Category Archives: Bookselling

Authors, Bookselling

Waldorf salad

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Salvesen Hall at Waldorf University. In my day, the library was on the ground floor at the left end, and in the cellar below.

So I did it. I went back to the college of which (out of the three I attended) I have the fondest memories, Waldorf College (now University) in Forest City, Iowa. It was Homecoming weekend, and they had an “authors’ fair” featuring four published authors who’d attended the school. I was the oldest of the lot, the Historical Footnote, you might say.

It turned out to be a fairly small affair, with maybe thirty people in attendance. The venue was a room in the new library (which looked pretty swanky to an old book gnome who used to toil in the former digs in the cellar of Salvesen Hall). We sat at a table at the front, and each of us got to do a 15-minute reading. Then there was a general Q&A session, and a time for bookselling. I read Chapter 15 of The Year of the Warrior, where Erling Skjalgsson meets Olaf Trygvesson as their ice-covered ships pass in the Boknafjord.

Two of my fellow authors were quite young, the third middle-aged but a recent graduate of the school’s Creative Writing program. That put me in the odd (to me) position of being the Grizzled Professional. A lot of the questions were directed to me as the one with the most experience of the publishing business. Although – as I took pains to point out – most of my experience is from another age and no longer applicable, except in spirit.

I hope I didn’t act like too much of an ass. Everybody was nice to me, but this is Iowa so that tells you nothing.

I sold a fair number of books for the size of the crowd, and received a handsome purple insulated cup with the school logo, from which I am drinking now, as a gift. Also an alumni sticker for my car.

The weather was glorious – bright sun and temperatures in the upper 70s, very clement for Iowa in late October. I hadn’t been back to Waldorf for decades (Christiania College in Wolf Time was modeled on it), and I was a little disoriented. First of all, the place looks smaller now than it did when I was 18. And they’ve changed a fair number of things. New buildings have been built, a reflecting pool has been dug by the Campus Center, and I had some trouble at first getting my bearings. Also, certain things are gone now, such as the World War II-era temporary classrooms where I studied Norwegian (I think I parked in that space, though I may be a few yards off).

I wanted to take time to do a walk-around, but didn’t get around to it. And it doesn’t really matter – it’s not the same school. It’s owned by new people and has a whole different mission. I came as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and I exited stage right when my scene was done.

Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Fiction, Poetry, Reading

Old Ogden Nash Hardcovers, Praising e-Readers, and Brain-Changing Reading

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For some years, I’ve had a water damaged copy of Ogden Nash’s Good Intentions. Here’s a look at a good copy of it; this one has the slip cover too (I hadn’t seen it before).

Yesterday, I found similar red, hardback copies of Many Long Years Ago, a collection of mostly previously published verse from 1931-1945, and The Private Dining Room, new verse published in 1953. I refrained from replacing Good Intentions or buying another volume they had, so you know what that says about me. We don’t need to say it out loud. I also could have purchased one of a couple more recently published anthologies. This is one of them. But, if I do anything, I’d like a set of the five red hardcovers.

Here are a few lines from Many Long Years Ago.

“Who wishes his self-esteem to thrive
Should belong to a girl of almost five.”

“We’ll remind each other it’s smart to be thrifty
And buy our clothes for something-fifty.”

“If turnips were watches they’d make as good eating as turnips.”

Reading: In praise of e-readers and the joy of winning an argument with a print-only reader who has so many books that he loses the ones he has.

How would Jesus advertise? I have a hard time believing Jesus would encourage us to spend millions on advertising his character traits. How many vice is being funded with a Super Bowl ad? But I also have a hard time throwing stones at this.

Does reading change the brain? “When it comes to a cultural trace in the form of literature, we would really like to know whether there is some sort of permanent alteration to the structure of the brain.” They chose Robert Harris’s Pompeii to see if they could detect a small brain change.

Banned Books: Anthony Sacramone has a book challenge for public schools. “Try and get all these at one go onto a public school curriculum (NYC, LA, SF) and see how that goes. I’d love to be proven wrong.”

Mystery: John Wilson reviews another Cameron Winter story, A Strange Habit of Mind, by Andrew Klavan, to be released in a few days.

Authors, Bookselling

Going public

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Above, something I’ve never seen before – a clip of John D. MacDonald giving a speech. He reminisces on his struggling years as a writer. The advice here is still good in terms of a writer’s attitude, but happily we don’t have to worry about the condition of returned manuscripts anymore. Say what you like about digital publishing, but you can’t deny the pages are always just as pristine, however many times you send them out. Any blemishes are likely to be grammatical, and your own stinking fault.

One thing I’ve rarely done in my long but obscure career  as a writer is give a public reading of my work. I’ve done a few signings – generally a harrowing and not very rewarding experience, but only a few readings. Which is odd when you think of it, because I’m good at that. Radio and acting experience, as I’ve mentioned more often than necessary.

But I’m going to be doing a reading on Saturday. It’s Homecoming time at Waldorf University, Forest City, Iowa, one of my several alma maters. Waldorf is special to me, because it was the first college I attended. They’re doing an authors’ forum, featuring several Waldorf graduates who write books. I’ll be one of them. I’m supposed to do a 15-minute reading, and then there’ll be a question-and-answer period, and we’ll have the chance to sell our books.

Consequently, I won’t be blogging on Friday, since I’ll be traveling that day. We appreciate your patience, and thank you for flying Brandywine Books.

Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Reading

The Powerful Rings So Far, Libraries, and Freedom in Commitment

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Someone in our house picked up Amazon Prime, which means we’ve watched five episodes of The Rings of Power. If you remember what Lars said about not watching it, those reasons still stand. After the first two shows, I told the rest of my family it was not a Tolkien’s story, but a good fantasy that leaned heavily on Tolkien’s established world. It could have been independent of Middle Earth, but then it wouldn’t have gotten all of the hype, fans of Tolkien wouldn’t have come out of the woodwork to comment, and it wouldn’t have disappointed viewers as badly as it has.

I can’t say I’m in the most disappointed camp yet, though I have my complaints. Straight out of the gate, the writers tell us there was a time without darkness, which I took to mean evil had yet to come into the world, but they follow those words with little Galadriel getting bullied over her toy boat. Then they say, you know why a boat floats and a rock sinks? It’s because a boat has hope and keeps it head up. If the dialogue had maintained that level of inanity for the whole first episode, I would have dropped it, but it improved. Not before arguing that Galadriel, who had bent her life on stamping out Sauron, was in danger of sustaining the evil by seeking it, because if evil isn’t out there, but you think it is, then you could become the very thing you seek.

Those were meta level reasons I said the story wasn’t Tolkienesque, but it still seemed okay as we moved along. Characters weren’t doing stupid things until maybe episode five. A wizard-like character who fell from the sky has not been explained–he’s interesting. The Sylvan elf is the only one fighting at this point and has gotten in some good Legolas moves. The Duran-Elrond storyline is good overall.

But with episode five, things have begun to turn sour. There’s a laughable fighting tutorial that suggests swordmen should fight with their feet, not with their arms. An actor with stage fighting experience has a couple videos in response to this part of the show, in which he explains how actors swing weapons to appear lethally aimed when they aren’t and what the camera must do to make a battle look real.

  1. Fight Scene Autopsy
  2. How Fights Tell a Story

I could say more, but many others have said many things about this show already. I should just move on with blogroll links.

Bookcases: “We’re so enamored of digital technology we often presume its superiority; worse, we sometimes forget its alternatives even qualify as technologies.” Joel Miller recommends a bookcase as the most underrated user interface we have.

Coffee: Artist Alyssa Ennis paints detailed architecture and landmarks of Northeast Ohio using pencils and coffee. Her dad sculpts wildlife models from wood.

Liberty: Peter Mommsen writes about our love of liberty, fear of commitment, and the freedom found in making good vows. “I soon discovered that being bound [by a vow] didn’t feel like a loss of liberty. On the contrary, once the step had been taken, paralyzing daydreams about other possible life paths disappeared . . .”

Libraries: The Palafoxiana Library in Puebla, Mexico is the oldest public library in the Americas. “On the first floor, there are more than 11,000 Bibles, religious documents and theological texts. The second level is dedicated to the relationship between God and people — chronicles of religious orders and the lives of saints — and the third contains books on physics, mathematics, botany, language, architecture, even carpentry.” (via Arts Journal)

Photo: Springfield Library, Springfield, Massachusetts. 1984. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Non-fiction

An Artist of the Brandywine School, a Best-of List, and Dreaming of October

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The Scythers by N. C. Wyeth (1908) Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Artist and illustrator N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), trained by the famous Howard Pyle and painter of the Brandywine School, produced illustrations for many Scribner’s Classics editions such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Last of the Mohicans and The Yearling.

Best of: Ted Gioia offers his paid subscribers his reviews of the 50 best works of non-realist fiction (sci-fi, alt-history, fantasy, and more). Read the list for free (part one of five so far). The reviews are behind the paid wall.

Gothic Stories: Ray Bradbury released 27 stories in a collection called Dark Carnival. Eight year later, he had matured considerably as a writer and was able to republish a new, revised edition of 19 tales under the name October Country.

In this short span, he wrote his breakthrough story cycle, The Martian Chronicles, a book that signified a start to the genre’s inclusion in mainstream literature; published the celebrated science-fiction collection The Illustrated Man; followed up with the underrated collection of mixed fiction (fantasy and contemporary realist prose), The Golden Apples of the Sun; wrote his magnum opus, Fahrenheit 451; and began work on the screenplay for Moby-Dick for director John Huston.

Theology: Dale Nelson reviews a preface to fantasy author George MacDonald’s theology. He favored Christmas over the cross. “Christ came to show us complete childlike trust in the Father.”

What’s in a name? “Six months and still your parents couldn’t name
the boy they wished a girl. They let a crowd
of tipsy cooers at their resort pluck
Edwin from a hat.”

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (V.ii)

Cleopatra: His legs bestrid the ocean, his reared arm
Crested the world. His voice was propertied
As all the tunèd spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in ’t; an autumn ’twas
That grew the more by reaping. His delights
Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above
The element they lived in. In his livery
Walked crowns and crownets; realms and islands
were
As plates dropped from his pocket.

Dolabella: Cleopatra—
 
C: Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dreamt of?

D: Gentle madam, no.

Bookselling

Masterful Book Blurbs Have a Long History

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I’ve had some rough days recently. I was sick most of last week with recurring fevers that held me down. I think the antibiotics are working me over, making me sleepy in the middle of the day or maybe only after I have coffee.

While sick I read most of Brian Jacque’s Redwall, which the kids all read years ago. Got to make sure I didn’t corrupt their minds back in the days of their impressionable youth. That question still crops up occasionally.

Today, we discerned that a burned fuse was preventing the Honda Accord from shifting out of park. Praise the Lord, it’s drivable again, but we need to replace it soon, and I’m rotten at buying cars. The descriptions are relatively similar and I want to believe them. I want to believe it’s a reliable car at a good price. Why shouldn’t it be?

Like a book blurb, they may say we have an “unparalleled epidemic of masterpieces,” and I want to believe them. But are any of them compelling enough to read?

“Some blurbs are so obscenely fulsome they give me a good laugh. Superlatives worthy only of the Deity pile up like cancer cells.”

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Reading

The Queen Overwhelmed, Author Regrets, and Other Sad Things

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No matter where they are in the world, when someone refers to the Queen, they almost always mean Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

This photo of the young queen hangs in Nottingham’s Council House (Lee Haywood/Flickr).

A photo from the coronation in June 1953 is in this BBC photo essay of her life.

C.S. Lewis watched Elizabeth’s coronation on TV and wrote this in a letter:

. . . the Queen herself appeared to be quite overwhelmed by the sacramental side of it. . . .

The pressing of that huge, heavy crown on that small, young head becomes a sort of symbol of the situation of humanity itself: humanity called by God to be his vice-regent and high priest on earth, yet feeling so inadequate. As if he said, “In my inexorable love I shall lay upon the dust that you are glories and dangers and responsibilities beyond your understanding.”

C.S. Lewis on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (via Mindy Belz)

Celebrities: “But over time, it seemed, the fallen leaders managed to accrue immense social power without true proximity. They cultivated an image of spiritual importance while distancing themselves from embodied, in-person means of knowing and being known.” Gina Dalfonzo reviews Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church by Katelyn Beaty.

A Writer’s Regrets: A.N. Wilson, who has published over 40 novels and other books, has released a memoir. He “says that he cannot believe that the ‘young fogey’ of the 1970s and 1980s, dapper, elegantly suited, was him. He describes himself as thrustingly ambitious, full of himself and unfaithful not only to his wife but to his own better nature.”

Stolen Books: Joel Miller has a roundup of stolen book news, such as the Gospel manuscript that was taken during WWI and how Bibles were a common stolen good when he worked at a bookstore in California.

“Growing up, I often heard that the medieval church used to chain up Bibles so average people couldn’t read it. It’s a common myth. The reality is that illiteracy was the norm, average people had better things to do than read, and books were only chained to keep clerics, monks, and visiting scholars from stealing valuable property—or reading in the latrine.”

Religious History: “. . . the more you got to know the men, the more human did they become, for better or worse; you were more concerned to find out why they thought as they did than to prove it was wrong.”

Photo: 7-Up Building, Portland, Oregon. 1976. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Bookselling, Reading

When All Your Books Pose a Problem, the Problem Could Be You

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This month a high school English teacher quit her job in response to the enforcement of a new Oklahoma state law on teaching controversial subjects. School officials instructed their teachers to cover up or remove books from their classrooms whose “titles might ‘elicit challenges'” to the law. If a teacher could reasonably defend a book, it wouldn’t have to be covered up or removed.

Summer Boismier had 500 books in her classroom and covered up all of them with paper and the note “Books the State Doesn’t Want You to Read.” She printed a QR code for students to get easy access to the Brooklyn Public Library’s “Books Unbanned” program, which decries the challenges that have been made to teens reading books written by Black or LGB-etc. authors.

What books does this program recommend?

“As part of the initiative, the library will also make a selection of frequently challenged books available with no holds or wait times for all BPL cardholders. The books include: Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, Tomboy by Liz Prince, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison.”

Is this what Boismier had on her shelves? Were school officials fine with this library before Oklahoma HB1775 was passed?

Looking at the language of the law, these books would not be a problem unless they were required reading. They certainly weren’t banned. Moreover, if the principal and school board allowed such books in the classroom, they were definitely not banned.

What the law forbids is a teacher or course instructing students in such ideas as racial inferiority, discrimination, and inherent oppression. It attempts to prevent students from believing they should discriminate against their peers on the basis of race or sex and that due to their category in society they are inherently oppressed or oppressors.

The intent of this law is completely lost on some librarians and teachers who seem to think their discriminatory judgment cannot be challenged by anyone. A challenge to one book is seen as a challenge to all books.

With my limited knowledge of the books named above, I’m going to suggest Toni Morrison’s novel is the most valuable and least objectionable. Her writing and themes are marvelous, but you can see in this report out of St. Louis reasons The Bluest Eye would be challenged for teenagers. I’m confident some of what’s referred to here is difficult to read and would be better read by those college-aged and older.

It’d be safe to bet The Bluest Eye was in Boismier’s lending library, but was every other book of the “Books Unbanned” type? No Moby Dick or Paradise Lost? No Great Expectations? Was there a collection of poems by Gwendolyn Brooks? (She talks about her most famous poem and objections to it in a recording from the Academy of American Poets.)

All of the books in that classroom couldn’t have been problematic according to the school’s interpretation of the law. The real problem is how they got into the school in the first place.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

See me in Brainerd!

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If you’re anywhere around Brainerd Minnesota on Saturday, you have the awesome opportunity to see me at the Crow Wing Viking Festival, demonstrating the ancient Viking craft of selling paperback books. And, oh yes, there’ll be some other Vikings around, doing actual Viking stuff.

It’s held at the fairgrounds. You can learn all about it at the festival web site, linked above. We did it there last year too, and it was great fun. I recall we were all champing at the bit to go back in time again, after a long two long years of Plague and Penance.

This looks to be an interesting summer for me. I may be going as far as Montana next month, and I’m scheduled to participate in an alumni author’s forum at one of my several alma maters, in Iowa, for Homecoming. I’ll keep you informed.

I’ll have a post tomorrow, in spite of being out of town — if I can figure out how to set this contraption to “post later.”

If not, you’ll see the next post right away.

Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Poetry, Publishing

Writing as Reality TV, Old Tech, and the 2022 Bestsellers

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Writers everywhere say their craft is much like a reality show–their every action watched and analyzed, applauded and jeered. Looking awesome while writing or typing have been the notable skills of great authors such as Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, and Willy Makeit. The first reality star author, Dante Alighieri, is supposed to have said, if he were any more verbosely handsome, he’d be king.

Big Brother is after American authors in Kwame Alexander’s proposed show America’s Next Great Author. He’s putting together a pilot and calling for contestants who will pitch novel ideas to the judges. Six contestants will be selected for a month-long reality show retreat during which they will write the novel they pitched. And that’s not all.

“Throughout the retreat, they’ll also participate in storytelling challenges and work with mentors to develop their stories,” Publishers Weekly reports. Show co-creator David Sterry said “the challenges will ‘show off a writer’s ability to use words, think fast, be creative,’ but also help them to learn to market and promote their books ‘because writers are called upon to do so many different tasks now in modern publishing that have nothing to do with writing your book.’”

And will they have anything like their book or their sanity when they finish? (Via Prufrock)

Surely they took this idea from Monty Python’s Novel Writing sketch, featuring the athletic writing talents of Thomas Hardy.

Old Tech: Frank Adams’s Writing Tables, 16th-century English writing technology via 𝕊onja Drimmer on Twitter – “It’s especially famous for two things: its erasable pages and the survival of its original stylus.”

Bestsellers: Among the bestselling books of 2022, Colleen Hoover is making a killing. Publishers Weekly has the list. Hoover’s novel It Ends with Us is #1 and three other novels are on the list too.

National Poet: The Library of Congress has appointed the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón. (via Literary Saloon)

Photo: World’s largest buffalo, Jamestown, North Dakota. 1990. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.