This was an interesting piece about selling books. This seems about the whole argument about "good boks" not existing: I disagree completely. Sure, there are many bad books that are all about...
This was an interesting piece about selling books. This seems about the whole argument about "good boks" not existing:
I believe that, in much the same way that there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is no such thing as a good book. I don’t mean this cynically or nihilistically or even hopelessly: regardless of our love for a book’s text, we should not let text somehow transcend the material reality of its production, and of its production within an economy that will always place profit above “literature.” The actual, physical thing we hold in our hands, made of paper bound with stitches and glue, is what I am talking about. It is not possible for me to separate the book as a piece of literature from the book as an industrial product.
I disagree completely. Sure, there are many bad books that are all about making money.
I find myself using children's books for the youngest kids as examples of very good books. Here there are plenty of texts that transcend the "material reality of their production", where the physical thing with popups, touch, texture, page turns, thickness of pages, colors sound and many other physical attributes clearly compound to form great literary merit.
These books allow people to tell messages in ways young kids understand that we cannot otherwise tell. They allow us to teach compassion, difference, feed curiosity, build imagination, connect abstract ideas to physical expressions and all sorts of other wonderful things.
Many of the greatest children's books in languages I can understand are written by people who aren't professional authors, who have no plan on making money through moonlighting as a children's author. Some only ever publish that one book their own children need/needed.
There are many other books I can think of, both of poetry and other genres where there is no attempt to make a lot of money. Where the author clearly has wished to invest a lot in the physical object to get it just right, and where the margins are extremely low.
I'd expect a "bookseller" worth their salt to be aware of all this, and not to drown in their own hopelessness, nihilism or cynicality. I encounter these people all the time working in chain bookstores when you ask about books for kids in a certain age group.
That, and we are tactile creatures. Here's a fun experiment: Generate a random GUID (most search engines will spit one out). Repeatedly type that GUID over and over for 5 minutes. Walk away for an...
That, and we are tactile creatures.
Here's a fun experiment:
Generate a random GUID (most search engines will spit one out).
Repeatedly type that GUID over and over for 5 minutes. Walk away for an hour, then try to type out that GUID from memory.
Now the next day, generate a new random GUID. Now spend 5 minutes hand-writing it out repeatedly instead of typing. Try to reproduce from memory an hour later.
Bet you a virtual nickle you can remember more of the GUID you hand-wrote.
When we experience tactile feedback, it engages us more. Each book has a different feel to it, especially if you're renting hardcovers from a library.
I could get behind limiting printing books to limited runs if, and only if:
There is also a 'library run' which lets libraries order as many copies as they desire without limit. Since a library copy will be checked out multiple times by different people, it drastically alters the carbon footprint of a given printing.
Ebooks become DRM free. I should be able to buy a book from any vendor and put it on any device, possibly with format shift between...which is trivial without DRM.
I have some books that are over 100 years old in my home. I'll bet the carbon footprint from reading ebooks of those novels the number of times they have been read would dwarf the carbon footprint of the printing of these.
Let's kill trade paperbacks though...they have so little durability they do make the problem worse.
This was... Whew, I'll echo everyone else, a lot but I think this sums it up the best and it's early in the reading. Their point is "book selling is selling books." It calls to mind Portlandia's...
In the book’s final pages, he writes: “Booksellers care about bookselling and when you care about bookselling, you have ideas about it because you’re thinking about it. It isn’t weird for booksellers to have different ideas about how to be booksellers.”
It is those who are closest to us, most similar to us, with whom we have the greatest disagreements. Mine is this: I do not think bookselling is an art. I think it is a job.
This was... Whew, I'll echo everyone else, a lot but I think this sums it up the best and it's early in the reading.
Their point is "book selling is selling books." It calls to mind Portlandia's feminist bookstore, which in real life was a bookstore/community center, but where the book sellers were often telling their readers what to read and what not to, essentially making them taste makers and so on.
For Kyle, they work selling people books and seem to have no interest in any sort of extraneous conversation about them other than if you want them and for the price listed.
In the book’s third essay, “The Future of Bookselling is Booksellers,” Cook provides a list of potential ways to improve the working conditions of staff at bookstores that are alternatives to giving us what we really want (a raise).
The book he's critiquing seems to selling the idea of being a bookstore owner and not the reality of running a business, like the artsy movie rental place in Parks and Rec. The nebulous idea of building an independent bookstore where people will keep an eye on your yearly favorites list instead of a functioning business that keeps the lights on.
He doesn't come across to me as someone who hates books, per se, but as a worker advocating against the romanticization of his profession.
However, if you don't have a passion for reading, and willing to be that tastemaker, your bookshop will fail because that's the only thing a bookstore can really offer over Amazon.
However, if you don't have a passion for reading, and willing to be that tastemaker, your bookshop will fail because that's the only thing a bookstore can really offer over Amazon.
This was an interesting piece about selling books. This seems about the whole argument about "good boks" not existing:
I disagree completely. Sure, there are many bad books that are all about making money.
I find myself using children's books for the youngest kids as examples of very good books. Here there are plenty of texts that transcend the "material reality of their production", where the physical thing with popups, touch, texture, page turns, thickness of pages, colors sound and many other physical attributes clearly compound to form great literary merit.
These books allow people to tell messages in ways young kids understand that we cannot otherwise tell. They allow us to teach compassion, difference, feed curiosity, build imagination, connect abstract ideas to physical expressions and all sorts of other wonderful things.
Many of the greatest children's books in languages I can understand are written by people who aren't professional authors, who have no plan on making money through moonlighting as a children's author. Some only ever publish that one book their own children need/needed.
There are many other books I can think of, both of poetry and other genres where there is no attempt to make a lot of money. Where the author clearly has wished to invest a lot in the physical object to get it just right, and where the margins are extremely low.
I'd expect a "bookseller" worth their salt to be aware of all this, and not to drown in their own hopelessness, nihilism or cynicality. I encounter these people all the time working in chain bookstores when you ask about books for kids in a certain age group.
That, and we are tactile creatures.
Here's a fun experiment:
Generate a random GUID (most search engines will spit one out).
Repeatedly type that GUID over and over for 5 minutes. Walk away for an hour, then try to type out that GUID from memory.
Now the next day, generate a new random GUID. Now spend 5 minutes hand-writing it out repeatedly instead of typing. Try to reproduce from memory an hour later.
Bet you a virtual nickle you can remember more of the GUID you hand-wrote.
When we experience tactile feedback, it engages us more. Each book has a different feel to it, especially if you're renting hardcovers from a library.
I could get behind limiting printing books to limited runs if, and only if:
There is also a 'library run' which lets libraries order as many copies as they desire without limit. Since a library copy will be checked out multiple times by different people, it drastically alters the carbon footprint of a given printing.
Ebooks become DRM free. I should be able to buy a book from any vendor and put it on any device, possibly with format shift between...which is trivial without DRM.
I have some books that are over 100 years old in my home. I'll bet the carbon footprint from reading ebooks of those novels the number of times they have been read would dwarf the carbon footprint of the printing of these.
Let's kill trade paperbacks though...they have so little durability they do make the problem worse.
This was... Whew, I'll echo everyone else, a lot but I think this sums it up the best and it's early in the reading.
Their point is "book selling is selling books." It calls to mind Portlandia's feminist bookstore, which in real life was a bookstore/community center, but where the book sellers were often telling their readers what to read and what not to, essentially making them taste makers and so on.
For Kyle, they work selling people books and seem to have no interest in any sort of extraneous conversation about them other than if you want them and for the price listed.
The book he's critiquing seems to selling the idea of being a bookstore owner and not the reality of running a business, like the artsy movie rental place in Parks and Rec. The nebulous idea of building an independent bookstore where people will keep an eye on your yearly favorites list instead of a functioning business that keeps the lights on.
He doesn't come across to me as someone who hates books, per se, but as a worker advocating against the romanticization of his profession.
However, if you don't have a passion for reading, and willing to be that tastemaker, your bookshop will fail because that's the only thing a bookstore can really offer over Amazon.