New local reading series

I don't often plug for stuff here--but there is a new series going in town that is too cool not to mention.

Bill Caperton(musician, cheesemonger and lover of words) has done the hard work on this. Info can be found at http://crashcourse.tumblr.com

Readings for, and by, the people. With smart themes. Win-win as far as I'm concerned. Many thanks to Bill for getting this show rolling. We're lucky to have him here.

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything."

Homer Simpson, author of above quote, went on to say that, "14% of people know that."

I thought of this quote yesterday when I was doing some data entry for late summer/early fall titles and saw that "Freakonomics" was finally coming out in paperback. At one time, not so long ago, that book needed no introduction or explanation. It was at the top of the NYT bestseller list, the authors were being interviewed seemingly everywhere and people were(mostly) in love with their quirky math. But, in the book world, that was eons ago. So let me step back a moment.

The book was published originally and quietly in April of 2005. It quickly picked up steam and, what followed, was all the aforementioned success. Crazy findings coupled with "sound" numbers became the 'it' thing. So the book sold and sold and sold...So much that when the normal time arrived for a paperback to release--generally one year--the publishers said, "Aw, forget it. We'll keep selling this thing until it dies." Reports are that 3 million copies were sold. That comes from their own website http://freakonomicsbook.com .

I wasn't down on the decision to keep it going until they made one mistake. A new edition was planned and put together to revise some mistakes, update some data and make it a little spiffier. The problem was they did this in another hardcover--published in 2006 and more expensive than the original at $29.95 For on-line and other discount retailers this might not have made a difference. But for normal bookstores it was quite odd and required lots of explaining to customers who were surprised by the lack of a paperback and the increase in price.

So, now, we come to the paperback which is due in August and will retail for $15.99 The word is also out that they're working on a new book, "Superfreakonomics." Books are like movies in that anything that does well must be copied and pushed to its furthest logical point so I certainly don't begrudge the new book or their overall success. I, in fact, really enjoy lots of the pieces. But why wait so long? I wonder if, in the end, the book wasn't done a disservice. Is it possible that the book and its ideas have been forgotten--even by the reading public? I don't know the answer to those questions and I'm no publisher or economist--so the answers, very well, could point to the opposite of my thoughts.

In a time when publishers and readers are feeling an economic crunch from all sides is it better to offer more for less? I think so. So here's to hoping for great things from their new works--and a more sensible paperback release time frame.

Book geekiness and super intensity

I'm an admitted book geek and I understand, truly, how odd my love of books is to the great majority of the world. But I own my geekiness. One of 'odd shelves' of books is true stuff--and specifically, true crime related to books and other art.

So I was very happy to find a copy of "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" by Allison Hoover Bartlett waiting for me at the store yesterday. The book doesn't officially come out until September 2009 and I'm only twenty-five pages in so it's way too early to know if it's good yet. But I was struck by one of the epigrams.

"For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner...let him be struck with palsy, & all his members blasted...Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever."--Anathema in a medieval manuscript from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona.

Now, I'm all for serious punishment for serious crime and whatnot--but that is some serious venom coming from those monks. Just another reminder not mess with religious orders or theft.

Corpus Libris

Hey Good People: I did decide to return from NYC despite enjoying the Great Lawn, Shake Shack and wonderful public transportation an awful lot. I'll be getting to the winners of the swag in the next couple days(don't get too excited--it's recession swag) but I want to post something real quick and point you to an incredibly fun book blog. http://corpuslibris.blogspot.com/ is a site where they post pictures of people posing with book covers. I submitted one a few weeks back and we'll see if it makes the cut. Sadly, we had a hard time lining it up just right because my face is longer than a cheetah's. Almost, but not quite right.