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On the Guardian‘s Books Blog, Lesley McDowell writes about writers who are reviewers, and reviewers who are writers–and, honestly, I would have no idea what one of those looks like: It’s a strange hybrid, this author-critic creature. I can’t think of another art form where the “practitioner” and the critic overlap like this. Where are [...]

From the Department of I’m Shocked, Shocked, NPR reports that the NYTRB is mostly by and about white males (“Are ‘The New York Times’ Book Reviews Fair?“). Also on NPR.org (“Books Have Many Futures,” although I couldn’t find audio), Linton Weeks presents this amusing scenario: Other types of books are not only meant to be [...]

It’s a headline that will hearten the e-evangelists and terrify the p-book lovers: “Mass Paperback Publisher Goes All-Digital” (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal). In response to declining sales, struggling Dorchester Publishing announced that it will print books on electrons, not paper. Publishers Weekly (“Dorchester Drops Mass Market Publishing for E-Book/POD Model,” by Jim Milliot) added [...]

On Slate, in “Judging a Book by Her Cover,” Mark Oppenheimer offers the following lament: ”Simply put, our gadgets give us too much privacy.” Someone should tell Cory Doctorow! Oppenheimer is talking about the charm of seeing what people are reading, rather than which e-book reader they own, of course — a sad turn aptly summed up in [...]

On Murderati, Tess Gerritsen asks, “Why the hell won’t they review my book?!!!” and pretty much answers her own question. My visit to the Inquirer was a sobering look at how tough newspapers have it these days, trying to keep up with all they have to cover.  Every author wants attention, but one look at [...]

Harvey Pekar, one of the founding fathers of underground comics, died this morning in his Cleveland home at the age of 70. His ongoing autobiography, American Splendor, is among the finest examples of what I internally refer to as neurotic comics curmudgeonliness, but more than that proved that the map of what comics can tackle, [...]

It’s been so long since I wrote a Weeklings that this is really a Monthlings–and that’s being charitable. Here are a few of the things I’ve read recently that have lodged in my brain…due to the length of this post, I have introduced subject headings. First Editions Much as I covet first editions, I only [...]

It’s now by turns a grim and darkly ludicrous part of our daily routine: monitoring the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, or the Gulf of Oil, as various fundits and pundits have it. Amid all the desperate and, if it wasn’t so horrific, absurd attempts to stop the undersea gusher, I’ve been thinking about [...]

A reivew of one of the books in the new Helping Hands series by Sarah, Duchess of York, will appear in the Back to School Roundup in the August issue of Booklist. But this entry in the series caught my eye: Ashley Learns About Strangers. A red-headed girl gets lost in a store. All ends [...]

Over the weekend, NPR was the latest news organization to see the iPad as the latest hook for the ongoing story about self-publishing (“iPad Could Help Self-Publishers Kick Open Doors,” by Laura Sydell). But, after speculating that the iPad’s fabulous full-color screen will make e-books sexy again, it’s pretty much the same story as usual: self-publishing [...]