The Book Maven

March 3, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you know that Reed Elsevier is selling off Reed Business Information, the arm of the company that puts out PW and 299 other trade publications.

This week's PW has an editorial from Sara Nelson about the announcement. She acknowledges the bad news, admits that she's "strangely buoyed" by the new twist, and then:

"What's more, the whole situation appeals to the reader in me: what a great narrative! A media entity that covers the comings and goings of other media entities is now, itself, coming and going. The reporters of change have now become the subject of it."

Of course, one of the things going on here that no one has discuss...Read More

February 29, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

William F. Buckley, Jr.: Whether or not you admired anything he wrote, you have to admire his fierce devotion to the written word and his "polysullabic exuberance." How appropriate that he died at his desk, where he "might have been working on a column," son and novelist Christopher Buckley told The NY Times.

Dutton's Bookstore: Customers weeping in the courtyard, 40 employees with uncertain futures, and real-estate issues -- just another day in the all-too-familiar history of independent bookstores. Dutton's, an L...Read More

February 27, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (6)

Anne guessed correctly, because she liked its cover, that I have been reading Black Ships by Jo Graham.

Black Ships is out from Orbit Books in a week or two, but I've got tell you a bit about it because it's quite unusual. Orbit specializes in science fiction and fantasy, and while Graham's novel may technically fit the fantasy category, it's actually a literary inversion, a retelling of Virgil's Aeneid. 

I don't want to tell you any more until you've had a chance to find the book in your local bookstore, but I'll definitely talk about it again. I don't read a lot of SF/fantasy (maybe I should, but so many books...), and I would love to know about more like Graham's (and yes, I have read The Mists of Avalon!).
...Read More

February 26, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (10)

Take a break from all of the presidential campaigning out there and cast your vote for something that doesn't matter one bit, but will make you laugh: voting for The Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title is now open. 

A list of this year's nominees, as well as winners back to 1978, is here. The winner will be announced on March 28, and the person who spotted it receives a magnum of champagne. This article from The Bookseller, which sponsors the contest, not only provides synopses of the shortlist, but announces that as 2008 is the 30th anniversary of the award, a special "Diagram of Diagrams" prize will...Read More

February 25, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

I didn't manage to stay up past Best Actress (Mr. Bethanne and I had just finished watching "La Vie en Rose" this weekend and I think Marion Cotillard deserved the award for Edith Piaf's eyebrows alone) last night. But how great is it that the Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor awards all went to "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men" -- adaptations! Hmmm...an Oscar for Best Adaptation...I like it...

Since I went to bed early, I was up early, reading. I'm so happily engaged in my latest book I thought I'd offer a round of Page-Burner. Which of these titles is the one that I come back to again and again?

                                ...Read More