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Tag: books

  • December 20th, 2012 1:52pm

    There were literally hundreds of such often live-by-night magazines with wildly exotic and frequently misleading names from their initial appearance at the beginning of the 1920’a in America. And I would not pretend that everything they published was made of gold. Far from it. We are talking commercial fiction, mostly catering to the lowest common denominator. But then do our modern paperbacks have loftier ambitions and superior hit-rate, quality-wise?

    But what makes them stand out is the fact that the pulps had one golden rules which unsung editors insisted upon and good and bad writers alike religiously followed: adherence to the art of storytelling. Every story in the pulps had a beginning and and end, sharply-etched economical characterization, action, emotions, plenty going on. The mission was to keep the reader hooked, to transport him/her into a more interesting world of fantasy and make-believe, spiriting them away from the drab horizons of everyday life (remember, there was no television in those very early days,or CDs or other modern leisure addictions).

    — Maxim Jakubowski (in the introduction to  The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction)

  • November 17th, 2012 2:43am

    A Rant about E-Book Pricing

    fishingboatproceeds:

    So the final volume in Ally Condie’s MATCHED trilogy came out today. The last book, REACHED, is a great ending to an excellent series, and I think very highly of both the series and its author.

    All the pre-publication reviews have been great, and the initial Amazon user reviews were awesome, too. But then this afternoon, I noticed the overall rating for the book had dropped from five stars to four entirely because of a single one-star review complaining that the e-book is more expensive than the hardcover on Amazon. (Edit: The review has been deleted.)

    The hardcover of Reached retails for $17.99. The kindle edition retails for $10.99. As you will notice because you are great at math, THE E-BOOK IS FAR CHEAPER THAN THE HARDCOVER.

    But Amazon discounts the price of the hardcover. They discount it so much, in fact, that they LOSE MONEY on every sale of the hardcover. Why do they do this? So that you will buy your hardcover books at Amazon instead of at a bookstore, and then you will get used to buying things from Amazon, and then you will start to buy far more profitable items that are less steeply discounted, like a Mini Tractor for Your Kid or Kim Kardashian’s Perfume or E-BOOKS. Publishers cannot control this discounting.

    So an Amazon user writes a 1-star review of a book they haven’t read to blast the publisher/author for making the hardcover cheaper than the e-book. But in fact neither the author nor the publisher did any such thing. It is not Ally Condie’s fault that Amazon wants to lose money on her books.

    Obviously, if you don’t believe that an e-book is worth $10.99, then you shouldn’t purchase one. But it’s wrong to see pricing as a simple competition between print and e-book.

    In the end, what makes a book valuable is not the paper it’s printed on, but the thousands of hours of work by dozens of people who are dedicated to creating the best possible reading experience for you.

  • October 24th, 2012 2:19pm

    Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.

    — Stephen King (via hellanne)

  • October 5th, 2012 2:21pm

    joonchi:

    30th Annual Banned Books Week | September 30th – October 6th, 2012
          “Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.”
                                                             – Lyndon B. Johnson

    A good few of my favorites are shown here. 

  • September 23rd, 2012 2:19pm

    He was sorry for her, but he no longer felt any affection for the girl who had been a wonderful part of his life for some time. Just as he had always shut his heart to other women who had betrayed him in the past, Bond forced Helena out of his life then and there.

    As he took out a cigarette and lit it, Bond wondered what was colder – the cruel realm of espionage that had victimized and ultimately destroyed Helena Marksbury, the icy summit of Kangchenjunga, or his own hardened heart.

    — James Bond: High Time To Kill by Raymond Benson

  • September 23rd, 2012 1:52pm


    mynameisbondjamesbond:

    To celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the birth of Ian Flemming, publishing powerhourse Penguin recently commissioned the very talented British born, San Francisco painter Michael Gillette to paint iconic covers of 14 James Bond novels. Amazing work. His sexy interpretation of the infamous Bond girls, with a striking minimal colour palette overlayed with interlocking 60′s inspire type treatments are so good they’re sure to bounce off the shelf.

    Penguin: Covering Bond (May 08, 2008)