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by Nico Vreeland, on March 10th, 2010
 What do these three have in common? They all have absolutely no business writing or "writing" books. News about books and ebooks from around the web:
- Vapidity will continue to rule the bestseller list. Sarah Palin plans to “write” another book (get ready, Marcos), Lindsay Lohan has plans to hawk her crazed mutterings, and Hilary Duff just signed a contract to write a series of young-adult Da Vinci Code-style caper novels (I kid you not). Previously, we learned about reality star Lauren Conrad, who’s writing novels (plural) despite having never read a whole book in her life (which you should do, if you want to write one). Then there’s always Dan Brown, a terrible writer of stupid books (even his website wants to be a movie)… but he has 80,000,000 readers. And let’s never forget Douglas Preston, a horrible writer who’s so overprivileged and out of touch that he attacked his own readers for not paying exorbitant prices for his crappy books. Please help me solve this. If you like any of those writers, do me a personal favor: stop buying their books and watch TV instead. TV does mindless entertainment much better than books, and then books can go back to being carefully crafted works of the imagination, and not just paycheck tickets cranked out by illiterate uncaring morons and vapid celebrities trying to cash in on their fleeting fame. Publishing industry: I hate you. To wrap up this rant, here is a grossly unreadable article about nothing, written by an editor from Knopf. It’s a joke, right? Nobody’s that bad a writer, especially not a professional editor, right? Right?
- Borders is broke and starting heavy layoffs. Three months ago, while discussing the Nook, I noticed that Borders notably had no plans to release its own ereader/ebookstore. I said this about it: “Oh, and also… remember Borders? I’d say they have about 2 years of financial solvency left. It’s going to be like a brontosaurus dying.” Based on my understanding of the financial gobbledygook in the article in that first link, that timeline was just slightly generous. Ebooks are the way of the future, bookstores. Don’t be shy.
- Two weeks ago, the NY Times published this article by Motoko Rich about the prices of ebooks vs. paper books. It included this chart, which got everybody in a huff because it claimed that ebooks selling for as low as $9.99 will provide as much profit to publishers (not authors) as full-price, $26 hardcover books. Among the respondents: Gizmodo, GalleyCat, John August, and almost everybody else in the world. I just have one thing to add. Rich estimates the costs of printing and shipping at $3.25. Since online hardcover prices max out at about $15, that means, logically, ebook prices should max out at about $12. Since some new, hardcover, guaranteed bestsellers go for even less (like Stieg Larsson’s next one, pre-selling at Amazon for $11.50), ebook editions of those should come in at sub-$10. Which means maybe readers asking for $9.99 ebooks wasn’t so astonishingly entitled after all. Maybe the Macmillan/Amazon kerfuffle lost Macmillan more than it gained them. Maybe publishers should shut up about prices and windowing and all those other caveats, and just put their weight behind ebooks. Stop treating your customers like enemies, and maybe everything will turn out OK.
by Sean Clark, on March 8th, 2010
Put aside everything you’re doing and read The Knife Thrower and Other Stories, by Steven Millhauser, immediately. (See the other entries in this series here.)
 For the record, my favorite, favorite book ever and a book I truly think any reader should drop everything for is Lolita. But I’ve harped on it on this site again and again already. I read a lot of books, though, and there are a ton I think every reader should read. Steven Millhauser has written a number of these and The Knife Thrower and Other Stories is my favorite of his. Read it now.
Millhauser was one of a handful of excellent professors I had in college, so I’m a little biased. If you’re reading this site, I’d be a little surprised you’ve never heard of him. But if somehow you haven’t read him, you should. He is undeniably one of the most precise and imaginative writers writing today. He is a fabulist and a natural storyteller with a knack for writing stories that are at once cerebral and accessible. …
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by Sean Clark, on February 24th, 2010
by Nico Vreeland, on February 23rd, 2010
 Douglas Preston: Still a jerk, now a much more careful jerk An arrogant hack author named Douglas Preston appeared in a New York Times article two weeks ago, wherein he said that readers who wanted ebook editions of his book (and wanted them for less than the cost of the hardcover) were astonishingly entitled and, quite literally, he accused them of making America unhealthy.
So. That ticked some people off—including me. Two weeks later, Preston has realized that maybe he shouldn’t run around insulting his customers, and he has now offered up a half-assed backpedal (via), in which he attempts to mollify his readers with about half a Hallmark card’s worth of affection. He succeeds, however, only in proving he thinks his readers are stupid enough to believe his obvious lies.
Chris Meadows at TeleRead debunks Preston’s turnaround pretty thoroughly. I just want to add a couple of “how stupid does he think we are?” points about both the statement and his other new comments:
- Preston never apologizes. He should apologize.
- Preston says he wants to make money for Wal-Mart. In his original comments, he said “the Wal-Mart mentality…is very unhealthy for our country.” Is this a joke?
- He says he has no control over pricing or windowing (the practice of delaying ebook releases to force people to buy hardcovers), then says he supports windowing. He uses movies as an example of windowing, but fails to mention that movies in a theater offer more value and a different experience than DVDs, while hardcover vs. ebook editions of books offer exactly the same experience (and the people who disagree can still buy the hardcover).
- In his statement, he says, “We want to write the best books we can.” Uh, no. If that was true, you’d spend longer than 9 months apiece on them.
- He says he wants his “publishers to make [his books] available to you in the format in which you prefer to read them.” Come on, Preston, you’re not even trying.
- And, of course, the ultimate lie: “From our perspective, the most important element in all this is you, the reader.” What does it mean when my BS detector shrieks and then melts?
Look, Preston, here’s the thing: you write books because they make you money. You hate ebooks because you think you’ll make less money on them. You hate your readers because they want ebooks, and because they don’t like being bossed around, or being told they’re stupid and greedy.
You grudgingly crapped out this… this statement, whatever it is (not an apology), in which you transparently lie and say you like your readers. Hopefully, it’s not fooling anybody, but TechDirt put this news in the “good-for-him dept,” so you got at least one. Basically, you’re a jerk. But now you’re being slightly more diplomatic about it.
Listen, you owe your readers nothing less than a debt of immense gratitude, especially if they’ve allowed you to write full-time and make a decent living at it. You should be fighting your publisher to give your readers what they want. They don’t want free books, and they don’t want to rip you off. They just want a fair deal, and when you call that “entitlement,” you should come crawling back on your knees and beg for their forgiveness. Instead you throw this sloppy mess of platitudes at them. It makes me furious, and I’ve never given you a dime.
OK, deep breaths.
The person I really feel sorry for is Lincoln Child, Preston’s writing partner, who hasn’t said anything stupid about this. But then, he’s worked with this colossal jerk for years, so… I guess he’s not entirely innocent.
by Joe Croscup, on February 22nd, 2010
This is the second installment of our new series, “Read This Book Now.” Put aside everything you’re doing and read Reap immediately. (See the other entries here.)
 Reap, by Eric Rickstad, is a coming of age story set in rural Vermont, where life is bleak and there is little hope of a future. Jessup Burke, an easily distracted, over-trusting youth stumbles into the company of Reg Cumber, a callous ex-con who introduces him into a ruined and paranoid world of drug trafficking.
Reg and Jessup’s worlds intersect when Reg nearly runs down Jessup with his car. Reg, a mechanic by trade, pledges to resurrect Jessup’s inoperable Vega. Lured by prospect of finally being able to visit his out-of-state girlfriend, Jessup agrees to work for Reg, unaware at first that he’s getting paid for harvesting and transporting drugs. Despite sudden moments of fear and unease, Jessup welcome’s Reg’s company, and soon the older man is introducing him to abusing booze and weed.
Rickstad captures the youth and innocence of Jessup, his habit of daydreaming and mooning over his girlfriend, Emily, without being sappy or sentimental. Jessup’s character undergoes complex changes as he is gradually corrupted. As Jessup sheds his adolescence, Rickstad (with wonderful directness and careful prose) allows him to grow increasingly aware of some of his circumstances while retaining a boyish obliviousness to others. …
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by Nico Vreeland, on February 18th, 2010
 J.K. Rowling Not really a full links post, but a few things caught my eye this morning. So here we go.
First of all, J.K. Rowling has been sued for plagiarism, again, hilariously. This time the plaintiff is the estate of a writer who died thirteen years ago. They claim she stole from a 36-page pamphlet called “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard.”
The entire case rests not on copied passages, but on the fact that “both Willy and Harry [are] required to solve a task as part of a contest, which they achieve in a bathroom assisted by clues from helpers.”
So, your case rests on the word “bathroom.” Good luck.
My other favorite line from that story is the estate’s PR guy (not lawyer) saying: “‘All of Willy the Wizard is in the Goblet of Fire.’” That’s a joke, right? Because “Willy” is only 36 pages long? Right?
And there’s a lot of other funny stuff in the Guardian piece. In other news:
- Engadget reports the new iRex ereader is finally coming out, only four months late. This new model, the cutely named DR800SG, is notable because it costs less than $800, and it gives Engadget a chance to backhand the stupid Nook by calling the iRex “Barnes & Noble’s first big play in the space.” Since it has a stylus-driven touchscreen, file it under Y for Yet another reason not to get a QUE.
- And, finally, The Rapture, one of my favorite bands, says this about their upcoming release:
“Our new album’s gonna be fucking 100 times better than the iPad,” [band member Gabe Andruzzi] jokes. “With this record you’re going to be interfacing with your soul in ways that have never happened before.”
So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.
by Marcos Velasquez, on February 15th, 2010
This is the first part of our new series, “Read This Book Now.” Each week, for the next few months, one of our contributors will recommend a single book. Put aside everything you’re doing and read it immediately.
 I found The Autobiography of Malcolm X on the sale table of an Orlando bookstore. Years earlier, a friend of mine had read it for class—he called it the greatest thing he ever read—and told me it should be at the top of my reading list. I took his reaction for hyperbole, and ignored his suggestion. But when I saw The Autobiography of Malcolm X on sale, I thought, “What the heck? For $4.99, why not?”
I like books, but I have never reacted to a book the way I did to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was all I could think about. For weeks, my conversations with co-workers all started with the phrase “When Malcolm X was….” I carried the book in my back pocket and read it whenever I had a free minute. It took over my life in a way that no book ever had, or has since.
I wasn’t sure why the book captivated me the way it did. There are very few similarities between Malcolm X and I, and he doesn’t seem like a person with whom I would immediately identify. Yet I did.
In retrospect, I believe that my love for this book came from my background in literature. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the closest thing to an epic we have in American literature, and Malcolm X is the closest we have to an epic hero. (I know, you’re going to make the case for Moby Dick or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and you may have a point. But this is my review, so I stand by my assertion.)
…
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by Nico Vreeland, on January 31st, 2010
 You can only buy Wolf Hall and other Macmillan books through third-party sellers at Amazon.com (click for full-size)  Sony's Reader Store still stocks Macmillan books, and for the controversial $9.99 price point (click for full size) [UPDATE: Amazon gave in, and will sell Macmillan books via the "agency model" Macmillan laid out. Which means Macmillan ebooks will cost $13-$15, even at Amazon. I'm putting the over/under on the date of Amazon's next major Kindle screw-up at March 15.]
So Amazon has barred all Macmillan books (print and digital) from its U.S. website after the publisher insolently disagreed with Amazon’s stringent pricing policies. Macmillan asked for either a different pricing structure or “windowing,” i.e. delayed ebook releases (Macmillan CEO John Sargent claims Amazon will make more money, and Macmillan will make less under the new structure, which confuses me). Amazon responded with the Macmillan ban.
You can still find Macmillan books at the Sony Reader Store, however, and you can find many selling for the $9.99 price point that started all this. I’m assuming either higher Macmillan prices or windowing is coming to Sony, but at least you can buy the books.
For the record, I think the entire hardcover pricing system is greedy and predatory; it’s essentially publishers milking their biggest fans’ excitement to make a few extra bucks. I think Macmillan’s making a big mistake in trying to preserve hardcover pricing, and refusing to fully embrace ebooks.
However, this Amazon move is thuggery of the first order, and it doesn’t feel like the stalemate will be resolved very quickly [UPDATE: Or maybe it will, what do I know] (or that it will be the last of its kind). The Macmillan ban combined with Amazon’s continued refusal to allow library ebooks on the Kindle makes one thing clear: Kindle is simply not the best ereader for book readers. If you read mostly books, get a Sony Reader or an Astak Pocket Pro. If you read mostly newspapers or magazines, get an iPad. [UPDATE: Amazon's cave-in brings the Kindle back to the realm of relevancy for book readers. But it still comes with too many questionable corporate decisions for my taste.]
I’m just not sure who the Kindle is for.
[More Macmillan/Amazon analysis by Edward Champion, E-Reads, Ars Technica, and the Guardian.]
by Nico Vreeland, on January 30th, 2010
 Quick item here. Lauren Conrad is a reality star or something. She’s (ghost-)written two novels, both about being a reality star (the second, pictured, comes out Tuesday).
So Lauren Conrad talked to Entertainment Weekly about books (I’m surprised that sentence didn’t cause a black hole). Good news: the discussion is as vapid and pointless—and as absurdly funny—as you might expect.
My favorite part is when she calls The Great Gatsby “a fun story.”
No, wait, it’s when she says she likes Chelsea Handler’s books because “it was like she was telling the story herself.”
Wait, my real favorite is when she says the fictional character she identifies with most is Jane from her own books, “because she is me.” Whaaaa?
[EW piece here. Gawker mocks it quite well here.]
by Sean Clark, on January 29th, 2010
 Hi everyone. So we’ve been at it a year and we’re still going strong. As a matter of fact, judging by our stats, we’re going much stronger than we expected when we started this whole shebang. Thanks a lot to all our readers for sticking with us, and welcome to all the new readers who join us in 2010. We’re planning a lot of change for the coming year, and our birthday seemed like as good a day as any to share with you all what we’re getting up to.
The state of things to come
When we started this site, we had two goals in mind: to help sort out ereading news, trends, and pitfalls for casual users; and to share book reviews and reader-centric book commentary. We wanted to establish a site for reader advocacy, where books (no matter how they are consumed) are thought of as art and entertainment, and not as a sales vessel. We’ve passed up making money and getting free stuff in order to remain unbiased for our readers. We think we’ve been quite successful in this.
When we started the ereader portion of this site, it was largely because we couldn’t find a good entry point into digital reading. At the time, we were ereader novices ourselves, and useful information on ereaders was fragmented, confusing, and spread out all over the place. Just a year later, we’ve learned a lot, and the landscape of digital reading has certainly changed a lot.
Not only is everybody following ereaders, but it seems everybody is making them too. There are so many (most with ridiculous names and more or less the same feature set) that we can’t keep up with them all in-depth, and, frankly, most don’t warrant the attention.
We’re revising our ereader comparison to guide you toward our picks for best ereader in several categories (best book ereader, best magazine ereader, etc.), and we’ll provide links to a few other devices, but we’ll no longer be maintaining a comprehensive listing of every ereader available. If you want full coverage, try TeleRead or Mobileread; both are excellent, comprehensive sites for ebook fiends who can’t get enough ereader news. We will continue to share book and ebook news for more casual fans through our Wednesday links, however as of February they’ll be posted every second Wednesday.
Additions for 2010
In the coming year, we’ll be moving toward more book coverage. We’ll still weigh in on ereader issues when major ones come up, but we won’t be linking to every unboxing of every ereader that comes down the pipe. Instead we’ll be focusing on book reviews, and opinions about books and book trends (not necessarily publishing trends, except from a reader’s perspective).
You can expect to see some smaller, more casual posts that will focus on more minor and eclectic opinions and observations. Sometimes posts will be frequent, sometimes not. We’ll be posting more reviews, and seeking more reviews from our readers and from outside authors. We’ll be doing more themed series, not unlike our holiday posts or recent Best Books of 2009 and Literary Beach Books series. (In fact, this will be beginning in mid-February with our new, Drop Everything and Read This Book series–title subject to change.)
We’re also starting a category called Essays, where we’ll post longer, more in-depth thoughts on topics ranging from books to copyright laws, reading habits to technology preferences, and so on.
On the sidebar to the right, you will soon see a post handpicked each week to be highlighted with a sticky link. Sometimes this will be a post garnering a lot of discussion, other times it will be one our editors find relevant to something currently happening in the world, or just something from the archive we want to bring up for air.
The books reviews will be getting a home in the form of an archive page where reviews can be browsed by author and title (you can already filter by genre in our nav bar, or search for names or titles in the search box).
You may also have noticed that we have phased out the “Best ebook deal” line on our reviews, due to the general streamline of prices and formats in recent months. Check out our revamped The Best Ways to Get eBooks page for a guide on getting great deals yourself.
And finally, perhaps what excites us most is that we are finally making tangible steps towards launching our long-teased magazine. Every few weeks, we’ll feature a story, poem, essay, or other piece of creative writing, filed under “Creative Work” in the “Back Page” section. Eventually these will be compiled in the first issue of the Chamber Four magazine. We are also hard at work compiling an anthology of already published fiction from around the internet. We’ll certainly share more on this later, but we wanted to finally announce it.
As always, come back and read us, subscribe to our feed, comment, print, and share. Better yet, write us a review or an essay. And if you have a friend who might be interested in doing so, send them our url. We see C4 as a platform from which readers can speak, so we invite any and all to speak up. Thanks again for a wonderful year, we’re looking forward to an even better one in twenty-ten.
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from the archives REVIEW: Hell;
from May 26th, 2009--
"I’ll come right out with it: the language of this novel is great, phenomenal in fact. The book is saturated in detail, but not in the soggy paper towel sort of way."
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