Ruth Madoff, wife of the Bernard Madoff in the recent news, supposedly co-wrote a kosher cookbook with a friend a few years back. Now the editor of that book claims she wrote the whole thing herself. The NY Times reports Karen MacNeil “was paid to write the cookbook in its entirety. She said Mrs. Madoff ‘was interested in having her name on something that would allow for some sort of fun.'” Maybe this ghostwriting is a small thing, even a common thing in publishing, but in context with the Madoffs’ story of late, it seems to reveal one more way in which the couple lacked any character. (via ArtsJournal)
Category Archives: Publishing
A pox on thee, unnamed publishing company!
It’s cold outside, but I’m in luck, being hot under the collar.
I have a problem with a Christian publisher.
Not in the sense of an author having a problem with his own publisher, but in the sense that a bookstore manager has trouble with a supplier.
I deal with a lot of Christian publishers, and a few secular ones, and most of the time I find them professional, helpful and prompt. If there’s a problem, they let me know about it.
I’ve found one exception, though.
I’d love to tell you the name of the company, but I guess it would be prudent and charitable to withhold it. Continue reading A pox on thee, unnamed publishing company!
Safety Law Could Close Bookseller, Library Kids Sections
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), signed into law last August, calls for third party lead testing of all products for children under age 12. According to reporter Alissa Harris, “On February 10, . . . all products for children under 12 — books, games, toys, sports equipment, furniture, clothes, DVDs, and just about every other conceivable children’s gadget and gewgaw — must be tested for lead, and fall below a new 600 part-per-million limit, or face the landfill. Thanks to a September 12 memo from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the lead limit applies not only to new products, but also to inventory already on store shelves.”
Testing for each item can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, and somehow each retailer is responsible for its current stock–no overlap from certified publishers. Libraries appear to be on the hook for certifying that their children’s books are lead-free, even if the process for making the books uses no lead. From the same article in The Phoenix:
Historically, books have been considered more dangerous to read than to eat. Regardless, a memo from the CPSC, issued the day before Christmas Eve, explicitly quashed any hope that books might escape the new law. To make matters worse, even publishers that have already had their products tested for lead will be forced to retest. In the same memo, existing test results based on “soluble lead” — a measure of whether lead will migrate out of a product — were rejected by the CPSC because they did not measure “total lead content.”
The CPSC has not issued any ruling on whether libraries, schools, and other institutions that loan — rather than sell — books will be subject to the law. Without such clear guidance, says Adler, schools and libraries should assume they have to comply.
It appears thrift stores and other second-hand shops will be exempt, so maybe libraries will be spared as well. The safety act is intended to stop poor quality imported toys, like those recalled several times in the last couple years. How can the Feds follow through with this gnat-straining law and actually put several booksellers, educational material retailers, and toy-makers out of business? If I’ve read the news aright, they won’t force anyone to close down. They will only threaten to sue them into the ground if one of their products has a lead problem. That’s modern day mercy for you.
Dropping Words from the Dictionary
“Abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, disciple, minister, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin and devil”–these words apparently didn’t make it into the latest update of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. That is, the words were taken out of Oxford’s 10,000-word children’s dictionary. Also cut were heather, buttercup, and sycamore.
From the Telegraph article, a mother named Lisa Saunders, said, “The Christian faith still has a strong following. To eradicate so many words associated with the Christianity will have a big effect on the numerous primary schools who use it.”
The article claims “Ms Saunders realised words were being removed when she was helping her son with his homework and discovered that ‘moss’ and ‘fern’, which were in editions up until 2003, were no longer listed.”
It’s Like Art Collecting
“Authentic publishing is a lot like art collecting: You have to have a talent for it, and that talent shows in the outcome,” writes Frank Wilson.
Book News Linkage
President Sarkozy Has the Rights to His Image
French President Sarkozy owns and can manage the use of his image, says his lawyer, so the little voodoo doll kit with his likeness must go.
Life Was ‘Tremendous’
Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, a publisher, speaker, and salesman, died of cancer last week after a good (relatively short) life of loving people to the Lord. He challenged individuals and audiences to read well and often, saying “You are what you read” and “You can tell a leader by the books he’s read” (roughly quoted).
Charlie was one of those irritating people who laugh and rejoice in the things of the Lord so boldly it makes us quiet people uncomfortable. When I heard of his death, the man who told me said, “Last time I spoke with him, Charlie said, ‘My doctor gave me good news! The cancer has spread, I will soon be with my Savior in Heaven!'”
I heard a man say that Charlie made him a reader several years ago–by fire in sense. Charlie called the man up before an audience to ask him what he was currently reading, assuming he was reading something worthwhile. The man wasn’t a reader and stumbled around a bit, trying to answer. Charlie called him a loser–in a cheery way–embarassing him deeply. Later, he hugged the man, like he did many people, and got his address. Charlie sent the man several leadership and spiritual life related books (Pilgrim’s Progress may have been included, I don’t remember). The gift, at least in part, turned the man away from his anger and made him a reader. (I can’t recommend that method for building readers, btw.)
Now God has blessed Charlie by freeing him from his earthly body. May He raise up more just like him.
Congratulations!
Kudos to Jared Wilson, one of the rising stars in 21st Century Literature. His book on the person of Christ is being published.
Conservative Books and Imagination
In City Journal, Harry Stein writes on the future of conservative books:
Outside the new [conservative-minded] imprints, the New York publishing world clearly remains a liberal stronghold, uncomprehending of, when not outright hostile to, conservative ideas—and authors. Mainstream media outlets that conventional publishers rely on to tout books have just as little enthusiasm for conservative titles. And though George W. Bush has been an incredible boon to conspiracy-mongering authors on the left, he’s done the opposite of good for sales at the new imprints, which have faced a much tougher market of late. In fact, there is much evidence suggesting that the rich vein of Coulter-style liberal-bashing polemics that drove so much of conservative publishing’s healthy sales has largely been mined. Amid all this uncertainty, will the new conservative imprints survive?
Whether particular publishing imprints and companies make it in the long run is unimportant to me. Conservative books will find printers, generally speaking. What I’d like to see is a surge in intellectual vigor in conservatives and Christians alike.
Also in City Journal, Andrew Klavan says some of us don’t imagine things very well.
Now you may say that capturing the imagination isn’t the job of our fighting forces. But this is America, remember: we’re a country of the imagination, a living state of mind. We’re not connected to one another by bloodlines or any depth of native memory. We’re the descendants of an idea that every generation has to learn to hold in its collective consciousness. More than in any other country, it matters in America who we think we are and what we believe we’re doing.
City Journal also has some damning material on Obama advocate and revolutionary, Bill Ayers. Sol Stern writes:
Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.)