Sammy and Beckett's Book Blog

Farrar Straux and Giroux: Web 2.0

Jason Hinkley — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I’ve often lamented the publishing industry’s inability to use its huge reserve of creative individuals to do anything interesting on the internet to promote their books. FSG’s just launched Work In Progress bucks that trend. Self described as “a shifting space—an exhibition, a meet-and-greet, a freak show—curated by our editors and writers, delivered here and to your inbox.” It falls somewhere in between a blog, newsletter and an online journal.

Online Value From Old Content The New Yorker recently launched Back Issues, a new blog...
Publishing Done Right Boldtype, Flavorwire’s book newsletter ran an excellent feature about the...
Short Stories As Singles? The NY Times’ Paper Cuts blog recently pointed out the...

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The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books

Jason Hinkley — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:12:42 +0000

A great list of lists of travel books from WorldHum.

Best Books of 2009 The Guardian asks a long list intellectuals what they’ve enjoyed...
Best of the “Best ofs” I have complicated feelings about the “best of” lists the...
Books as Objects Will book’s physicality save them from digitization? A very thoughtful...

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The Importance of Paper

Jason Hinkley — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:27:36 +0000

The Millions interviews Melissa Klug with the Permanence Matters Initiative.

Hipsters Everywhere Over at The Millions Bill Morris lays out the sites...
Best of the “Best ofs” I have complicated feelings about the “best of” lists the...

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The Real Deal With Reading On a Screen

Jason Hinkley — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:14:14 +0000

Levi Asher gets to the heart of why it’s impossible to read more than a thousand words on a screen.

Hurry Up and Wait I found it impossible to slowly read this article on...
Stop Reading Dan Brown Since when does Maureen Dowd write book reviews? And why...
The Millions Asks Authors What They’ve Been Reading This Year The online journal’s A Year in Reading series picks from...

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Publishing Done Right

Jason Hinkley — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:40:53 +0000

Boldtype, Flavorwire’s book newsletter ran an excellent feature about the success of serial publishing. The paperback series they feature have successfully garnered a devoted following by building a brand around their works. There’s a lot of insight here for publishers, who are so unfamiliar with their audiences that the majority of books they put out fail to make a profit. It’s also great resource for overloading your reading list with.

Is the Kindle Killing Publishing? The fight between Macmillan and Amazon over the price of...
The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books A great list of lists of travel books from WorldHum....
Best of the “Best ofs” I have complicated feelings about the “best of” lists the...

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Hipsters Everywhere

Jason Hinkley — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:56:58 +0000

Over at The Millions Bill Morris lays out the sites and books that hilariously chronicle the hipster scene — the links in this article kept me laughing all afternoon.

The Importance of Paper The Millions interviews Melissa Klug with the Permanence Matters Initiative....
Best of the “Best ofs” I have complicated feelings about the “best of” lists the...
Online Value From Old Content The New Yorker recently launched Back Issues, a new blog...

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Is the Kindle Killing Publishing?

Jason Hinkley — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:42:10 +0000

The fight between Macmillan and Amazon over the price of ebooks illustrates some of the problems that publishers, and indirectly authors have with Amazon’s current business model — authors Tobias Buckell and Charles Stross weigh in.

Publishing Done Right Boldtype, Flavorwire’s book newsletter ran an excellent feature about the...
The Nook: Perfect Mobile Device for Text or Virtual Bookstore The release of the Barnes and Noble Nook should have...
PW’s Top 10 of 2009 Publishers Weekly’s interesting best of, complete with reviews. ...

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Library Thing: Local Book App

Jason Hinkley — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:29:40 +0000

Library Thing gives you listings of local bookstores and events, as well as the closest library.

The Library of Congress is Digitizing the Public Domain The digitizing project will save nearly 60,000 deteriorating and out...
A Book a Day The New York Times profile of one truly hardcore reader....
Book Reviews in Peril: Or New Trouble in Paradise Excellent commentary from Peter Stothard at the Times Literary Supplement...

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Hurry Up and Wait

Jason Hinkley — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:10:22 +0000

I found it impossible to slowly read this article on the importance of slowness, I had to keep coming back to it because I would start skimming after a few sentences — I still haven’t finished.

The Real Deal With Reading On a Screen Levi Asher gets to the heart of why it’s impossible...
PW’s Top 10 of 2009 Publishers Weekly’s interesting best of, complete with reviews. ...

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Harold Bloom on the Internet

Jason Hinkley — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:01:13 +0000

Jesse Pearson recently interviewed our most infamous professor of college English in Vice. In the interview Bloom identified the internet as having the potential to both enhance and degrade one’s reading experience:

If, in fact, you have an impulse to become and maintain yourself as a deep reader, then the internet is very good for you. It gives you an endless resource. But if, in fact, you don’t have standards and you don’t know how to read, then the internet is a disaster for you because it’s a great gray ocean of text in which you simply drown.

Such simply put statements are what has left Bloom’s supporters and detractors hanging on to his every utterance for nearly half a century.

Publishing Done Right Boldtype, Flavorwire’s book newsletter ran an excellent feature about the...

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