Book List: Food glorious food

The Guardian reprints a list of the top ten cook books - in order, no less - from Waitrose Food Illustrated. The list includes some classics, as well as some tasty-looking obscurities. These would look so nice on that shelf in my kitchen:

1. Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson with Lindsey Bareham ("its diminutive size belies its incredible value")
2. Delia's Complete Cookery Course by Delia Smith (beloved in Britain)
3. Real Fast Food by Nigel Slater (the ultimate book for quick cooking)
4. The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (my favorite book title, author name and book cover art on this list)
5. A New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (in 1968, this book helped bring Middle Eastern food into the mainstream)
6. Leith's Techniques Bible by Susan Spaull and Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne (a cooking textbook of sorts)
7. Elizabeth David Classics by Elizabeth David (has been called "the best food writer of her time" by The Times Literary Supplement)
8. Rick Stein's Seafood School Cookbook by Rick Stein (proprietor of the Seafood Restaurant and the Padstow Seafood School, also a TV chef in England)
9. Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook by Alice Waters (an American classic)
10. The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander (of Australia)

- C. Max Magee @ 8:49 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The economics of used books

Very interesting article from the NY Times today about Amazon and used books. Many assume that Amazon's ample selection of used books represents a grave threat to authors and publishers, but some economists who looked into the issue found evidence that just the opposite is true. The key point: "When used books are substituted for new ones, the seller faces competition from the secondhand market, reducing the price it can set for new books. But there's another effect: the presence of a market for used books makes consumers more willing to buy new books, because they can easily dispose of them later." Read the whole article here.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:48 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

David Mitchell: The collected blurbs

Not too many David Mitchell blurbs out there, and some of them are quite brief - cropped for maximum impact by editors, I suspect. Note as well the extremely British use of the term "wrong-footed."

• For Strangers by Taichi Yamada: "Highly recommended. A cerebral and haunting ghost story, which completely wrong-footed me."
• For The Memory Artists by Jeffrey Moore: "combines smartness and wisdom"
• For Book of Voices: "A treasures box"
• For Silence by Shusaku Endo: "One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere... Flawless"
• For Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam: "It depicts an extraordinary panorama of life within a Muslim community... Thoughtful, revealing, lushly written and painful, this timely book deserves the widest audience."

See also: Jonathan Safran Foer: The Collected Blurbs

- C. Max Magee @ 9:26 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Linkage

The CS Monitor has a little piece about the travails of teenage novelists: "A youthful sensation doesn't always translate into a distinguished literary career. For many teen authors, that first book proves a hard act to follow. Some never again meet with the kind of praise critics heaped upon their first offerings."

Speaking of (once) young phenoms, Bret Easton Ellis has a flashy new Web site that promotes his upcoming novel, Lunar Park. I've never read Ellis, but the Web site seems to indicate that this upcoming novel is about a character named Bret Easton Ellis, and it may or may not be autobiographical. Very meta. There's an excerpt in there too.

I've been enjoying EarthGoat lately. It's a group blog out of Iowa City.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:59 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 40th in a Series (The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford)

Dee writes in with this question:

Do you know when Richard Ford's sequel to Independence Day will be published?

Richard Ford's Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award winning Independence Day from 1995 revisits Frank Bascombe, who Ford first introduced to readers as The Sportswriter in 1986. In the novels, Ford plumbs the angst of the 1980s and 90s through the everyman character Bascombe. A third book in the series would likely place Bascombe in the current decade. I'm sure the Bascombe followers out there would like to see how he is faring.

As Dee suggests, Ford is indeed working on a third Bascombe novel, to be called The Lay of the Land, and while I could find no indication that he has completed it, he has been reading from the unfinished book at readings over the last couple of years. In fact, attendees of Ford's reading tour in the UK in fall, 2004, received a bound excerpt of the new book. As for the actual release date, I don't think they've set one yet, but I did spot a note on one British Web site (see the box labeled "Also of interest") that seemed to indicate the book will be out some time in 2006, but I couldn't confirm it. He briefly touched on the new book in a 2002 interview with Robert Birnbaum of identity theory:

Birnbaum: You leave it all on the playing field...

Ford: Yes. That's kind of how I go about doing it. I get to that frame of mind perhaps a with little more difficulty. But I'm working on the 3rd Frank Bascombe [The Sportswriter, Independence Day] book...Once I finish that...

Birnbaum: I thought you said you weren't going to do that?

Ford: No I said...

Birnbaum: I'm kidding, I'm kidding..

Ford: I hope I didn't say that. I might have said it. I do a lot of things to remind myself of how serious projects need to be to do them.

Birnbaum: So you are working on the next Frank Bascombe novel?

Ford: Yes and I will be working on it. There are moments when I feel like I can really do it. There are moments when I feel like...yesterday was a bad day. You find out things, people don't like your book, you think to yourself, "I don't know how I can spend the next three years writing a book when I feel so shitty about this now?" But being a novelist, it is important to average your days. It's like Olympic diving. You throw out the high score and the low score. I threw out the low score yesterday...

Another interview from 2002, with Dave Weich of Powells.com, offers more details:

Ford: When I began this third book called The Lay of the Land, I asked, What could I make Frank be next? And I finally decided that he can be a realtor. It seemed to me to be both plausible and to give rise to new speculative developments of his character. Obviously you can't have him go back and do the same kinds of things - he has to have a whole different orientation to life, which is not difficult to do, really - but it wasn't broke in the last book, so I think I don't have to fix that.

Dave: What's the motivation for going back to his character rather than starting fresh with someone else?

Ford: To write about Frank again is truly one of the pleasurable things I've gotten out of writing - that is to say, palpably pleasurable - so I'm writing about Frank as a gift to myself. I think it would be fun to write about him again and to see what my imagination can turn up for him. Who knows? Maybe I can't do it. It's always a possibility. Because you can write two doesn't guarantee that you can write three. If I can't, that'll be okay.

Dave: Will Frank be in New Jersey again?

Ford: On the shore this time. Married, I think. Have left Haddam. This is much more involved with his daughter, Clarissa. Taking place on Thanksgiving in the year 2000.

Dave: A holiday again.

Ford: I gotta do holidays. They offer me so much. In particular, for me and the reader, a whole set of associations. If you write about Easter, if you write about the Fourth of July, something as important, almost invisibly important, as the temporal setting of a book...if the reader can say, "Gee, that's a time I know. I have a whole set of memories and associations to bring to bear on whatever's happening then," you've got a lot going for you.

It may still be a while yet, before we read it, though. According to this post at TEV, by summer of 2004, Ford had "completed 380 typed pages - 'about half' - of The Lay of The Land." And an interview from February of this year has Ford saying, "I'm well past the middle of it, the last fifth of it probably."

Update: In the comments, Stephan notes that an excerpt from the novel appeared in the New Yorker a few months ago. You can read it here.

Update 2: Lay of the Land will be released on October 24, 2006.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:28 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Book Review: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

Anyone who enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point or Blink or Steven D. Levitt's Freakonomics, will likely be interested in The Wisdom of Crowds by the New Yorker's business columnist, James Surowiecki. Surowiecki's premise is that groups of diverse people can collectively come to a better conclusion than even the smartest individual. Like other books of pop economics, Surowiecki employs dozens of real world examples. Among the most interesting was a discussion of why "groupthink" led to the crash of the space shuttle Columbia. Another was Surowiecki's persuasive argument that a "market" where the probability of terrorist attacks (or other threats) could be bought and sold, would be better at predicting those attacks than our current system of intelligence. Unlike Gladwell, however, Surowiecki fails to make his examples sing. Crowds is weighed down by long stretches of prose in which Surowiecki touches on one academic study after another, continually referring back to his premise, "the wisdom of crowds," as if trying to drill it into his readers' heads. Certainly, though, anyone with a passing interest in economics - and especially the behavioral aspects of economics - will enjoy the book, but it fails to compete with the genre's better examples.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:24 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

New Book Previews: Thomas O'Malley, Xue Xinran

In the Province of Saints, a first novel by the Irish writer - and Iowa Writers' Workshop grad - Thomas O'Malley is being compared to Angela's Ashes. The subject here is a down-on-its-luck family in an Ireland of the late 70s and early 80s that was still ravaged by sectarian violence. PW says "his sentences have a judicious clarity even as they twist into gnarled shapes; they carry O'Malley's characters though their incomprehension with poise and assurance." Here's one excerpt and another. The book comes out in late August.

Xue Xinran was a radio show host in China before she moved to England. Her first book, The Good Women of China collected the stories she heard from women who called in to her radio show. Xinran's first novel, Sky Burial, is fictionalized from a story she heard in her more recent journalistic endeavors. It's about a couple split up by the conflict in Tibet in the 1950s. Scott recently pointed to this review in the SF Chronicle, and PW says, "Woven through with fascinating details of Tibetan culture and Buddhism, Xinran's story portrays a poignant, beautiful attempt at reconciliation." The book is out this week. Here's an excerpt.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:01 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

New Kurt Vonnegut

After Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut declared that his career as a novelist was over, but in recent years Seven Stories Press has collected the scattered writing he has done since his retirement into small books. A new, and perhaps more substantial, collection called A Man without a Country comes out in September. Seven Stories describes it thusly: "Based on short essays and speeches composed over the last five years and plentifully illustrated with artwork by the author throughout, A Man Without a Country gives us Vonnegut both speaking out with indignation and writing tenderly to his fellow Americans, sometimes joking, at other times hopeless, always searching."

Update: Vonnegut talks about the new book on NPR.
Later: Vonnegut's late in life success

- C. Max Magee @ 8:38 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

What people are reading: The Harry Potter edition

I only took the train one way today - Mrs. Millions was kind enough to pick me up this afternoon - but I still spotted at least three people reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in various stages of completion while riding the El this morning including one young man who was vigorously finishing the final pages. I wasn't surprised to see Harry Potter on the train this morning, nor will I be surprised to see it a lot in the coming weeks considering the astonishing sales numbers the book generated this weekend. According to Scholastic Books, Potter sold 6.9 million copies over the weekend - that's 250,000 copies an hour, more copies than 99.9% of books will sell in a lifetime. Barnes and Noble reported selling about 105 copies a second. You can get all the numbers here. Here's my favorite stat, though. From the Guardian: "Retailers said that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had sold more copies in a day than The Da Vinci Code sold in one year."

All of this reminded me of my days selling Harry Potter books when I worked at a bookstore. As I recall, the day Part 5 came out, we sold more copies of that book than all the other books we sold that day combined, and this was at an independent bookstore on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, not exactly the kind of place that caters to kids. People can banter back and forth about whether or not Harry Potter books are any good - or whether or not adults should read them - but I know that they were good for our bookstore. For an independent, a big seller like Harry Potter can subsidize that less profitable business of trying to supply good literature to a dwindling group of interested readers.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:49 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Brit Lit Blogs Aggregate

Six British book bloggers have combined forces to create a site that aggregates all of their blogs onto one page. It's a great way to find out at a glance what all these folks are writing about, and I like the design too. Visit Brit Lit Blogs.com.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:36 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Book Review: Absolutely American by David Lipsky

Anyone who has made a living sitting in a cubicle has at one time or another wondered if there is more to life than pushing the proverbial pencils. These second thoughts are central to our existence as working folk. Often, when that meeting has dragged on an hour to long or when the boss is peppering you with inane suggestions, you wonder what it would be like to do something that really matters. Absolutely American by David Lipsky is about a group of people, West Point cadets, who have decided to or been thrust into a profession that, in the eyes of the government and much of the population, really matters. Their concerns are not the cubicle but of hewing to countless regulations, eight-mile road marches in full gear, and ultimately sending people into battle one day. According to Lipsky's introduction, he went to West Point, the military academy that trains army officers, to write an article for Rolling Stone, and he eventually found himself fascinated by the enthusiasm he found there. Lipsky ended up spending four years following the cadets. The book reads like a magazine article, and Lipsky's writing rarely falters. He presents a West Point that is infinitely more complicated than the typical stereotype of the army. It is an Army that is at war with itself internally, as it tries to become more diverse and progressive. The book covers the years 1998 to 2002, so we get to see the transformation that September 11 causes in both the cadets and the army itself. Lipsky's greatest feat is to make the reader realize that behind the "high and tight" haircuts, the uniform, and the stern demeanor, those who are called to the military are as complicated and conflicted as the rest of us.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:12 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 39th in a Series (Finding First Editions)

Michael writes in with this question:

I want to know how to determine if I have a first edition book or not. I have several books, Black Beauty 1945 without any other copyright dates, I also have The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, without any dates but the one given, Darwin doesn't even have a date of copyright. Where can I learn about old books and their value? Much appreciated if you can help.

This is really a two part question. How to find first editions and how to figure out what books are worth. I am a book collector, a book hoarder even, but I don't give much thought to the value of my books, and I don't particularly look for collectible books when I go out shopping, just cheap ones. Still, I have managed to pick up some knowledge about collecting over the years.

At the bookstore our rule of thumb for identifying first editions (and first printings - which are even more important) was to look for the numbers one through ten on the copyright page of the book - if all were present it supposedly indicated that the book was a 1st/1st; that is, a first edition/first printing. I was later told by a book collecting acquaintance that this technique is laughable at best since different publishers indicate the edition and printing of a book in different ways and that these methods have changed over the years. According to him, the only surefire way to properly identify editions and printings is using a guide. And apparently the best of these guides is Edward Zempel's First Editions: A Guide to Identification, which contains listings by publisher and year.

As for assessing the value of your books. I have seen massive volumes dedicated to pricing books, but they are probably not worth the investment. Aside from the most high end and obscure stuff, a simple search on bookfinder.com will do the trick. This handy Web site aggregates the inventory of thousands of booksellers using various book listing services. Just type in title you're looking for and see what that edition in a similar condition is going for. Once you know what the market is asking for your book, you have a good idea of approximately what your book might be worth. One last note: 99.9% of books, including paperbacks, book club editions and nearly all non-first edition hardcovers - aren't worth much more than pocket change - unless, of course you decide to read them.

But like I said, I'm little more than a novice on this subject, so if anyone has any expertise they'd like to share, please press the comment button below.

Update: From the comment below, B Thomas suggests using Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions and Points of Issue, both by Bill McBride. "They are pocket-sized so you can take them to the bookstore with you." Sounds pretty handy.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:16 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Grinch who Hates Harry Potter

Joel Stein of the LA Times is bravely calling the wrath of legions of Harry Potter fans down upon himself, but I can't say that I agree with what he's trying to say. First there's the headline: "Hogwarts fans, you're stupid, stupid, stupid." Not mincing any words there. Stein is apparently infuriated that so many adults are excited about the upcoming Harry Potter book. "Next Saturday, when the sixth Harry Potter book comes out, at the very least I want you to stammer excuses when I see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on your nightstand. I want you to claim you're reading it to make sure it's OK for your kids, or your future kids, or even, if you have to, for kids in general," he writes. He goes on to bash adults who enjoy C.S. Lewis, E.B. White and J.R.R. Tolkien ("Isn't it a clue that you should be ashamed of reading these books past puberty when the adults who write them are hiding their first names?") and Finding Nemo. Stein's grating tone aside, there are two points I'd like to make: First, some of the best books and movies we have were written for kids (or kids AND adults). It must be sad to go through life avoiding "kid stuff" because you don't deem it to be intellectually up to par. Secondly, what do you think all these adults who are reading Harry Potter will read instead? It will be Dan Brown and James Patterson on their nightstands, if they read at all. Is that really so much better? I say that if people are reading it's a good thing for the book industry and for our culture - even if it is just a kids' book.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:00 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Happy Endings

I spotted this essay by James Wood in the Guardian about endings that disappoint. I agree that there is hardly anything more disheartening than a novel that just peters out at the end. To me reading a book is like making an investment. You put in the time, and at the end you hope to walk away with some pleasure. A bad ending screws up the whole arrangement. I tried to think of some really good endings and off the top of my head I came up with a couple. In terms of paying off on an investment, one of my favorites is John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. The "a ha!" moment is almost too perfect but Irving has set it up so well that you can't help but believe it. Another great ending that comes to mind is John Steinbeck's East of Eden. After such a long journey, one almost expects the book to run out of steam, but Steinbeck magnificently collects everything together at the end and sends you out of the book with real emotional force. When I read the last words of that book and put it down, I said to myself, "Wow, that was worth it."

- C. Max Magee @ 8:47 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

New Book Previews: Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Millet, Lisa Kusel, Avner Mandelman

One of the most anticipated books of the summer is Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. The book will be out a week from Tuesday, and already it's pushing into Amazon's top 100. All spring there were reports of galleys (advance copies for reviewers) selling for a couple of hundred dollars on eBay. Rake's Progress posted a report from one of the lucky few who got their hands on the book early. Granted, this reader was posting to the Cormac McCarthy Society Web site, but still his review was glowing. Other glowing reviews have come in at PW and Booklist, and the newspaper book pages will weigh in soon. Perhaps most intriguing of all is the report that McCarthy, a notorious recluse, has given his first interview in 13 years, which will appear in the August issue of Vanity Fair.

Booklist's starred review of Lydia Millet's satirical novel Oh Pure and Radiant Heart compares the book to "Twain, Vonnegut, Murakami, and DeLillo." Not bad. The novel opens in 2003 with reincarnation of three of the creators of the atomic bomb. After taking stock of the current state of the world, these scientists decide to work for disarmament, but the American military isn't too keen on that idea. Though the premise seems a bit high concept, reviewers are saying that she pulls it off.

If you ever wanted to read a novel set in the exotic locale of Zanzibar, you're in luck. Lisa Kusel's novel, Hat Trick, is about two estranged friends who, by chance, happen to be reunited on the small island off the coast of Africa. Mona is there in her capacity as a powerful film producer, while Hannah is there looking for merchandise to sell in her store back home. The man who caused their split is there, too. Peter is a journalist who is writing about the star of Mona's movie, but he is in Zanzibar to be close to Mona, too. There are no major reviews out yet, but PW was positive about the book.

Avner Mandelman's collection of short stories, Talking to the Enemy, won the Jewish Book Award when it was published in Canada, and now, Seven Stories Press has released the book in the US. Mandelman was a member of the Israeli Air Force and he fought in the Six Day War before moving to Europe and then to Canada. His collection looks at Israelis and Israeli emigres living in a culture of violence. As PW puts it: "With these agile, vernacular stories, Mandelman takes a clear-sighted yet empathetic view of a fraught nation."

- C. Max Magee @ 10:59 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ian McEwan: How could we have forgotten that this was always going to happen?

Sitting here in Chicago, there's not much I can write about the terrible events that occurred in London yesterday. But I think Ian McEwan does a good job of capturing both the inevitability and the sadness of yesterday's bombings in his piece in the Guardian:

Those rehearsals for a multiple terrorist attack underground were paying off. In fact, now the disaster was upon us, it had an air of weary inevitability, and it looked familiar, as though it had happened long ago. In the drizzle and dim light, the police lines, the emergency vehicles, the silent passers by appeared as though in an old newsreel film in black and white. The news of the successful Olympic bid was more surprising than this. How could we have forgotten that this was always going to happen?

Read it here.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:01 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Fantastic fiction: Allegra Goodman

I enjoyed the short story in this week's New Yorker. Allegra Goodman's story, "Long-Distance Client" gently pokes fun at the exuberance of the late 90s. But the story is also quietly weighty, touching on pain and religion and the whole idea of being "centered" mentally and physically. Very funny, but also moving.

I wasn't familiar with Goodman's writing before reading the story, but she has a good collection of links up at her Web site. She's written four books, too:

• Kaaterskill Falls
• Paradise Park
• The Family Markowitz
• Total Immersion

- C. Max Magee @ 8:17 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

An addition to the book news RSS Feed

I've added the book news feed from the Baltimore Sun to the Book News via RSS feature. I'd like to keep the list of sources as up to date as possible, so if you spot any other book news feeds, send them my way.

Here's the original Book News via RSS post with the complete list of sources.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:29 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Dissent

A "Minority Opinion" has been posted over at the LBC Blog by the Co-op members who were not fans of the first LBC pick - Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. Some good discussion is already brewing in the comments. As for me, I fall somewhere in between the Minority Opinion and the LBC members who wholeheartedly endorse the book. To me, Case Histories is a worthwhile read, but perhaps not up to par with the big things that many seem to be expecting from the LBC. The most vocal commenters seem to pulling for the Co-op to choose a book that is of impeccable quality, yet has been ignored by big publishing houses and major reviewers. If such a book exists, I hope we can find it for our readers. "Read This" picks aside, I think the LBC may also prove valuable in determining whether or not the Great American (or British, or Chinese, etc.) Novel is in any danger of being ignored or underappreciated.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:07 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Early look at Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novella Memories of My Melancholy Whores has been available in the Spanish-speaking world for about nine months, but it won't available here until Oct. 25. The Book Standard already has a review up (which I believe is the Kirkus review), and it's quite negative: "There is no indication - unless it is the word 'melancholy' in the title - that Garcia Marquez means his tale to be the parody of macho idiocy it appears to be. His hero ends revitalized and radiantly optimistic, while readers are left wondering, 'Can he be serious?'"

- C. Max Magee @ 8:10 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Excerpt of John Irving's Until I find You

The first chapter (or a fraction thereof) of John Irving's new novel Until I Find You has been posted at the Random House Web site. This novel looks like standard Irving - in the brief excerpt I noticed two classic Irving tropes, Toronto and a protagonist with a missing father. It's hard to say if the book will be good or bad. His last couple have been clunkers, but if Irving has managed to recreate some of the magic from his earlier novels in Until I Find You, I'll certainly read it. According to this article in the Times, he started the book back in 1998, which I'll take as a good sign. The reviews will probably start coming in soon. The book comes out July 12.

Update: Until I Find You gets a "B-" at the Complete Review.

- C. Max Magee @ 12:37 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Amazon gets deeper into tagging with Capitalized Phrases

Amazon has introduced a new feature that promises to be more useful than the Statistically Improbable Phrases feature that launched a few months ago. The "SIP" feature finds distinctive phrases inside books and then linked users to other books that contained those same distinctive phrases. For example, Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World contains five instances of the distinctive phrase "deer poaching," which Amazon tells us also appears in several other books, including Deer and Deer Hunting Book 2: Strategies and Tactics for the Advanced Hunter. Amusing, but not terribly useful. Amazon's new feature, Capitalized Phrases" or "CAPs," links books by proper names and places, so by clicking on "King Lear" from among the CAPs for Will in the World, you get a list of books that mention "King Lear." This seems like a potentially very useful research tool - especially if Amazon decides not to limit the results to twenty or so books as they are currently doing. These "phrases" features by Amazon also represent a foray into the relatively new Internet phenomenon of tagging, which sites like del.icio.us use to categorize Web sites. Since the process is external - in the case of del.icio.us, the tags are applied by users - and has a human element to it, sites that employ tagging have the potential to be "smarter" than those that rely on old-fashioned search engines. It will be interesting to see if Amazon begins to allow user submitted tags in addition to its Search Inside a Book data to create a deep and highly intuitive way of organizing its massive inventory.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:15 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Big glossy volumes

Before I worked at a bookstore, books were just things to be read. I never gave much thought to the big glossy volumes that occupy a lot of shelf space in many book stores. But the world of so-called "coffee table books" is surprisingly varied, going way beyond books of art or photographs of faraway places. With impressive production values - and hefty price tags - these books are closer to works of art than literature. I was reminded of this after an article London Review of Books pointed me to a book called Disruptive Pattern Material: An Encyclopaedia Of Camoflage: Nature, Military, Culture. The heft and glossiness of such a volume, despite - or perhaps because of - its esoteric focus, somehow make it inordinately desirable to me. Taschen, the eccentric European publishing house known for its expensive and eclectic selections, also occasionally puts out books that have this affect on me, like the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. And I'm a sucker for atlases, the bigger and glossier and more stuffed with maps and diagrams and charts the better, like the National Geographic Atlas of the World. I am especially intrigued by atlases devoted to a narrow topic like the Atlas of Contemporary Architecture.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:42 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Handicapping the Great 20th Century Novels

Brandon, who runs the blog antimodal, has created a little application that "handicaps" the great 20th century novels. It allows you to assign scores for different features, like "stream of consciousness," and themes, like the "Black experience." The scores enable you to promote or penalize a book based on these different characteristics. Note that you can add additional categories to the ones already listed by pressing the "Add New Category" button at the top of the page. In Brandon's words, "The book list is still a work in progress. I am not familiar with many of the books there, so if you have information that would help classify a book, let me know." Check it out.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:29 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post