that taking a laptop to read in bed is the same thing as a book, but it’s not. A book doesn’t wake you up to the smell of searing flesh (well, mine don’t) nor does it cause as many incendiary concerns. Don’t fool yourselves, most people want a high-contrast, light-weight device which is not their PDA or mobile phone. Hell, if you really want the idea to take off, make an ereader that’s bathtub safe. You give me a compelling hardware offering that gets me close enough to the natural experience of reading and I’m all there. A good reader is definitely a core piece of the puzzle that is missing.

To date, the Sony ereader is the best hardware I have seen. It has the contrast, the battery life, the storage, and the form factor, but it suffers from a high-price tag, zero compatibility with my personal computers (Macintoshes), and an expensive ebook store. But kudos on that device Sony, it’s the first one I’d use if everything else about it didn’t suck.

I don’t think getting all the factors right for a successful ebook offering is as far away as Stross thinks, though. Time will tell. My bet is that the first really successful hardware device will come from a major bookseller (or major media outlet), someone capable of playing hard-ball with publishers, just like Apple did when it single-handedly consolidated and grew the digital music market with iTunes. I could picture “The New York Times” selling an ereader pre-loaded with subscriptions (and/or the top 10 bestsellers from their infamous list). Barnes and Noble could packaging an ereader with “The Top 100 Public Domain Classic Novels.” It would show their customers that they’re reading enthusiasts, environmentally conscious, and hip to the fact that you have lots of choices on where you can get your books. I think we’ll see some major title in this direction within the next couple of years.

My favorite part of Stross’s article, and the part I truly believe keep many digital texts from being made available, is when he explores the outlandishness of the piracy concerns:

[…] the […] problem the publishing industry has with ebooks is their misapprehension of exactly what the “pirate” ebook field is costing them. Some otherwise fairly intelligent folks in the SFWAs anti-piracy committee think they’re potentially costing up to 30% of their revenue stream. I’d like to call bullshit on that.

There’s a figure I’ve heard quoted (unfortunately I don’t know the source so I can’t cite you chapter and verse on it) to the effect that the typical dead-tree book has, over its life cycle, an average of four readers. Moreover, sell-through in paper is around 50-60%; that is, for every book sold to a customer, 0.8 to 1.0 other books end up being returned or pulped. So the real figure is more like ten readers per book actually printed by the publisher.

Think about that. Today, publishers try like crazy to tie ebooks to a single reader via DRM, in their misplaced zeal to reduce profit leakage; but for the economic hit from piracy to equal the economic hit from libraries and second-hand bookstores and friends lending friends books, the unlicensed distribution channels would have to be shifting nine ebooks for every one that is sold commercially.

Publishers are insane if they believe that every pirated copy is a lost sale. They need to be smarter than that. Not only that, they need to be more environmentally conscious than that. The current publishing system produces an extraordinary amount of waste. People will latch onto digital texts and readers if they can be made available at a reasonable price, not cobbled with atrocious DRM, and fit into their casual reading habits. This could start happening this year is somebody starts listening to their customers.

There are only two video podcasts I watch religiously: Cool Hunting and TEDTalks. They never fail to impress and inspire.

In this week’s Cool Hunting video, I was inspired several times over by the work of Jonathan Harris, being drawn in initially by his beautiful scrap-books. Journaling, as a concept, is something I’ve always admired and yet have always failed to devote myself to. Half a dozen journals sit within my book collection, nearly all of them empty beyond the first several pages. And yet, when I look at what I actually have written, the memories come rushing back and I find the experience engaging.

Harris’s journals have a freedom to them I’d love to attempt in my own journaling. The pasting of travel mementos, paintings in watercolors, pencil sketches, and words, all take advantage of where his mind is at during the time of creativity. It seems somehow easier to avoid writer’s block if you don’t have to write. While I am not the painter or the sketch artist he is, I am certain that I too can aspire to create something which is at least occasionally worthy of exploration and self-review, and that seems like as good a place to start as any.

Most of my friends are creative and feel like they should be spending more time on their artistic endeavors than they actually do. In the act of creating a journal, to exploration and archival of detritis of those things that make up a life, there is a built-in review process for ideas and thoughts, all done in an environment where the intention is not necessarily to share with others. It’s a place to work out your good and bad ideas. This is freeing. MySpace and blogging somehow seem like poor substitutes.

Moving from interior spaces to exterior explorations, Jonathan’s other works shown in the video are websites focused on filtering the shared experiences of others through creative digital visualizations, automated web-based aggregators, and inventive new use of old metaphor.

• We Feel Fine - A “Global study of human emotion using large-scale blog analysis”
• Universe - The exploration and creation of modern mythologies visualized as astral constellations.

If you missed it above, here’s that link to the video.

Let me know what you think of it. Have any of you tried journaling/scrap-booking in the past? Do you still do it now? Does anyone know of any good websites which discuss this sort of autobiographical creation?

Many moons ago, about 1,780 of them to be exact, I used to manage much of the Amazon.com customer review process, the stuff you don’t see from the front-end of the site - the moderation and maintenance of tons of reviews on millions of products. It was a fun job and I learned a ton about the legalities of free speech, how vicious people can be when they’re using assumed identities, and how nasty publishers/authors of crappy books can be when their books are called crappy in customer reviews.

I was also around for much of the initial craziness around protecting the identities of children online. At Amazon, we had to build separate processes for children to submit customer reviews an egregious hack which exists until this day (just look at the top of the page where it says “Under 13?”) and we had to shut down places where kids activiely congregated due to legal risk, such as discussion boards for Harry Potter, where children were being social with each other and perhaps sharing too much personal information with each other. Never mind the fact that we clearly stated you needed to be 18 to register for an account.

Here’s the deal, I’m all for protecting children, but the solutions that work are those which limit where kids can go on the internet - either on the software side or on the parenting side. COPA was justifiably struck down as a bad idea last week, a violation of free speech. It’s been unenforceable ever since it was created. These matters were a huge headache for me in my old role. I am glad that the law is maturing enough to deal with these matter more consistently and realistically.

Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. wrote that parents can better protect their children through software filters. He also stressed that COPA fails to address threats—such as online predators on social networking sites—that have emerged since the law was written. COPA only targets web site operators, not their users. COPA has been through several legal rulings and has never been enforced.

The New York Times Book Review

“You Don’t Love Me Yet,” by Jonathan Lethem - I haven’t read any Lethem in a long while and this one seems like a fast-paced one with fun subject matter. It may be better to go after “Motherless Brooklyn,” though, as most reviews consider that the magnum opus.

So it’s a surprise that Lethem’s latest, “You Don’t Love Me Yet,” which is about a rock band, is such a quiet little book. It’s slender, it’s quick, and it sidesteps the messy rock-novel challenge by focusing on an unassuming Los Angeles indie group that’s only on the cusp of success.

[…]

The plot is a preposterous but fun contrivance. Lucinda, the bassist in the nameless band, has just broken up with the singer, Matthew. At the same time that she’s navigating the awkward business of being in a group with her ex, she takes a new job, if it can be called that, answering phones for a conceptual-artist friend. The friend’s latest art stunt involves pasting stickers all over the city that are emblazoned with the word “Complaints?” and a telephone number.

Then We Came to the End, by Josh Ferris - I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover but you must admit this is an absolutely brilliant cover. The New York Times calls this first novel from Josh Ferris “acidly funny.” A fictional account of a turn of the last century advertising firm and its many corporate layoff victims that somehow maintains a real human element in the face of inhuman indignities and mind-numbing knowledge work.

Ferris, who once worked at a Chicago ad agency, is fluent in the language of white-collar wordsmiths under siege. […] Above all, Ferris has a sixth sense for paranoia.

The Week (Reviews of reviews)

Dreaming in Code, by Scott Rosenburg - All of the reviews point the fact that this book is written well enough to appeal to non-technical audiences. I suspect if you can appreciate anything you’re not good at, you’ll find a way to appreciate those who actually do dream in code and spend their days in complex attempts to build something new.

Beyond 9 to 5, by Sarah Norgate - How are our conceptions of time changing our experiences of it? I may not work for a clock-punching firm but I certainly feel the political implications of time management pervasively around me.

The Economist

The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America, by Allan M. Brandt - I’ve always been intrigued that something which kills so many can be consumed by the willing.

Allan Brandt, a Harvard professor, has written a history of the cigarette in America. It runs from the automatic rolling machine, patented by James Bonsack in 1881, to last year’s retreat by the Bush administration in a case that was intended to make the industry meet the full cost to the federal government of treating tobacco-related illness. It is a remarkable story, clearly told, astonishingly well documented (“We know more about the tobacco industry than any other business in the history of business”) and with a transparent moral motif.

A small but mighty group of tough-minded individuals finally worked our way through Thomas Pynchon’s new monster over the last few months. I think we’ve now settled on a pace that works for us, and even more importantly, we’ve selected our book for the next few meetings. I’d like to extend the reading group invitation to anybody out there interested in joining us.

Here’s how it works:

• The group meets every other Thursday at 7:30PM. Most of our meetings have been in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle at local pubs. If anyone wants to try reading remotely, let me know and we can try to make that work using the blog comments as a discussion forum.
• We spend at least half our time drinking, making small talk, and eating. If you’re a high-powered lit-nerd, you may want to find a more appropriate outlet for your snobby prowess.
• The idea of the group is to read challenging works which benefit from multiple points of view. We’ll vote on books as we approach the time for the next one to begin.
• We’ve found that 75-80 pages per week is our pace. Any more and people start to crumble under the obligation. The number of meetings we have will generally be based on page count.

The next book we’ve decided to read is “Poor People,” by William T. Vollmann (see the New York Times review ). We’ll be meeting March 29th to discuss the first 150-160 pages. You can purchase your copy (and support this blog) by clicking the image below:

I just discovered a lovely blog with a provocative literary angle. Written by Julie Wilson from Toronto, Canada, Seen Reading is her little peep-show into the reading lives of others. It’s her creative amalgamation of a person she saw reading, a quote from the work, and literary interpretation of what she imagines the person must have been sensing while reading.

Personally, I’ve always been intrigued about what you could tell from people by their bookshelves. I guess I’ve subsconsiously always done what Julie publicly posts via this blog. That’s what makes her idea so fascinating. These are the narrative realities we create for the people we don’t know, based on the fewest of details.

What Is Seen Reading?

* 1. I see you reading.
* 2. I guesstimate where you are in the book.
* 3. I trip on over to the bookstore and make a note of the text.
* 4. I let my imagination rip.
* 5. Readers become celebrities.
* 6. People get giddy and buy more books.

This is one of my secret books.

You know, one of those surprises you find and then covet. Just listen to the opening paragraph.

In the attic where the rain touched the roof softly on spring days and where you could feel the mantle of snow outside, a few inches away, on December nights, A Thousand Times Great Grandmere existed. She did not live, nor was she eternally dead, she…existed.

It reads more like verse than prose. The entire book is a dreamlike experience, for although it includes all the relevant creatures of the undead within it, it does not read like any other “horror” book I’ve ever read. The problems faced by the undead “family” are unique but, in their own way, inevitable.

As you read it, you think you recognize some of the family members, Dracula for one, but they are woven into the story and talked about in such a sideways manner that you begin to think that the “family” is the true story and all the legends are distortions on their reality.

The book itself is actually a group of short stories about the family that Bradbury wrote over a 40 year period. Some have been published, some not. This is one of those books that makes you sit up and wonder, “Why haven’t I read more of Bradbury [or insert another author here]”. Because it truly shows his brilliance.

You will enjoy it and you will come back to it.

I spent several days before the arrival of Miéville’s new book telling people how pleased I was to get my hands on “Oon Loon Doon.” Sometimes, I really am an idiot (btw, it’s pronounced “un-London”). Please quit nodding your head.

I daresay that most of “Un Lun Dun’s” intended audience will get that pronunciation straight away, without the need to have it as painstakingly spelled out to them. That’s because this book is geared at the burgeoning “smart teenager / young adult” market, those looking for something more intellectually stimulating, dark, and less known than certain other other famous mega-blockbusters for that market. It’s a bit like Harry Potter for goths, resembling The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, and Grimm Fairy Tales all rolled in to one wacky and oddly instructive package.

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