Friday Round-Up

From Grumpy Old Bookman here is a blog article discussing a book by one Steve Webber The Home Based Bookstore. GOB gives the book a ringing endorsement and I link to the blog because it relates somewhat to my blog of last week about charity bookstores. In my blog, I noted that some people have made a living out of setting up online bookstore with Alibris, Amazon and ABE and this book will tell you exactly how to do this and make money. That is, if you have the time and inclination.


Over at institute for the Future of the Book, they note an interview with Harvard University Press and then go on to ask some questions about the 'evolution of authorship'. Here is a quote from their article:

...the immediacy that the Internet provides facilitates collaboration in a way
no meeting of minds in a cafe or railroad apartment ever had. This facilitates a
communality that approaches that of the oral tradition, now we have a system
that allows for true universality. To make this work requires action,
organization, clarity of purpose, and yes, a new rhetoric. New ways of
collaboration entail a novel approach.

You may have noticed that many book related bloggers are putting together their lists of books read in 2007 blogs. Here is an exceptionally well written one from The Millions. In keeping with the blog name, he also reflects on just how many books you could read in a life-time and this calculation becomes depressing when thought of in the context of how many books there are in print. The Bowker Global Books In Print product has 15mm titles (predominantly English) of which more than 50% would be in-print. In the last few weeks, I have been adding to my librarything collection all the books I have read but don't currently have copies of. I am quite depressed that I am only at about 500 titles. I can't believe that I have not read more books than this especially since - as The Millions suggests - I began reading big people books at 13 (Wilbur Smith, Alistair McLean, Ian Fleming).

A lot of people are doing predictions for 2007 and this is how rumors get started. Google buys a publisher - I think not.

This short article in New York magazine about Walter Mosley caught my eye because Mrs. PND has many times commented to me that to all the young girls in the gym I am the creepy old guy. That's nice; I guess that makes her Mrs Creepy Old Guy.