Change One Thing

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” -- Leo Tolstoy

It’s a certain way of looking at the world. You look and things are as they are. Change one thing, and the world is a different place.

None of that was quite the point when the hashtag #BooksWithaLetterMissing started trending on Twitter a couple of days ago. Even so, some wags stepped up and created art for the silly titles that were being tossed around where everything is different because nothing has stayed the same.

The examples here -- and a whole lot more -- were created by Twitter user @darth, whose name is nothing like a clue to his or her identity. “not the darth you are looking for,” says @darth’s Twitter bio. “i only exist here, on twitter.”

Peer Pressure Forces Facebook Change

So our collective tongues are only half in our cheeks when we tell you that we’ve given in to peer pressure and are abandoning our sweet and much-loved Facebook group page for a newer and cooler and slicker fan page on the social media site.

So all right, we kind of go kicking and screaming, but we do go. We’ve been convinced that, despite the dorky name (“fan” page?) it’s a better social media medium for creating a more direct connection with our Facebook friends... er... fans.

In any case, if you’re on Facebook, do join us. We’re told it’s going to be dead cool.

Right now, it’s just baby steps, but it’s right here so please do... um... fan us. And while we’re on the topic of social media, we’ve had a strong presence on Twitter for about a year and tweet not only all of our stories, but a lot of other fun book-related stuff we see in our travels. You can follow us on Twitter here. But the Facebook thing? That’s key. And it’s here.

I’ll Be Tweeting You

Some of the January crew has been spending altogether too much time on Twitter lately. Part of this is due the fact that so much interesting has been happening. The trouble is, with everything going down on Twitter practically in real-time, sometimes it’s difficult to get up the gumption to actually write about the stuff that’s interesting. By the time you formulate a thought, the world is on to the new thing.

A case in point came yesterday when it was announced that two staples of American publishing, the periodicals Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews, would be discontinued. We saw it on Twitter first and read about it here and here and here. While people were quick to wonder what this might be saying about the publishing industry, it really does look very much as though the loss of the two respected publications were little more than collateral damage. Sad -- and pointless enough in itself, but not sufficient to start changing your career path. And even though the rise in citizen journalism is possibly not the cause of these two deaths, it’s interesting to look at that phenomena -- as has been done here -- and think about what it might mean for all of us in the long run.

While e-books and all that go with them are very much on everyone’s mind these days, I’m quite confident that the final race will not be between Amazon’s early entry, the Kindle or Barnes & Nobles’ “half-baked” nook. (Nook? Really? Who lost a contest in order for them to stick that name on it?) A lot of electronics companies are running around these days, trying to come up with Kindle killers. But Apple’s announcement that they will finally launch their Tablet computer this coming spring is likely striking fear into the hearts of all who would sell devices that help consumers read electronic books and -- in a way -- the industry. And why the fear? One word (or is it two?): iPod. ‘Nuff said.

With the end of the year and decade drawing closer, everyone is scratching out lists. While most outfits are offering up their best ofs, The Guardian scrapes out their cookie jars and shows us their worst. And while we’re on the topic, how about the top ten books of 1709?

Here’s something short and wacky: There are more Wikipedia entries about Middle Earth than about many countries in Africa. Hmmm.

Were you still thinking Oprah had mondo influence on book buyers? Forgetaboutit and check out the Tiger Effect.

The Huffington Report tells us about Eight Books That Predicted the Financial Crisis & Huff readers respond.

The third Twilight film will be six stories tall in IMAX. (Zoiks! Great, nasty teeth!)

Boing Boing offers up the most delicious tidbits. Take this one, for instance, without Boing Boing, how would we know The Nation was auctioning off a Noam Chomsky garden “Noam?”

Edit in motion: Charles Dickens’ manuscript for A Christmas Carol with author revisions. Cool.

The Week in Tweets

It’s not actually meant to replicate all of January Magazine’s activity on Twitter over the last week. Rather, since we manage to cover so much over there that we just don’t have time to get to properly here, it makes sense to hit some of the highlights. After all, a lot of what Twitter is about are the links. Here are a few of the ones we’ve recently thought were noteworthy.

Hard to believe it when you see her on the road promoting her latest book -- or books-signing device -- but Margaret Atwood turns 70 today. Of course, the book she’s been promoting most recently is The Year of the Flood. It’s fantastic. January Magazine’s 2000 interview with Atwood is here.

Like a lot of outfits, massive Harlequin Books is scooting towards their idea of publishing’s brave new world. Their answer, a romance self-publishing imprint called Harlequin Horizon, has been raising some eyebrows.

When he died in 1977, Vladimir Nabokov’s heirs found instructions that his work in progress, The Original of Laura, was to be burned. That book was published yesterday. Not everyone thinks it was a swell idea.

“The parsley explodes muscle.” Here’s a bit of silly fun: the 10 worst translations. Ever.

A statue and a check? It’s awards season. Most recently, the 2009 Governor General’s Awards and the 2009 National Outdoor Book Awards. (Though they aren’t the same thing. At all.)

Seriously, Seth Godin? The Los Angeles Times’ Carolyn Kellogg seems almost weirdly annoyed with something Godin posted to his blog.

The New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen their 2009 Word of the Year. Seriously: “unfriend”? What an odd choice. After all, 2009 has been all about Twitter. Facebook is just so 2007.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood revisited, half a century on.

The coming e-book revolution will revitalize the industry, opines leading tech analyst, Tim Bajarin: “Conventional wisdom has it that the publishing industry will benefit the most from this re-invention of the book, but while this may be true, the advent of such technologies may also lead to the emergence of a new creative class.” Bajarin says other interesting stuff, too. Bottom line? The sky is changing but probably will not fall.

The worst books of the decade? Judging by this list, The Times Online’s reading list is not as deep as ours. If we were to make such a list -- which we won’t be doing -- ours would have way more stinky books than does this one. Way.

Twitalicious

There is simply not enough time to report fully on the all the stories that catch our eye and float by our desks. However, we do manage to comment on a fair amount of those stories in our microblogging presence on Twitter. (Don’t let anyone steer you wrong: it’s a lot easier and faster to write a 140 character story than a real one.)

Here, then, are some of the things we’ve reported on Twitter over the last few days:

Awards, awards and then some awards: The shortlists for both the National Book Awards and the Governor Generals Awards were announced yesterday. Some surprises on both lists. And what does it all mean? Big book party time is approaching fast and furious.

The 10 Coolest Bookstores in the United States. (I’d love to see someone do lists like this for Canada, the U.K. and Australia. Any takers?) The U.S. list is here.

Here’s something not intended for your Kindle: The fur-covered edition of Dave Egger’s The Wild Things (McSweeney’s Books). The movie tie-in edition is based loosely on the book by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay co-written with Spike Jonze.

Passages: Anne Friedberg and Stuart M. Kaminsky.

National Post Books reviews Egg on Mao (Random House) by Denise Chong. We just love the title.

Lonely Planet ramps up Digital Strategy.

Though it’s yet another round-up of “links around the Web,” we could not resist this title: “Bookmarks: Terminatrix Palin, Wild Things art, and the interactive Proust questionnaire.” Quill & Quire wins our come-on-title-of-the-week award. (Did you even know we had such a thing? Me neither.)

Boing Boing brings word of this Reading Radar API mashup that adds Amazon-easy information to the New York Times’ bestseller list. Oddly useful, right? It’s here.

Kinda Boing Boing related, but not really: the delicious Cory Doctorow blows his top. “The author, activist and co-editor of the influential Boing-Boing blog,” said the Bookseller, “urged TOC delegates to ‘restore ownership to books’ and blasted publishers and rightsholders who continue to apply DRM to their content.” Go, Cory!

Bookselling megastar Colm Toibin has launched a new imprint, Tuskar Rock, with fabled agent Peter Straus.

“Crazy insane beautiful 43 seconds of pure Pop. Works with all music. A complete brain snack,” from the wonderful @DougCoupland. January’s 2001 interview with Coupland is here.

Ken Bruen has been awarded the Grand Prix de la Littérature Policière 2009 for Priest.

Emily Flake sends dispatches from the Small Press Expo in Maryland.

What the Tweet Is This?

Over the last few days we’ve microblogged about a number of stories on Twitter we haven’t had the time to get to in the Real World. Here are a few of the stories we’ve covered in 140 characters or less over the last few days:

Get ready to read those banned books: Banned Books Week starts now!

Nothing at all to do with books but -- what the heck -- it’s Saturday so play the game that comes to us from @npbooks: is it a font or cheese?

We discovered that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was on Twitter midday on Friday when she had about 3000 followers and three tweets. By that evening, it was over 25k... still three tweets. We predict there will be many, many more followers before she’s done. We have no opinion about the possible frequency of her tweets. You can see for yourself here.

Keats at the movies!

Posthumously released books in The Wall Street Journal.

The BBC and HarperTrue are in cahoots on a reality series based around a competition to find “the greatest real-life stories never told.” The prize? A book deal, of course. Survivor Biography, anyone?

Montreal author Nelly Arcan, 35, was found dead in her apartment late Thursday night. Macleans has the story.

Slate asks: “When have we not been in the midst of a vampire craze?”

MacArthur grant for Edwidge Danticat and others.

Little Miss Sunshine and Like Water for Chocolate to be adapted as stage musicals.

Children of Jack Kirby (Spiderman, X-Men) sue for rights to iconic characters.

Where the Tweets Are

What with summer crashing to an end and the days getting alarmingly shorter, the book business is getting back to the business of business.

Over the last few days we’ve microblogged about a number of stories we haven’t had the time to get to in the Real World. To get things back in synch, here are a few of the stories we’ve been writing in 140 characters or less over the last few days:

The Last Five Ways to Get A Book Deal: Gawker sticks their tongue in their cheek -- but only slightly -- to bring this arms akimbo look at the industry as we know it in 2009: “Sloane Crosley got a book deal by being the most popular book publicist in New York. Now, Sloane Crosley’s book publicist has gotten a book deal herself. Taste the meta! There are only five other ways to get published now.” And here they are.

Salman Rushdie: Still banned, still a ladies’ man. “Given that the Man Booker shortlist has just been announced,” quips Quill & Quire, “and talk of the Bookers often brings to mind author Salman Rushdie, it’d be interesting to know what he’s up to these days. Well, there’s good news and bad news.”

Meanwhile, the same outfit wants to know: “Will the Kindle be the Betamax of the decade?” We don’t think so, but Q&Q offers up some interesting thoughts.

Identity Theory states the “Case Against Reading.”

The Tolkien Trust, New Line Cinema, and HarperCollins have resolved the lawsuit relating to the Lord of the Rings films. That story is here.

Dick Berg, TV producer and screenwriter, died at home in Los Angeles at 87. Here’s the NY Times obit.

Fledgling digital publisher Quartet Press has disbanded before they really even got out of the gate. “Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, a hard-working team, and the support of the community, things just don’t work out. This is one of those times. It’s disappointing to all of us, but it’s reality and we will all move on.” The good news? No trees died in the run at this dream.

Warner Bros has consumed DC Comics like a corporate version of The Blob. Yikes! But it may well end up being a good thing for superhero economics.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize -- Canada’s richest literary award -- doesn’t need its own spotlight. They’ll be announcing their longlist on September 21st, the same day the ManBooker announces their shortlist. The shortlist will be announced October 6th. Their Web site is here.

Both The Globe & Mail and The National Post offer up their ideas about the best books for fall. “Too many books, too little time,” offers The Post’s headline. You can say that again!

Tweetworthy

So many stories... so little time! There’s a lot going on in the world of books and it’s quite beyond our mandate to talk about more than a bit of it. Here, however, are some of the things we’ve been microblogging about in the Twitterverse over the last few days.

• Dave Eggers has confirmed that the first McSweeney’s newspaper will come out in October. “We’re giving a lot of writers huge amounts of room to work with,” Eggers tells the San Jose Mercury News, “no word limits, trying to present a forum for enterprise journalism. I started out at newspapers and lament the shrinking news hole. If, instead of retreating, we advance and use the beauty of print, maybe that will stanch the bleeding and bring people back into the fold (and) remind the powers that be of what can happen if they give their journalists and artists more space.” (Thanks to @ConsortiumBooks.)

• Eat Me Daily offers up fall 2009’s astonishing cookbook preview. “Autumn brings more than just falling leaves and the return of legitimate root vegetables: it's also when publishing houses drop their most ambitious cookbook offerings, hoping to tap into the spirit of cooking (and book-buying) that pervades the pre-holiday season.” Hurray for the return of root vegetables! And hat tip to @JanetRudolph.

• Popmatters continues to convince with “Dylan Dog vs. Hellboy: A Study of Pulp and Pop Pastiche.” This is great stuff! “Dylan Dog and Hellboy offer fascinating examples of pastiche in storytelling. They mine similar territory for their strange and macabre tales, but twist and develop their inspirations in different directions: where Hellboy hearkens to the pulp magazines and ‘weird fiction’ of the 1920s and 1930s, Dylan Dog is practically obsessive in its allusions to films.” All of that is here.

• Zoiks! When books become a health hazard. ‘Nuff said.

• First book lovers. What is Michelle Obama reading these days? How ‘bout her old man? (Pretty terrific to once again be able to offer up a presidential reading list and have a reasonable expectation that the president in question has either read the books or plans to.)

• Regular January readers will not be surprised to learn we love The Huffington Post, but did you know that HuffPo is poised to get even better? They’ll be adding a book section next month. From The Wrap: “More than half of our traffic comes from people who are not interested in politics,” Huffington said. In the last two years, the site has launched a number of verticals, including entertainment, living and style. Next month, HuffPo will roll launch the books and technology sections next month. HuffPo Sports will follow in October.

• Ever wondered at the connection between collector comic books and crystal meth? Now you don’t have to. (Hat tip to @gtoppo.)

• Love books? Love television? The Halifax Reader very sensibly teams them up with this list.

• This has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with books, but we tweeted it anyway. I mean, seriously: camouflaged toads from National Geographic? Sweet!

• It’s possible you’ve heard about Dan Baum’s dust up with Rebecca Solnit over Baum’s (positive) Washington Post review of Solnit’s new book, A Paradise Built in Hell. I’m not going to restate it all, because the whole thing makes me queasy and more than a little confused. But here’s Baum’s side from his blog. You can find Solnit’s side somewhere else, I’m sure.

• More on the Google book deal. When and where will it end? (Not here. Not yet.)

• Bookstove opines on the Top 10 Science Fiction authors of all time.

There’s more, but that feels like enough. If you want to see everything we’re tweeting about – and perhaps even follow us, on Twitter -- January Magazine is here.

Fast Takes…

Here are some of the things we’ve been microblogging about over the last week or so.

• Today is Salman Rushdie’s birthday. Here’s the interview we did with him back in 2002. An interesting side note: January art director, David Middleton, did a photo shoot with Rushdie with predictably smashing results. And one of the unexpected results: Middleton’s Rushdie images continue to be among the top stolen from January’s pages since the piece was initially published. Other favorites: Middleton’s portraits of Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, The Given Day) and überchef Emeril Lagasse.

• RIP poet David Bromige (via @globebooks )

• From Gawker: Che’s Granddaughter Just Like Che: Naked, Covered in Produce

• Unreality Magazine brings us the 10 most polarizing movies of the past decade. (via Largehearted Boy.)

• Does language shape our thinking? (Maybe yes. Maybe no.)

• Stuart Woods in named new editor of Quill & Quire. (Bookishly awesome.)

• The Times Online talks about how Stephen King’s inner demons have shaped his writing career.

• NPR on the Dictionary of Regional English and the fact that Art Creation is Up and Attendance Down. (Implications are vast, when you think about it.)

• National Geographic on what “Persian” means to Iranians.

• LifeDev looks at eight ways that reading makes you better at life.

• And is it getting to be 3-Day Novel writing time again already? Well, time to think about it, anyway. (If thinking about it is what you’re planning.)

Fast Takes...

Since joining Twitter, we’ve been spending more time thinking about news in smaller packages. Here are some of the things we’ve found tweetworthy over the last few days.

Bestselling SF/F author David Eddings dead at 77.

UK book industry looks to “bookaholism” for a bail out.

The Bookseller offers up a prize for the oddest book title. (Do yourself a favor: don’t try to guess.)

Does computation set us free? Havard Press has some perfectly good reasons for thinking it does not. Computers, culture, data and control.

Think something you’ve written has been plagiarized? Plagium helps you put the rumors to rest. (via @noveloflife)

Love poetry is hardest to write, says new poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy (personally, we’re still not so sure.)

ESPN The Magazine is gearing up to be the latest to charge for online content. (via @PersiaWalker)

From the weirdly reimagined book-to-screen series: Blade Runner is about to get a prequel Web series.

The 2009 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards are here.

And finally -- and surprisingly -- after nine years, good-bye to Readerville. (Or, as Karen Templer notes on her final Readerville post: “I’m counting on this being not so much goodbye as see you around.”