You can, actually.

There is an implicit code that customers rely on. If a book cover has raised lettering, metallic lettering, or raised metallic lettering, then it is telling the reader: Hello. I am an easy-to-read work on espionage, romance, a celebrity and/or murder. To readers who do not care for such things, this lettering tells them: Hello. I am Crap. Such books can use only glossy paper for the jacket; Serious Books can use glossy finish as well, but it is only Serious Books that are allowed to use matte finish.

Diminutively sized paperbacks, like serial romances or westerns or dieting and astrology guides, are aimed at the uneducated. But diminutively sized hardcover books are aimed at the educated—excepting those that are very diminutive, which are religious books aimed at the uneducated—and unless they are in a highly rectangular format, in which case they are point-of-purchase books aimed at the somewhat-but-not entirely educated. However, vertically rectangular diminutive softcover books, which tend to be pocket travel guides, are aimed at the educated. But horizontally rectangular diminutive softcover books—a genre pioneered by Garfield Gains Weight—are not.

Then there are the colours. Bright colours, and shiny colours, are necessary for the aforementioned books with raised lettering. Black will work too, but only if used to set off the bright and shiny colours. Because, remember, with the customer base in mind, the book will need to be a bright and shiny object. Conversely, a work of Serious Literature will have muted, tea-stained colours. Black is okay here too, but only if used to accentuate cool blues and greys and greens.

Woe and alas to any who transgress these laws. A number of reviewers railed against The Bridges of Madison County, because it used the diminutive hardcover size and muted colour scheme of, say, an Annie Dillard book—thus cruelly tricking readers of Serious Literature into buying crap. Not to be outdone, the Harvard University Press issued Walter Benjamin’s opus The Arcades Project with gigantic raised metallic lettering. One can only imagine the disgust of blowhard fiftysomethings in bomber jackets as they slowly realised that the Project they were reading about was a cultural analysis of 19th century Parisian bourgeoisie—and not, say, a tale involving renegade Russian scientists and a mad general aboard a nuclear submarine.

Finally, on Serious Books and Crap alike there will be a head-shot photo of The Author sitting while looking pensive or smiling faintly into the indeterminate distance—the one pose that has no existence in the author’s actual daily life. The size of this photo will be in inverse proportion to the quality of the book. If the photo is rendered in colour, it is not a Serious Book. If there is no author photo at all, then it is a Serious Book indeed—perhaps even a textbook.

If a colour photo of the author occupies the entire front cover, the book is unequivocal Crap.

(swiped without permission from Paul Collins’ excellent Sixpence House )

From The Guardian:  Writers’ Favourite Classic Book Illustrations with Pictures . The captions make it, for me. Beatrix Potter was… interesting. [Bonus 1: I've just started playing Peter Rabbit's Garden on my iPod and it's lovely--really captures the feel of the books, but without the horrors. Bonus 2: The illustration below was Bryan Talbot's choice for the article. Complete set of Dore illustrations of with the Longfellow translation of The Divine Comedy in this 30MB zip file .]

Does anyone else hear ominous music… ?

This article from Slate  explains why we think disasters make people regress to their primal selves, when it’s simply not so. Bonus info: There’s something called ‘disaster science’ and I’m loving the new term ‘elite panic’, which is when white people get a-scared the non-white people are going to start looting and robbing the second the electrics are off for more than ten minutes. The big takeaway from this article is that people are kinda great when it benefits the entire tribe (meaning all the people).

Brown people are going to take my stuff!

Gawker has an article about an advice column  about how men can best deal with women-times . The title of the article is ‘MEN: Is Your Lady on ‘a Period’: Learn How to Deal in the Most Ridiculous Period-Advice Column Ever’ and I thought I was in for one of those delightfully amusing advice columns from the 1820s. But no. How I wish that had been the case.

I’d be remiss if I left an article on genitals of the other sex: Fleshbot has an…enlightening article about 3-D printing your willy . So, so very NSFW . My husband read this part to me, (italicized bit was his commentary):

They even hand mix their own colors, and not only do they do four flesh tones (cashew, caramel, hazelnut, and chocolate) [WHY ARE THEY ALL FOODS?!] but they can also capture undertones, such as the reddish-purple luster of a swollen dong. They’re true artisans.

The article is hilarious and reminds me a great deal of Grant Stoddard’s excellent I Did it For Science column on Nerve.

Here is an image of a 3D printer, as I’d like at least the *images* in this post to be safe for work.

And apparently, since sex seems to be the unofficial topic of this week’s links, have an article from The Atlantic entitled Where Masturbation and Homosexuality Do Not Exist , which is about the Aka and Ngandu tribes in central Africa. When a population has a high infant mortality rate but relies on having several children, sex, though enjoyable, is used as a reproduction tool (sorry). The article also discusses the way Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich Democratic societies (WEIRD)–which is even better than ‘elite panic’–approach the idea of sex when studying non-WEIRD groups. I find the sociology of anthropology very interesting, so this article was a great read.

These people are both WEIRD and would love it in central Africa, where I’d bet there’s no abortion, either.

Check out this article in the NYT about the state of book selling in Germany

I found this bit particularly of interest: “Last year 94,716 new titles were published in German. In the United States, with a population nearly four times bigger, there were 172,000 titles published in 2005.”

Books can’t be discounted (it’s illegal) and their best-seller lists are filled with literary fiction instead of pop crap.

For the writers out there: they have 14,000 publishers.

How difficult is it to learn German?

[This post is from a previous blog. Original post date: 30 October 2007]

This week’s links are all about libraries. Rowr.

Biblio Coimbra, Portugal

This is a 360, zoomable pamorama of the Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin.

This is an even more impressive 40 gigapixel 360 panorama of the Strahov library in Prague. Seriously, zoom in. You can see the woodgrain on the shelves. It’s completely mad.

Libraries at the Movies : A blog about libraries and librarians on film. Film reviews written by a librarian; each review explains what the film has to do with repositories of books and the people who work in them (the repositories, not the books. It isn’t about members of Jurisfiction , unfortunately.)

From Flavorwire: the 25 Most Beautiful Public Libraries in the World , the 25 Most Beautiful College Libraries in the World , and 20 Beautiful Private and Personal Libraries . Bonus! Bizarre Looking Libraries from All Over the World

From Mental Floss: 15 Spectacular Libraries in Europe

Libraries is a spectacularly beautiful book of photography of the world’s libraries by Candida Hofer.

And Unshelved . It’s a webcomic by Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes.

You can also check the ‘Libraries’ page at the left of this blog for photos of books and such. It’s under Images, then Photography faaaar down the page.

[This is a post from a previous blog, with a 2012 update. Original date: 21 January, 2008.]

Novels composed on mobile phones top best-seller lists.

Those kooky Japanese. Not only do they top the world charts for cuteness, but they compose novels on mobile phone text pads. Some novels are then published in hard copy form and some of those reach the best seller lists. Amazing.

2012 Update: I wanted to re-post this one partially because of this bit in the article: ““Will cellphone novels kill ‘the author’?” a famous literary journal, Bungaku-kai, asked…” Clearly, they didn’t.

Whenever something new comes along in publishing, doom-sayers declare it the end of literature. They were saying that when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1440s. Making books widely available would lessen the ‘specialness’ of books and of reading them. Because everyone would be able to do it, no one would.

This is similar to the people that say ebooks will be the end of publishing. There seems to be an assumption that people won’t publish if they’re not going to be paid well. Being a writer means writing whether anyone is going to see your work or not. Very few authors write for a living–they have jobs to pay the bills and anything they receive for writing is a bonus–and so simply having their work published by a legitimate press is worth it. Hell, some people are happy to have their name on the front of a book they paid to have printed and then have to market themselves.

You can’t kill the drive to write and you can’t kill the will of real readers, who will read anything that’s worth reading. I know it’s fun to pronounce the ‘end’ of things since nothing new really happens, but you’re just wasting time you could be spending reading.

[This post is from a previous blog; original date: 31 January, 2008.]

They can make you pick up a book you’d normally not look at twice or repel your hand as surely as if it were on fire. The loved, the reviled, the dust wrapper. Dust jacket. Dust cover. Whatever. It’s a misnomer in the first place, as dust collects on the top of the book, not on the covers. But that’s not what this post is about.

I’ve recently been having a very interesting conversation about dust wrappers and the people who love them or hate them and someone posted a site about the history of the dust jacket. [The site no longer exists, unfortunately. It was: www.readingbooks.info/Dustjackets] My fav bit is this: “The scarcity of surviving jackets, particularly early examples, results from their purpose and the perceptions of the buying public. Dust jackets were a selling tool, designed to book promote and protect the book inside. Once the book had been purchased and taken home, book buyers were expected to dispose of them. And many did. Keeping the dusk jacket was the equivalent of keeping the boxes in which perfume bottles are supplied today.”

I like dust covers when they’re designed well but as soon as I take a book off the shelf to read it I get that thing naked. The dust cover gets in my way. As one person so aptly put: “They flip, flop, slip, slide, pop out when the book is opened, get stretched out of shape if the end flaps are used as space markers, they can be completely unmanageable.” Yes, my friend. Yes.

I do keep the cover and will later put it back on the book when I’m finished reading most of the time, but sometimes, the book itself is so beautiful–-cloth covered and embossed with the title and author on the spine–-that I don’t bother. If the cover is offensive enough (the third Dexter book by Jeff Lindsay, for example) the cover goes in the bin as soon as it gets through the door.

Some people brodart their dust wrappers like librarians… This makes some sense if the book is valuable, otherwise it’s a little anal retentive. And by “a little” I mean, “get a hobby. Really.”

Oh, wait, that is their hobby. Nevermind.

On the last Friday of each month I’m going to post about what books I’ve began, finished, or made  progress on and some thoughts on those books. Some books will get their own post with a longer review once I’ve finished them.

Began

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris.

God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. (audio)

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
MIT offers a free course on the book for high schoolers. And this is an image gallery based on the book. Some of those would make excellent tattoos if your artist was incredibly talented. (At first, I wasn’t sure why I liked those images so much–then I realised they’re very Burtonesque.)

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Chapters 1- ??) by Elizer Yudkowsky.
This is my first fanfiction and it’s very enjoyable. It reminds me of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder (not Sophie’s Choice, which is by William Styron), in that it’s a loose narrative created to explain, well, methods of rationality. (It was philosophy in Sophie’s World, which I recommend.)

The characters’ personalities are nothing like the canon characters, but it’s still highly entertaining and informative. I’m glad to see there are 80 chapters thus far and is still being written.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.

Why I am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell (audio). Wow. This guy really wasn’t keen on the Christians.

Finished

Why I am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell (audio).

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
This is one of those books I’ve wanted to read for some time, but it was always pushed back by more recently-published works. Well, the time is now. It’s a collection of short stories written in the future that follows the history of robotics from when first introduced to society to the inevitable outcome. My favourite story is ‘Reason’, which is an allegory about religion and the ways logic can be used incorrectly. If you haven’t already read it I highly, highly recommend it. Even if you’re not a sci-fi fan, this one is excellent.

Comics

I found a comic reader for the iPod (CloudReaders) that’s quite excellent. Whilst trying to decide what to add to it I realised I had an insane number of digital comics. I’ve always enjoyed comic books, but I haven’t read a great deal so I’m looking forward to being able to carry them with me and read them anywhere.

100 Bullets Issue 1

Caffeine : Issues 1, 2. The Caffeine series was published from 1996-1998. I’ve only just got around to reading them because I have an unholy amount of readable media.

Gay Comix Issues 1, 3. This series is a collection of (mostly) autobiographical comics about gay life and society in the early 80s.

Audio and Video

I have discovered iTunes U. Oh boy. It’s an iOS app that allows you to watch/listen to podcasts of educations lectures and information from some of the most prestigious universities in the world.
TED Talks: Understanding Happiness If you’re interested in psychology, what makes people happy and why, or how you can live a happier life, this is for you. Overall, I’d give this 4/5 stars, as the talks could have been longer.
– Nancy Etcoff: On the Surprising Science of Happiness
– Martin Seligman: Positive Psychology. The website he mentions is here .
– Helen Fisher: On Why We Love & Cheat. She talks about what ‘love’ does to the brain (makes you insane).
– Paul Bloom: The Origins of Pleasure
– Dan Gilbert: Why Are We Happy? He also wrote an absolutely fantastic book, Stumbling on Happiness . It’s psychology, but accessible to the layperson.
– Barry Schwartz: On the Paradox of Choice. This one is about how choices are supposed to make us happy, but actually hinder us in several ways.
– Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce. This one follows the previous one well, because it’s also about choice, but it’s about how choice can make us quite happy.
Cambridge Short Ideas
– Seven Ages of the Body
– Bird Tango. Wonderful talk about the parallels between humans dancing and the mating rituals of birds.
– Just Add Water. Interesting talk about the importance of water on living organisms.
– The Music in Me. Very interesting talk about what our music choices say about us. What do you picture when you think of death metal listeners or indy artists or country & western music?
– Forgotten Heroes.
– The Perfect Crew? This one compares the ways to build the best athletic team and the best office workers.
– How Many Lightbulbs? One man sets out to discover the best ways to save electricity–busting some of the current myths about what the average person can do–as well as explains what would be required to divorce ourselves from unsustainable power resources.
– Don’t Eat the Plants. Great talk about the defence mechanisms of vegetation. Even if you’re uninterested in botany, this one is a must-watch.

I was having a sort out of my internet bookmarks and came across every book in Phil Elyrum’s house . It’s from 2007, but it’s still wonderful.

When I’m compelled to attend a party at someone’s house, I always check out the books on the shelves. (If the person doesn’t have shelves of books I re-evaluate our relationship.) This page was like being allowed to peruse someone’s library without the prerequisite of having to form and maintain a relationship with said person. In other words–I wish everyone I know would do this so I could easily work out if we had anything in common to discuss. Forget telling me your likes and dislikes–what books and authors do you love/loathe?

[Phil Elvrum is a member of a band called Mount Eerie that produces some of the most interesting and unique music I’ve heard. I’m rubbish at describing music so here’s a description of how he works from Wikipedia: “Phil Elvrum is known and noted for his manipulation of analog recording devices and unique recording approach. His records have a distinct, natural sound. Most of the Microphones catalog was recorded on a broken 16 track reel to reel tape machine while his recent material has been recorded on an 8 track reel to reel.” Really, it’s amazing.]

When I decided to turn this blog into a repository for the lists of books I’d read, wanted to read, and the quotes from and reviews of those books, I started with taking the lists of books read (which I had kept sporadically) and fill in the blank times using journals since I usually mentioned what books I was reading.

Looking down my list of books read is like listening to songs I haven’t heard in ages–-some so bring back the time I read it that it’s like being there again, no matter the season or current affairs. It’s cold outside right now but I think about reading The Alienist and suddenly it’s hot outside and I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom–my leg’s fallen asleep because I don’t want to get up; I’m so engaged in the story.

Also, looking down the chronological list of books I’ve read is like looking at my life–-reading rubbish when I was too distracted to read anything else, seeing a title I took five months to finish because I was moving at the time, etc. I see several books of the same type or on the same subject and remember what led me to start down that path–whether it was doing research for a novel or because I’d been turned on to an author for the first time. Good times.

I’ve always been a proponent of keeping a list of books read, but now I have another reason for encouraging people to do so–it’s a journal of sorts. But rather than a journal of activities, it’s more about motivations, emotional states, and the joy of discovering new writers and books.

And there are few joys that compare with that.

[Note about the image: It's part of Thomas Jefferson's list of books when the Library of Congress was acquiring his library. More information here .]

mmmm silky smooooth… you smell so gooood… it’s like a compulsion… I can’t stop touching you, baby… Even when I’m touching another, I think of you and how they don’t compare…

Everyone remembers their first time. You know…the first time you touched a book and thought, ‘Damn, that feels good!’

I still remember one such book, Michael Cox’s The Meaning of Night . Baby, the paper was fiiiiii-IIIIINE! I’d find myself lightly stroking the pages if my fingertips.

Some books just feel good in your hand (don’t go there, people). The weight, you know? They feel solid. Dorothy Dunnet books and the A.S. Byatt quartet (all by Vintage) are the same way. At one point, we had Possession on display in the bookshop I worked at and I’d periodically pick it up and molest it. Between you and me, I think it liked it.

The cover for Meaning of Night felt good, too. It was an ARC, but I’m guessing the actual dust wrapper was textured the same way. It felt like handmade paper. Nice. *grope grope*

Then there’s the smell. Old paper can smell great. I can’t find the link for it right now, but there’s a company that makes book scented candles. They’re out of my price range, and I can just stick my face in a book any time I want, but I love that someone had to figure out how to make something other than books smell like books. What next–books body wash? Can I smell like my favourite font? ‘Oh, honey! Century Schoolbook by Serif! How did you know?!’

I was thirteen the first time I was with someone who got a new book and immediately smelled the gutter (where the book meets the spine/where the crumbs fall when you’re reading and eating). She then beamed and said, ‘I LOVE the way books smell, don’t you?’

I’d thought I was the only one. After that I was no longer ashamed of smelling the books, which is much better than smelling the roses, if you ask me. Not nearly as much danger of bee stings, for one thing.

They say petting an animal lowers blood pressure. I bet petting a book can have the same effect. Caressing something that feels nice can take your mind off other things, right? So put on the Barry White and fondle a book today! You know…for your health!

[This post has been rated 15 for audiences in Great Britain and Ireland and PG13 in North America for suggestive content.]