books

More glorious stupidity from those who should know better:

“An Indiana teacher who used a much lauded bestseller, The Freedom Writers Diary, to try to inspire under-performing high-school students has been suspended from her job without pay for 18 months.”

Tch, such irony.

“Prescience or eerie coincidence? On the eve of the anniversary of 7/7 Peter Millar examines thriller writers' knack for anticipating world-shaking events.”

Well, if writers can conceive of these events, surely the bad guys can as well. But then again, does art imitate life, or vice versa?

We love independent filmmakers and musicians, and celebrate their maverick spirit, so why don't we want independent writers?

Good question. Maybe it’s because there are so many crappy, wannabe writers out there turning out crappy, wannabe books? Or perhaps it has more to do with the snobbish attitude of the literary industry and its rejection of anything not introduced by the big houses.

Now you can conveniently find out which books are protected by copyright. Says Google:

…we believe this is the best and most comprehensive set of renewal records available today. These records are free and in the public domain, and we hope you're able to use them to determine the copyright status of books that interest you.

Some surprising choices here…and some interesting reasons for them. Got any to add?

Some books are supposed to be classics, but all they ignite in us is anger. Rod Liddle presents his red-mist list…

“Books that are so terribly of our age, they cannot hope to see beyond it. The obvious contender here is White Teeth by Zadie Smith, a politely written tome of consummate vapidity, from an articulate, photogenic half-black writer, that tells you, in the end, nothing.”

Well, it’s the thing that inspired David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and Lin Enger's Undiscovered Country, both of which are obvious takes on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Yes, it’s a timeless plot, but it’s somebody else’s timeless plot…and an overdone one if this keeps up.

“For me, as a literary experience, they are akin to sloppy seconds, a salad bar in a staff canteen at the end of a hot weekday, or a recently-vacated cubicle in a public toilet. I've lost count of the amount of times that I've been confronted by the dried-up bogey of the previous owner, smeared across one of the pages.”

I’m a little less keen on them myself now, thanks Chas.

Lazy consumers, who don’t want to click more than once to make a purchase, are supplying Amazon the weapon of destruction with which to bend publishers to its will. The online retailing giant has adopted “the literary equivalent of a nuclear option for rebellious publishers who balk at its demands”—disabling the “buy now with 1 click” icon.

Ooooo, nasty ugly.

Here’s a good deal:

…free PDF downloads of the first two books in Spencer-Fleming's series, In the Bleak Midwinter and A Fountain Filled With Blood, via e-mail registration.

Though the story says the offer expired a couple of days ago, I signed up and received the books without a problem today.