I learned about the blog “Stuff White People Like” from Jared at Thinklings. Can’t say I would have clicked on a link to this blog if I had seen it in a list of 10 popular or interesting blogs from some reputable site, but I saw in the NY Times that the writer has received a book deal at $300k. The writer, Christian Lander, comments on this deal:
The combination of white people and books has been a pretty solid combo for the past few hundred years. So whenever a white person is given a chance to write a book, it’s considered a pretty big deal. This is especially true when it happens to someone who started a blog that they never expected to reach more than 100 people.
I gather this is site is inline with the white mascot joke seen in this remarkable line of products, though maybe it’s the reverse of that. Either way, Random House thinks Lander has something going for him, so bully for him.
The publisher of Wired magazine is taking up the publishing role for The Atlantic magazine. Jay Lauf is moving from great success at Wired to “a smaller, less prosperous” magazine.
Scott Powers reports: “Borders books and Disney Publishing Worldwide are looking for a new fairy character — and the child who creates the fairy can win a stay in the exclusive Cinderella Suite in Walt Disney World’s Cinderella’s Castle.” Have you seen photos of that suite?! Wow. But who am I to talk? I’m sure you’ve stayed in nicer places.
They’ve made Narnia into a pop-up book with, NARNIA CHRONOLOGY: From the Archives of the Last King. I’m tempted to get this for my children as a Christmas present. It has “pop-ups, gatefolds, pull tabs,” illustrations, and other gimmicks to present the stories from start to finish.
A library in Oxford and one in Washington D.C. are collaborating to put online all 75 editions of William Shakespeare’s plays printed in the quarto format before the year 1641. These editions have been available only to scholars before, so this project will make them available to pseudo-scholars and failed intellectuals as well. You can brush up your Shakespeare now, if you like, with The Oxford Shakespeare on Bartleby.com.
A journalist advises publishers that checking up on all those memoirs isn’t impossible and appears to be advisable. “Standard industry rationalizations for not checking anything are: It would be too expensive and, besides, we have to trust our authors.” Trust. Sure.
Random House is testing an idea of selling books in pieces, one chapter at a time. “Publishers are convinced that as it becomes easier to download books, and screen technology improves, an ever-larger number of readers will opt to receive digital content,” reports Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of the Wall Street Journal. Also, HarperCollins is publishing some books for free online access, testing the waters for its ability to increase sales.
Media sales at Amazon.com are way up, and the new Kindle is playing a part. Chairman Jeff Bezos said the demand for Kindle “has outpaced expectations and that the company is scrambling to fill orders,” according to Publishers Weekly (by way of ArtsJournal.com).
Almost thirty years ago, an American graduate of Kings College, Cambridge, reinvented the university’s old magazine, Granta. This week, it’s one hundredth issue is in the wild on both sides of the Atlantic.
Buzz Girl writes about Ursula K. Le Guin’s new novel, “Unlike anything Le Guin has done before, this is an imagining of Lavinia, the king’s daughter in Vergil’s Aeneid, with whom Aeneas was destined to found an empire.”
She says there will be a marketing splash made by Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook, a “literary mystery by a writer’s writer.” I haven’t heard of Cook, but I’m interested in literary mysteries and strong writing.
She reports “HarperOne is the new identity for HarperSanFrancisco, publishing books on religion, spirituality and personal growth.” They have a couple books on politics and faith or religion coming soon. First, Jim Wallis thinks he’s gotten something to say in The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. I don’t care if the “religious right” label goes the way of the world, but if Wallis thinks the country has rejected conservative faith as exercised in government, he needs to get around more.
Second from HarperOne is God in the White House: A History–1960-2004: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush by Randall Balmer. Could be interesting.
Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, continues to criticize his Creator and display his twisted faith in secondary sources with a new book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer. Perhaps this one will inspire several response books too, just as his other one did.
In other news, Andrew Kalvan’s next book is coming this summer. Empire of Lies deals with a man with strong faith and a solid family who came from a violent life which comes back to haunt him. He is thrown into “a murderous conspiracy only he can see and only he can stop—a plot that bizarrely links his private passions to the turmoil of a world at war.”
They’ve made Narnia into a pop-up book with,