oldie but goodie

Well, golly! I've just discovered that, in the closing minutes (literally) of last year, Angela Gunn of the USA Today blog Tech_Space posted her Best Science Books of 2007 list, and among the nine books there is my own Corrupted Science. I am, naturally, very, very pleased!

Gunn gives the book a good capsule review, too:

. . . this looked . . . like one of those bargain throwaways you see at Barnes and Noble -- until you remember how much fun Grant's 2006 Discarded Science was and scoop it up in search of chewy anecdotal goodness. The tone this time is considerably darker . . . His comparison of the current administration's assault on scientific truth and inquiry goes even further than Christopher Mooney's 2005 The Republican War on Science -- but then again the administration's had two more years to run amuck.

For the rest, see http://blogs.usatoday.com/techspace/2007/12/closing-the-boo.html. This is like finding an unopened Christmas present!

 

books 'n' beer

Jeff VanderMeer has just posted on the Amazon blog Omnivoracious the first part of a fascinating two-part investigation into the urgent matter of which beers go best with which books; the second part of this groundbreaking probe will appear Thursday.

Plenty of good books and good authors, plus some very good beer and some surprising gnat-product at http://www.omnivoracious.com/2008/04/beer-and-book-p.html.

But there's more! If you're an author with a digital camera, one (or more) of your books and some suitable bottles/cans of beer, you can submit an appropriately evocative picture for the second half of the thesis. Just go to http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/04/22/beers-n-books-on-omnivoracious-delicious-pairings/ for the full instructions.

Sounds like a top-hole reason to head off to the liquor store with a blank cheque and an empty car! "But I want to promote all my books, honey!"

oh, for . . .

In an interview I did over the weekend with charlesatan, I remarked waspishly about how the publishing/bookselling industry's insistence on marketing complete crap to the point where it became "bestsellers" was unbelievably self-destructive, in that it was a foolproof technique to make sure thousands upon thousands of book-buyers never made that stupid mistake of buying a book again.

In the original interview I used a well known fiction author (who seems to be a remarkably nice guy, with whom I'd enjoy having a beer) as an example. I looked at my comments, and decided it was rotten of me to pick on a single writer; he may have made millions from writing bad books, but it'd be despicable of me to single him out. (Yes, sure, if he ever even noticed he could weep all the way to the bank. But I try to maintain the occasional fleeting ethic.)

Then I see this in the e-zine Publishers' Lunch and I go ballistic: 

General/Other

Cindy McCain's book, co-written with journalist Beth Brophy, presenting her views and feelings concerning family and years of service; her meeting, courtship, and marriage to John McCain; life as a military mom in a family with a legacy of service; her experiences on the campaign trail; and looking ahead, after the election, to Wendy Wolf at Viking, for publication in September 2008, by Flip Brophy at Sterling Lord Literistic (world).

I'm sure Cindy McCain is a fine person. I think it's ridiculous that people have been trying to make so much mileage out of the fact that either she or one of her aides, exasperated no doubt by idiotic press requests for recipes, went out and plagiarized a few: as with Bill Clinton's lie about sex with Lewinsky, the fault lay with the questioner.

But . . .

But . . .

But . . .

This is not the making of a book. I was the guy who commissioned the (arguably) best of the Princess Anne books when she was about to get married for the first time, and who then flogged the US rights. It was not the greatest of books, I'll admit; but it did at least deliver a good short biography of an interesting person, plus lots of very good photos. Buyers knew they were getting, as it were, a very fat issue of Us Magazine bound in hard covers. No pretences this was Thackeray Revisited.

By contrast, it seems the Cindy McCain book is being regarded -- and will be marketed -- as an actual book.

Of course, like all the other dimbulb political autobiographies publishers seem lemming-like intent on slapping down millions for, it's going to be a marketing disaster: soon to be at a remainder shelf near you.

But in the interim it's going to turn off lots more people from buying books -- books that aren't by megafamous people like Cindy McCain but are by actual writers like you and me and . . .

This is a marketing plan? This is a scheme for making the publishing industry a healthy one?

Ooo, look. The record industry tried it out first.