World Book Night: Is It Easier to Give Away a Book or a Flower?

By Judith Rosen

I felt like one of those women handing out cigarettes in yesteryear. If you’re too young to remember them, you may have seen pictures. Except I have a couple years on most of those women, o.k. all of them, and rather than a sexy outfit, I chose a heavy down jacket over which I wore a sandwich-board sign, and I use the term loosely, made with a reflective vest covered over with a couple World Book Night flers in clear page protectors. I don’t know if it helped, but I wasn’t too cold last night, given the drizzle and chill.

Last year when I was a “giver” at World Book Night, I chose a spot across from the Central Square T station in Cambridge, Mass., and found it difficult to break down people’s resistance to taking a book. They thought I was trying to foist a Bible on them, or maybe I was part of some cult. This year I was determined that it shouldn’t be so hard to give away 20 books. To get in the mood I used the pre-WBN kick off event at the Cambridge Public Library with Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The Language of Flowers), Lisa Genova (Still Alice), and Neil Gaiman (Good Omens, with Terry Pratchett) as a pep rally. It certainly got the high school students in the row next to me wound up. They wanted to sign up then and there to be givers. So did a former educator who had read Still Alice in her book group and had never heard of WBN.

I was especially pleased to get to hear Diffenbaugh, since I had chosen her novel to give away.  A debut novel by a local author seemed like an easier sell than many of the more “classic” books on last year’s list. Plus I had one other trick for getting people to take my books. Since her book is so interconnected with flowers, I decided to buy 20 carnations from Brattle Florist, the same florist shop in her acknowledgments, to handout with each book. That was before I learned from Gaiman’s talk that April 23 marks Cervantes’s death and in Spain men give women a rose, and women give them a book on that day. The first Book Day, as it is known, was held on Cervantes’s birthday (October 7) in 1926, then moved to April in 1930.

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Writing advice from writers handwritten on writers’ hands

Neil Gaiman

 For a series called “Hand in Hand,” Wofford College invited various authors of speculative fiction to jot down short but important bits of writing advice on their own hands, photograph it, and send it in. Here is a selection…

 

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SA startup Paperight wins prestigious innovation award at London Book Fair

If you haven’t heard of Paperight, the network of independent copy shops that print books, it’s time to pay attention: the South African startup is capturing the imagination of the world’s publishing industry. On the heels of being named one of the winners of the O’Reilly Tools of Change Startup Showcase held in New York City, the startup from Cape Town was awarded the Digital Minds Innovation Award at the London Book Fair — one of the world’s most prestigious publishing events.

The showcase held Sunday night at the Digital Minds Conference, a precursor event to the London Book Fair, was a pretty big deal. The event that inspired conversation about evolution, innovation and disruption in the publishing industry, included keynote speakers such as authors Neil Gaiman and Robert Levine, as well as Will Atkinson, Sales and Marketing Director at Faber & Faber.

Paperight, funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, beat out seven other shortlisted candidates by popular vote. The audience favoured Paperight’s solution to book distribution problems in South Africa: by allowing photocopy shops to print books cheaply, quickly and — crucially — legally, Paperight is increasing access to books where they have never been physically and financially accessible before.

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Piracy is yesterday’s worry for today’s ‘artisan authors’

File sharing and self-publishing are becoming the norm for a generation of writers looking beyond a moribund publishing eco-system.

By Damien Walter

The community of SF writers has reason to dislike digital copying, or “piracy” as it’s commonly labelled in the tabloid press. Genre writers exist, by and large, in the publishing mid-list, where mediocre sales might seem most easily eroded by the spectre of illegitimate downloads. SF, fantasy and horror are also the literature of choice for the culture of geeks most likely to share their favourite authors’ works on torrent sites. Not surprising, then, that many professional genre writers and editors respond to the growing reality of copying with the absolutist position that piracy is theft, and should be punished as such under the law.

But SF writers are far from united in that position. Novelist, blogger and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow is well known for providing free digital copies of all his books as a marketing strategy, arguing that in a digital economy, obscurity is a far greater threat than piracy. Charlie Stross blogged such an effective argument against digital rights management on ebooks that it influenced at least one publishing imprint to drop DRM on its novels. And interviewed on the subject in 2011, Neil Gaiman, ever the gentleman, kindly points out that if you are a writer courting fans, screaming “THIEF!” at them and threatening legal action for copying might be … counterproductive.

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Our Picks For The Year’s Biggest Reads

What are the best books of 2013? We’ve stepped out of our time machine (hint: talk to that person next to you on the airplane, don’t try the veal) to bring you the must-read titles from the year ahead.

It’s shaping up to be a fascinating 12 months, with the sequel to The Shining, a new David Sedaris, a self-published book poised to become a global success, a new James Salter, a new Suzanne Collins, a new Karen Russell… and so much more.

Read on, read often, and support your local bookstore and library. Trust us: in the year ahead, they’ll really appreciate the support.

Here’s our list of the best books so far listed to appear in 2013:

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Flavorpill’s 30 Most Anticipated Books of 2013

By Paige Cohen

2012 has officially come to an end and with it an abundance of praise for the best books of last year. While those books remain close to our literary-loving hearts, or at least on our must-read lists, it’s time we take a look at the exciting new books that are soon to come. Flavorpill has compiled a list of the 30 most anticipated books of 2013. Look forward to work from authors: David Sedaris, Maurice Sendak, David Shields, Anne Carson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Neil Gaiman, Khaled Hosseini, and many many more.

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Politically Incorrect Advice to the Young from William S. Burroughs, Remixed

 By Maria Popova

“Any old soul is worth saving at least to a priest, but not every soul is worth buying.”

It is in the tradition of every culture that its cultural icons would impart words of wisdom on its young. In ours, those have come from celebrated minds like E. O. Wilson’s advice to young scientists, Neil Gaiman’s advice to young artists, Jacqueline Novogratz’s advice to young graduates, and Christopher Hitchens’s advice to young contrarians. Joining them is William S. Burroughs with this deliciously remixed take on his famous, uncensored, and at times questionable advice to the young — which, if anything, underscores the importance of knowing when to and when not to take advice.

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Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing

By Maria Popova

In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman:

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Neil Gaiman: By the Book

What book is on your night stand now?

There are a few. My current audiobook (Yes, they count; of course they count; why wouldn’t they?) is “The Sisters Brothers,” by Patrick deWitt. It was recommended by Lemony Snicket (through his representative, Daniel Handler), and I trust Mr. Snicket implicitly. (Or anyway, as implicitly as one can trust someone you have never met, and who may simply be a pen name of the man who played accordion at your wedding.) I’m enjoying it — such a sad, funny book about family, framed in a Wild West of prospectors and casual murder.

My “make this last as long as you can” book is “Just My Type: A Book About Fonts.” It’s illuminated a subject I thought I understood, but I didn’t, and its chapter on the wrongnesses of Comic Sans came alive for me recently visiting a friend at a Florida retirement community, in which every name on every door was printed in Comic Sans. The elderly deserve more respect than that. Except for the lady I was visiting, widow of a comics artist. For her, it might have been appropriate. On the iPad there are several books on the go, but they are all by friends, and none of them is actually published yet, so I will not name them.

When and where do you like to read?

When I can. I read less fiction these days, and it worries me, although my recent discovery that wearing reading glasses makes the action of reading more pleasurable is, I think, up there with discovering how to split the atom or America. Neither of which I did. (I clarify this for readers in a hurry.)

What was the last truly great book you read?

 

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Comics 101: A Question of Canon

By BH Shepherd

When one associates with excessively literate company, it is quite impossible to avoid the game of canon bingo. Titles of books are invoked and those assembled either declare they have read it, or confess they haven’t yet. The only prize in this contest is the smug satisfaction of being the most well-read person in a room full of well-read people. These are special books, tomes that the enigmatic cabal known only as THEY have decreed you must read, classic works of genius so time-honored and true that they made it on the only list that really matters in literature: canon.

As comics continue to accrue cultural currency, their occurrence in canonical conversations can only increase. Academic studies of graphic storytelling proliferate in centers of higher learning while publications of note have bestowed the classification of literature on certain exceptional titles. Though the medium is young, its offerings are vast and varied, which can be discouraging to the uninitiated. Establishing a canon of essential titles not only provides a road map for newcomers, but also builds a frame of reference for furthering the debates of the medium’s more fervent disciples.

To that interest, I have compiled a list. It is neither comprehensive nor definitive. While I cannot presume to speak for THEY, I have spent the better part of my life reading and talking about comics. These graphic novels are typically regarded as unimpeachable pinnacles of the form. Of course there are always those that would disagree, but there is no denying that these books are frequently the subject of both casual conversation and deconstructive discourse. Any discussion of comics, once all participants have exhausted their enthusiasm for their favorite heroes, will inevitably visit one if not all five of these books. Whether you love them or hate them, being familiar with these volumes will ease your entry into the realm of illustrated adventures.

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