Updike was best known for his Rabbit novels – two of which won the Pulitzer Prize;  Rabbit is Rich in 1982 and Rabbit at Rest in 1991.  His latest novel Terrorist was released in 2006.

Born in 1932, Updike released more than 50 books in his career, many of which were bestsellers.  He was known for his literary style and in addition to the two Pulitzers, he was also the recipient of two National Book Awards and many other literary prizes.

His voice will be sorely missed.

As the article points out:

Just two weeks before announcing staff cuts and a substantial corporate restructuring in December, the publishing giant Macmillan gathered its sales and marketing staff at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego —where Billy Wilder filmed Tony Curtis wooing , HarMarilyn Monroe in “Some Like It Hot” — to talk about titles on the spring lists. Between marathon meetings to discuss plans for new books, the sales reps were invited to take part in wine tastings and spa treatments.This year the meetings will be held via Webcam. In a memo to staff members announcing the layoffs on Dec. 15, John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, said the company would hold only one of its three annual sales conferences in person, and the other two would be conducted on the Web and by telephone.

It goes on:

Venerable houses including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster have all announced salary freezes or layoffs, or both.

Nielsen has identified a 7 percent drop in sales compared with the same period the previous year, and signs that it’s only going to get worse.  But for all of the major or subtle changes in the industry, it appears some things will never change, such as the arrogance of agents: ”It’s not like you have books that can be Manolo Blahniks and books that can be Cole Haan. Books are books. A book by James Patterson costs the same as a book by some poet.”

Ah, to own the wonderful works of “some poet.”  Isn’t it delightful that the same personalities who once were some of the strongest personalities and names in the industry are now, en masse, clumped together with a mass-market paperback sales maven?  But hey, sales dictate attitudes, so put down that company card, crack open that secondhand newspaper and read on to see what changes come next.  My guess is that curtailing cash advances for Mr. Patterson will do more to cut costs than cognizance of the effect of supply and demand on a now identified product niche market, but I’m not the one getting paid to lounge at a resort and talk shop.

The long awaited settlement for the Author’s Guild, AAP and Google is official.  Under the settlement, “Google will have the right to make browsable copies of the books it has scanned through its Library Project as well as books scanned in through its regular Book Search program.”

From Publisher’s Weekly:

As part of the $125 million settlement, Google will pay $45 million to settle the class action lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild. Authors whose books have already been scanned will receive at least $60 per work. Another $34.5 million will go toward the creation of a Book Rights Registry that will be responsible for building a database of rightsholders information and for disbursing all money generated through the use of books in Google Products and Services. (The remaining $45.5 million will go to legal and attorney fees). Under the deal, Google will receive 37% of revenue and rightsholders 63%. Publishers and authors will have 120 days to opt out of the settlement once the agreement receives approval from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, something that is expected to take several months.

How does this affect us? Well, up to this point Google maintains that they will not be getting involved in the physical book business. They want to index all the out of print books as well as any books they can get their (rather large) paws on. In regards to this, it would be silly to suggest that we are anything but excited about the prospect of the mass availability of books. If we were worried about access to books as a potential negative for our business, chances are we (1) would not working extensively with 1000+ libraries in North America and (2) would be stocking up on eBooks.

Besides, fundamentally we’re lovers of books. I’m just as excited as anyone that if I want to be a little pretentious in a letter and quote from Madame Bovary (in French, natch) that Google Books allows me the opportunity to do so without having to purchase the book or find it at a local library. (Besides, my book backlog right now is hovering at 8 or so books).

It would be brash to say that there’s not murmurs of worry in the industry though. Considering Google just paid their legal team on this case more than we make in revenue in a given year, it wouldn’t take much effort for them to come in and be a major player in the book selling market. With Google.org and their relative propensity towards making socially responsible decisions, I don’t doubt that Google will find a way to make their revenue into a positive influence, but short of changing into a triple bottom line company, I tend to trust the guarantee that we offer significantly more than just a predilection towards giving.

But let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime:
“la parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles.” ["...human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we bang out beats that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity"]

Thanks, Google!

“The City Council of New York officially declares the week of November 17, 2008 ‘National Book Awards Week in the City of New York’”

If you happen to be in the city that never sleeps this week, you can catch some incredible events, including a dinner with the various winners from the National Book Foundation (the rest of us can see updates as they happen at the website linked above).  The crown jewel of prizes, the National Book Award, will be announced on Wednesday, and tomorrow there is a (sold out, sorry) reading by the finalists.  They are as follows:

Fiction:

Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project
Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country
Marilynne Robinson, Home
Salvatore Scibona, The End

Non-fiction:

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (check out our recent podcast with her!)
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives
Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order

Poetry:

Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day
Richard Howard, Without Saying
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler

Young People’s Lit (kind of a silly name, no?):

Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

Crichton’s works focused primarily on technology, medicine and the potential for dystopian futures resulting from these fields.  His focus sprouted naturally from Crichton’s past as he graudated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard University, tutored in anthropology at Cambridge University in England, and eventually received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School while writing award winning novels under two different pen names (John Lange and Jeffrey Hudson).

Crichton’s fingerprints can be found in more than just the huge literary success he achieved, having sold over 150 million books, as he delved deep into the world of moving pictures as well.  Jurassic Park was groundbreaking in its effects, and 1973’s Westworld and 1976’s Futureworld were the first two movies to use 2D and 3D Computer Generated Images (CGI), respectively.

Additionally, Crichton wrote “Twister” and was the original writer and producer of the fabulously successful TV hospital drama “ER.”

As a result of his myriad projects, in December of 1994 Crichton achieved a never before seen feat, holding the prize for #1 Movie (Jurassic Park), #1 TV Show (ER) and #1 Book (Disclosure) simultaneously.

He was 66.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton)
(http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5092860.ece)

The White Tiger, written by Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize.  From the website: “The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year.  Adiga is the fourth debut novelist to win the prize.

Also from the site:

When I wrote “The Grapes of Wrath,” I was filled, naturally, with certain angers—certain angers at people who were doing injustices to other people, or so I thought. I realize now that everyone was caught in the same trap. If you remember, we had a depression at that time. The Depression

caught us without the ability to take care of it. It took a long time for us to develop the agencies to take care of such economic difficulties. When the dust came up, people were starving; they had no place to go. Naturally, they went in a direction where they would not suffer from cold: they went toward California. They came in the thousands to California.

And what did they meet—they met people who were terrified, number one, of the Depression, and were horrified at the idea that great numbers of indigent people were being poured on them to be taken care of. They could only be taken care of by taxation. Taxes were already high, and there wasn’t much money about. They reacted perfectly normally—they became angry. And when you become angry, you fight what you’re angry at. They were angry at these newcomers.

Gradually, through government agency, through the work of private citizens, agencies were set up to take care of these situations, and only then did the anger begin to decrease. And when anger decreased, these two sides, these two groups, were able to get to know each other, and they found they didn’t dislike each other at all.

Surprise is not a prerequisite for sadness.

David Foster Wallace, wordsmith notable for having written numerous great essays and the wonderful–if complex–Infinite Jest, was found dead yesterday.  Wallace’s wife found him after he had passed by hanging himself.

Few who were familiar with Wallace and his work will be totally shocked; suicide and depression were oft mentioned material for the author.  But the mere proliferation doesn’t ease the pain of losing this kind of talent.

His own prescience about knowing oneself (to use the cliche but correct Polonius phrase) and ability to take perspective, most notable (at least in the free-use realm) in his Commencement at Kenyon was one of his finest gifts.  At the same time this deftness with converting experience into words was one of his most difficult challenges to transcend.  As Wordsworth said of himself, “The world is too much with us; late and soon,” and one gets the feeling the world, and its dusty corners that Wallace shed light on, were indeed “too much with [him]“.  Thus, it is with the same sense which we took on the suicide of Elliott Smith, David Foster Wallace will be missed not with shock, but with a kind of resigned tragedy.  It’s like the rain on a parade after a dour forecast; you packed your umbrella, but hope still that the storm will pass.  He was 46 years old.

Check out his excellent fansite for more information and resources about his writing.

Robert Giroux, who passed away on Friday at age 94 was the editor for the first list and the publisher for the second.  The man had a freakish connectedness in the literary world, having done everything from publishing Orwell’s 1984 to having the following conversation with T.S. Eliot (which I liberally steal from the NYT):

“His ambition to write might have prompted an exchange with Eliot, then in his late 50s, on the day they met in 1946, when Mr. Giroux, “just past 30,” as he recalled the moment in “The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes,” was an editor at Harcourt, Brace. “His most memorable remark of the day,” Mr. Giroux said, “occurred when I asked him if he agreed with the definition that most editors are failed writers, and he replied, ‘Perhaps, but so are most writers.’ ””

Giroux was a man who went from high-school drop out to publishing house luminary and did so with considerable skill and success.  Anyone who loves great literature should take a moment and think about an extraordinary man whose talent and risk-taking produced some of the finest works ever published (and even wrote a book himself).

Personally I don’t care much for her writing but I do love those type of books (I can’t imagine how many times I’ve read Lord of the Rings and I read literally just about every piece of literature related to Star Wars in my youth).  It’s just her unimaginative prose that leaves me cold.  Her deft story crafting is undeniable and I won’t say I haven’t seen the movies (and read the first two books when I was baby-sitting) but I can’t embrace the books (don’t throw anything at me, please, Harry Potter lovers).

In any event, in the face of her success, she was invited to give this address and managed to be fairly average for the most part but at least saw through through the (literal) pomp and circumstance to what was important:

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

The rest of it dodders along through thoughts on “failure” and “success” and is interesting to read, check out the full text here.  I recall Bob Wright, CEO of NBC and a Holy Cross grad, talking at my graduation and honestly I can’t remember a single word he said (no offense Bob, I just wasn’t there for you) but Rowling’s effort isn’t too bad… maybe I would’ve listened harder in light of mere bemusement about the true nature of “success” that she was the speaker at Harvard’s graduation.

In the same way that the Russian composer group: “The Mighty Handful” of Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakriev and Borodin defined what it meant to be a Russian in music, Solzhenitsyn takes his place among brilliant minds and realist Russian philosopher/writers such as Tolstoy and Doestoevsky.

Having brought the world around to see the terrors of the Gulag, the prison system in Russia, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in literature in 1970.  Like Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn was increasing critical of the cultural systems of the west (particularly lashing out against rock music when he was exiled to the US) but fixed on a goal of ameliorating a situation many had given up hope on in his home country, then the USSR.

The amazing part about him though, is the time and tenor under which he wrote his works.  Today, if someone as prolific as Solzhenitsyn were to go to a publisher he would be awarded a lucrative book deal and a massive marketing campaign, but because his work was deemed “subversive to the Russian state” he stated this in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “…during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known…”  But luckily for us, his works would see the light of day and cause a huge uproar in the USSR and USA alike when the three volume Gulag Archipelago came out and rocked the public in a fashion similar to if a prisoner were to release a tell-all about Guantanamo (and there were even less info about it currently).

Hitchens writes that “Solzhenitsyn lived as if there were a thing as human dignity” and one is tempted to believe him.
_______________________

Find his works here.  My suggestion would be not to start with Gulag, but rather with A Day in the Life… or if you love Dante’s Inferno try on The First Circle which is about the first circle of hell where the writers and intellectuals are cursed to stay for eternity.  His writing The Cancer Ward is also unique as he spent time in a ward while cancer almost took his life in 1954.

Randy Pausch, notable computer science teacher at Carnegie Mellon died today, finally succumbing to the pancreatic cancer that he knew would take his life eventually.  Pausch, perhaps more known for his inspirational Last Lecture, given on September 18th 2007 (and subsequently published), was 47 years old.

From the AP –

The talk was videotaped and subsequently criss-crossed the world via the Internet. More than 3.2 million people had viewed the “Last Lecture” on YouTube alone as of Friday, and according to Carnegie Mellon, tens of millions have watched Pausch’s inspirational talk.

“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you,” said Pausch, the married father of three young children, at the start of the lecture.

He focused in his talk not on his illness but on “my childhood dreams; how I believe I have been able to enable the dreams of others; and, to some degree, lessons learned… how you can use the stuff you hear today to pursue your dreams or enable the dreams of others.”

Pausch outlined his own childhood dreams, which included writing a World Book Encyclopedia entry, experiencing zero gravity and creating Disney attractions — all dreams that were fulfilled…

“If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself,” Pausch said. “The dreams will come to you.”

The talk spawned a book, called “The Last Lecture,” which was translated into 30 languages and topped best-seller lists around the world.

The book was an attempt by Pausch “to put myself in a bottle that will one day wash up on the beach for my children,” he was quoted as saying by Carnegie Mellon.

Here we have the hardcover (and large print) + audio CD.

They could be scared of a plummeting book sales, but my bet is that they and many others are scared of a world where kids aren’t well educated enough to read and savor Roald Dahl. Seriously, childhood without Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The Witches can barely be called childhood.

And before anyone even suggests it, the movies do the books no justice. Grab a cup of cocoa, snuggle up with your favorite Dahl book, and relive your childhood this weekend. I know how to recognize a witch, do you??

Original article

(looking for some Dahl for Christmas?)

We’ve all got them, you know – the list you have with all the things you want to do in your life. For example:

1. Swim with sharks
2. Write a book
3. Learn to break dance

This month we’ve recruited some help for you and your list. Our friends at National Novel Writing Month (NaNo WriMo) have created a grass roots event with over 100,000 people getting together to write novels.

No Plot? No Problem! NaNoWriMo will keep in touch with you throughout November to give the emotional support and coaching to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. A novel concept indeed. Next month we’ll work on number 3 on life’s to-do list – all $100 dollar orders will get a cardboard head spin mat FREE with purchase.

We are excited to announce that John Wood, Founder and CEO of one of our partner organizations, Room to Read, has written and published a book detailing how he left Microsoft and started Room to Read.  As you know, Room to Read is an award-winning organization dedicated to providing children across the developing world with an opportunity to gain the lifelong gift of education.  Better World Books has raised over $150,000 for Room to Read over the past two years from our book drives and online book sales.

The Book is called Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, and it is available to buy now!  Room to Read has partnered with Giveline, Inc. (www.giveline.com/roomtoread) so that the margin from purchasing this book will be donated directly back to Room to Read.  The book is also available on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Borders sites.

Leaving Microsoft details John’s incredible journey from corporate executive to social entrepreneur.  John was once a rising executive at Microsoft.  He thought he had it all: the big paycheck, the corporate apartment, and proximity to legendary software giant Bill Gates.  However, in 1998, he took a vacation that changed his life.

While trekking in the Himalayas, John visited a rural Nepali school and was confronted by the harsh reality faced by millions of children in the developing world — there were no books in the library!

As John left the village that day, the headmaster made a simple request: “Perhaps, Sir, you will some day come back with books.”  This request became a mission, one which John has dedicated “the second chapter of his adult life” to fulfilling:  changing the world one book and one child at a time by setting up schools and libraries across the developing world.

As of July 2006, Room to Read has opened nearly 3,000 libraries with 2 million books, set up over 2000 girls with long term scholarships, and opened nearly 200 schools.   Nearly a million children now have the opportunity to gain the lifelong gift of education.  To learn more visit: www.leavingmicrosoftbook.com and www.roomtoread.org.

The team at Better World Books has read John’s memoir and we highly recommend it.  Publishers Weekly agrees – in a starred review, they described the book as “an infectiously inspiring read [in which] Wood endears himself to the reader with his honesty and introspection.”

We hope that you will not only buy the book, but also share this mail with others.  Better World Books is proud to be funding the amazing work of Room to Read, and we believe that the launch of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World is a wonderful opportunity to share this story with millions of potential supporters.

Sincerely,

The Better World Books Team