Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.
Wow, have I been dogging the blogging. Sorry about that. The cat's been away, I hope the mice have taken advantage. The other night, just after 10 pm, three 8' bookcases decided to topple over in the home office of the BBG Cave, smashing this, that and just about everything in their path. The cleanup continues, but along with all of the other stuff one deals with in everyday life, it hasn't left much time for bringing you book news. For which I apologize. Let's get to it.
*** As Ebay continues to flounder about like...like...well, like a flounder gasping for air on a boat dock, Bonanzle continues to grow at a pace not seen before in ecommerce. I was one of the first few hundred to join, as of today the membership stands at over 28,000, with over one million items listed. BBG at Bonanzle. A number of articles have been published lately documenting their rise.
Bonanzle growing faster than a largemouth bass in a pond full of minnows
*** And yet, with ebay's idiocy well documented by now, there are still so-called journalists out there that are so far behind the curve they still give credence to ebay's press releases. Seriously, for those who follow this on a regular basis, you read articles like this and wonder if the person who wrote it even knows how to turn on their computer, they are so far out of the loop. But I guess somebody has to write a fluff piece and this doofus volunteered.
Kissing the ebay toad
Contrast that fluff piece with this much better thought out look at the dying ebay. It's amazing what happens when someone who actually understands ecommerce and is familiar with the details of what Donohoe has done to destroy his company writes about it.
Gigging the ebay toad
*** Okay, maybe a catalogue is stretching the news about books thing just a little, but not so much that it bothers me. When the Nazis overran Europe, one gets the sense that is was more to arrange a shopping spree than for any other reason. Most of the bigwigs gobbled up collections of this or that, but the most voracious collector of them all was Hermann Goring. Now a catalogue of his ill-gotten gains has been compiled. I wish I knew how many of these had been returned to their rightful owners.
Goring had good taste, anyway
*** Forrest Ackerman has long been considered the greatest collector in SFandom. When he died he vowed to take it with him but, so it would appear, that really isn't possible. Thus, the bulk of his collection is being auctioned off and is expected to bring a cool half mil. Having once met him I can say that I found him a gracious and genuinely kind man. One of the good ones.
Forry's stuff is going on the block
*** Not long ago I profiled The History Press, a publisher that whose mission I greatly admire. They are in the news now, in a good way. It seems they felt obligated to pay back royalties to some authors, even though they were not legally libel for them, and have now done so. The CEO who oversaw this operation has stepped down now that the job is done.
So let me get this straight: a company does the right thing even though they don't have to. And the man whose job it was to accomplish this moves on when his job is finished. Can this be true? Do ethics and morals still exist in business today? I guess they do. Who'd a thunk it?
The History Press shows the way
*** Let's put this under the category of 'Laughing so you don't cry.' It seems that Bill Ayers, the terrorist who tried to kill people as a member of the Weather Underground, a group that did its best to kill people, good friend and mentor of the new president, is getting his own graphic novel. That's right, a member of a group of would-be murderers not only gets to walk the streets, he also gets illustrated editions of his books. Too bad they failed, he probably would have gotten a bigger advance. Nice gig.
He tried to kill people, failed, and now gets paid for it
*** I guess most bookies know that I was once an avid comic book collector. And, like every other collector, I drooled at the thought of stumbling on a copy of Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman. And before you ask, no, it didn't happen. But it did happen to someone else, even if it was 59 years ago. And when a cherished comic like this finally leaves its owner's hand and comes on the marketplace, it's very big news indeed.
The first linked article explains how and where this comic comes from. That's interesting. But what's even more interesting to me is that, while the comic will be auctioned online, the word 'ebay' is nowhere in the picture. Instead, the auctioneer will be using their own website. Ha! For those who follow such things this spells doom for ebay, because when they are no longer attracting this sort of high profile rarity you know things are turning south. Oh, and by the way, the original Superman didn't fly, he could just leap a really long way.
Action Comics #1 Found
Wanna see what it looks like?
Showing posts with label Bonanzle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonanzle. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Baseball is near
Good Sunday morning, bookies! It's bright skies and warmish weather here in West Tennessee and my least favorite month of the year has given way to my second-least favorite month of the year. February is a month of hope, no matter how cold it might be. Because in less than two weeks I'm going to read those magic words that mean Spring is just around the corner: 'Pitchers and catchers reported to training camp today." That's right, baseball season is getting close, and they don't call them the Boys of Winter, now do they? Heck, college baseball season starts in less than two weeks. Let's get this show on the road.
*** Sometimes I tell you things and you don't listen. Like last August when I told you about the new start-up ebay alternative I had found and made a home, Bonanzle. You didn't believe me, or you blew it off and thought 'yeah, yeah, where have I heard that before?' But here we are, six months later, with Bonanzle past the million listing mark and being heaped with praise from media everywhere. Of course, it's still early in the company's history, so you, too, can jump on the bandwagon.
Bonanzle keeps growing
*** The list of Best and Worst places to work in 2008 seems a bit harsh to me. The Best Place to work would be anywhere that gives you a paycheck that doesn't bounce. The worst would be the place that lays you off. But, using different criteria, Glassdoor has compiled its own list, presumably one of companies that actually still pay their employees. And guess who at Number 47 in the bottom 50? Yep, you guessed it, ebay. The site-that-aims-to-have-zero-traffic has never been a highly rated place to work, but bottom 50 is pretty bad. I guess John Donohoe hates his employees as much as he hates his sellers. and no, that doesn't make sense, but neither does anything else the company has done for the past year.
ebay rated as one of the worst places to work by its employees
*** Since we're on the subject of auctions sites and ebay, here's a quick little round up of what some of them plan for the immediate future:
Coming soon to a site near you
*** And, since there's more ebay stuff, we'll just pile it all on here. This actually involves more than just ebay, it's about how our beloved Congress wants to make life even harder for those trying desperately to make a little extra cash on the internet. Why people want these buffoons to have even more control of their lives is beyond me.
Of course, the irony in the attached story is that while Congress is out to destroy the small internet seller once and for all, ebay, who has spent the last year trying to do this very thing, wants help from the small seller in fighting against Congress. In other words, the Devil wants our help fighting Satan.
Two vampires fighting over the same blood
*** Ah, finally, you say. An actual blog entry about a book. Isn't that what this blog is supposed to be about?
There is an obvious new trend in World War II histories, one that is quite refreshing to someone like me, but might be easily misunderstood. Namely, historians are examining the role of the Allies in what some might call atrocities. Certainly the Americans, French and British did not set out to commit atrocities, and those that were committed were done so against the rules. But not so with the Red Army, whose behavior in Germany was at least as bad, if not worse, than the German behavior in the USSR. But the Germans had in coming, you say? Not so fast there, bucko.
Let us not forget that until June, 1941, the USSR was no friend of either England or the USA. Stalin had, by that point, invaded and conquered half of Poland (we always forget that the Red Army also attacked Poland in September of 1939), the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, had attacked Finland (without provocation or warning) and taken the Karelian Isthmus for herself, had taken Bessarabia from Rumania...in other words, Stalin was every bit the aggressor that Hitler was, except that his conquests did not have ties of allegiance to the west. Nor was he any less bloody in his treatment of the populace. How many Ukranians were killed during the collectivization of the 20's? Millions, surely, but how many millions? 10-20 million is the figure I see most often.
So the Russo-German War was, in reality, a clash between one murderous dictator and another, nothing more, nothing less. Does the fact that Stalin was an ally of the West during the war years excuse the Red Army's barbarous behavior? It's a question that probably could not have been asked until recently.
Here's a seven year review of Anthony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall, who was the first of the big named authors to start down this path.
The Red Army's bloody road of rape
*** Hallelujah, hallelujah, we are saved from ourselves by the US Congress! But not for another year.
Bookies have read my rants about the idiotic new anti-lead law passed by the US Congress that was so poorly written that it banned almost anything that could even be seen by a kid under 12, including used books. I commented at the time that, like almost everything Congress does, it was so out of touch with reality that it would need to be seriously amended, delayed or cancelled. Well, the government has picked delay. The silliness won't go into effect until next year, presumably so they can issue guidelines to try and make sense of the senseless.
I say again, just ban imports from China and be done with it.
*** Sometimes I tell you things and you don't listen. Like last August when I told you about the new start-up ebay alternative I had found and made a home, Bonanzle. You didn't believe me, or you blew it off and thought 'yeah, yeah, where have I heard that before?' But here we are, six months later, with Bonanzle past the million listing mark and being heaped with praise from media everywhere. Of course, it's still early in the company's history, so you, too, can jump on the bandwagon.
Bonanzle keeps growing
*** The list of Best and Worst places to work in 2008 seems a bit harsh to me. The Best Place to work would be anywhere that gives you a paycheck that doesn't bounce. The worst would be the place that lays you off. But, using different criteria, Glassdoor has compiled its own list, presumably one of companies that actually still pay their employees. And guess who at Number 47 in the bottom 50? Yep, you guessed it, ebay. The site-that-aims-to-have-zero-traffic has never been a highly rated place to work, but bottom 50 is pretty bad. I guess John Donohoe hates his employees as much as he hates his sellers. and no, that doesn't make sense, but neither does anything else the company has done for the past year.
ebay rated as one of the worst places to work by its employees
*** Since we're on the subject of auctions sites and ebay, here's a quick little round up of what some of them plan for the immediate future:
Coming soon to a site near you
*** And, since there's more ebay stuff, we'll just pile it all on here. This actually involves more than just ebay, it's about how our beloved Congress wants to make life even harder for those trying desperately to make a little extra cash on the internet. Why people want these buffoons to have even more control of their lives is beyond me.
Of course, the irony in the attached story is that while Congress is out to destroy the small internet seller once and for all, ebay, who has spent the last year trying to do this very thing, wants help from the small seller in fighting against Congress. In other words, the Devil wants our help fighting Satan.
Two vampires fighting over the same blood
*** Ah, finally, you say. An actual blog entry about a book. Isn't that what this blog is supposed to be about?
There is an obvious new trend in World War II histories, one that is quite refreshing to someone like me, but might be easily misunderstood. Namely, historians are examining the role of the Allies in what some might call atrocities. Certainly the Americans, French and British did not set out to commit atrocities, and those that were committed were done so against the rules. But not so with the Red Army, whose behavior in Germany was at least as bad, if not worse, than the German behavior in the USSR. But the Germans had in coming, you say? Not so fast there, bucko.
Let us not forget that until June, 1941, the USSR was no friend of either England or the USA. Stalin had, by that point, invaded and conquered half of Poland (we always forget that the Red Army also attacked Poland in September of 1939), the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, had attacked Finland (without provocation or warning) and taken the Karelian Isthmus for herself, had taken Bessarabia from Rumania...in other words, Stalin was every bit the aggressor that Hitler was, except that his conquests did not have ties of allegiance to the west. Nor was he any less bloody in his treatment of the populace. How many Ukranians were killed during the collectivization of the 20's? Millions, surely, but how many millions? 10-20 million is the figure I see most often.
So the Russo-German War was, in reality, a clash between one murderous dictator and another, nothing more, nothing less. Does the fact that Stalin was an ally of the West during the war years excuse the Red Army's barbarous behavior? It's a question that probably could not have been asked until recently.
Here's a seven year review of Anthony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall, who was the first of the big named authors to start down this path.
The Red Army's bloody road of rape
*** Hallelujah, hallelujah, we are saved from ourselves by the US Congress! But not for another year.
Bookies have read my rants about the idiotic new anti-lead law passed by the US Congress that was so poorly written that it banned almost anything that could even be seen by a kid under 12, including used books. I commented at the time that, like almost everything Congress does, it was so out of touch with reality that it would need to be seriously amended, delayed or cancelled. Well, the government has picked delay. The silliness won't go into effect until next year, presumably so they can issue guidelines to try and make sense of the senseless.
I say again, just ban imports from China and be done with it.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Feeling snarky
Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.
And the comment part needs an apology in advance. The day is again cold and overcast, downright gloomy, and Seasonal Affective Disorder is not a laughing matter. So if I'm a bit grumpy don't blame me, blame the weather. And then do something about it.
*** As many of you know, or even if you don't, your friendly neighborhood bookseller depends quite heavily on the US Post Office. Make that, completely depends on the USPS. And over the past few years he has noticed the level of service at his local post office plunging. It's not good. That's not to say that the fine people working the counter are to blame, they're not. Some are faster than others, true, but overall they work hard and fast and BBG has no complaints. Except that there aren't enough of them.
My post office has 5 windows and usually only two are manned at any given time, regardless of how long the line may be. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, there are three. A few weeks ago I walked in, the place was jammed with customers, but all five windows were manned and the employees were flying around like they were possessed. I knew at soon as I walked in that some bigwig must be in the house, and so it was: the local postmaster was paying a visit. Amazing what you can do when the boss is watching.
Anyway, we now learn that the post office wants to cut back on delivery days. Unlike the private sector, where poor service that leads to lower business means somebody gets the axe and somebody else increases the quality of the service provided, the government decides that if they can't serve you in the proper fashion and you take your business elsewhere, instead of improving themselves they will just cut back on the level of service they provide. Brilliant. Instead of delivering mail 6 days a week they want to cut back to 5. Why 5, then? Why not 4, or 3 or 1? That would save lots of money.
The truly ironic part about this linked article is how it would affect ebay sellers. You have to laugh, don't you? Ebay, which should have been flourishing as people try to sell their stuff to makes ends meet, is dying because of gross mis-management by a con man, and now the USPS wants to cut back because of mis-management. Ebay sellers must think they have been forsaken. Glad I'm no longer one of them, although I do depend on the post office.
I think I agree with the commercial: put firefighters in charge and get out of the way.
Post Office is tired from working semi-hard and needs a break
*** Speaking of ebay, their newest, and possibly their one-day-to-be biggest competitor, Bonanzle, topped the 1 million listing mark the other day. Pretty impressive stuff. The site now has over 23,000 members and the page hits are approaching a quarter million.
*** And while we're on the ebay thing again, the con man John Donohoe has a new scheme up his sleeve: Fulfillment by Ebay. Essentially, sellers will ship their items to a central Ebay warehouse, who will them send them to the customers. Oh boy, doesn't that sound like a good idea. The guy who drove the stock from $34 down to the $12-13 range wants sellers to trust him to deliver the goods. Really, you have to laugh. But what's the most humorous is that some people are going to take him seriously and actually debate the merits of this lunacy.
*** The world has changed and I can now admit this: growing up, I was a comics guy. That's right, I read and collected comic books, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I am, however, ashamed to admit that I sold them all off long ago. At one time I had a decent copy of X-Men #1, Spiderman #3 (and up), Conan #1-up, Avengers 1-66...well, I had some great stuff. Anyway, I wish I had been as smart as the guy in the article below, keeping them until I could donate them to a library and take the tax write-off. Not that I need a tax write-off these days.
Old friends in a new home
*** There is a project to digitize the books in the Library of Congress, to make them available to everyone. Assuming that whoever puts together the website where these could be used knows what they are doing, I think this is a fine idea. But, seeing as how I'm feeling cold and snarky today, I have to wonder whether a library maintained for the use of Congress has ever been used by one of the elected leaders in the Congress today. And I have to doubt it. For the Founding Fathers, of course, it was virtually mandatory. Indeed, after the British burned the original library it was re-started by Jefferson giving his personal library to the country. Today's politicians seem too self-absorbed, though, too busy stepping in and out of limousines and giving press conferences, to actually sit down and read something. So if this project makes the rare works in the Library of Congress accessible to those who will read them, I think that's just dandy.
*** Keeping with today's theme, me being cold and tired of winter and overly critical, here's an article on something that just offends the heck out of me: authors as brands. James Patterson and Stuart Woods are two examples of this, writers who don't so much write as disgorge material that is, supposedly, theirs, but which I suspect is thrown together by others from some passing thought the Branded Writer throws out. Maybe that's just me being cynical, but does James Patterson have time to actually write the 40 or 50 (or however many it really is) books that come out every year with his name on them? Is it even physically possible to do this? I know they use about an 18 point font and probably don't have more than 30,000 words per book, but still.
Oh well. Maybe I just know too many worthy authors who either can't get published, or can't get noticed behind the stacks of Patricia Cornwell's latest monstrosity at the chain bookstore. I think of all the good stuff out there lost in the drek and am sad. Or maybe it's just me. I'll let you decide.
Authors as Corn Flakes
And the comment part needs an apology in advance. The day is again cold and overcast, downright gloomy, and Seasonal Affective Disorder is not a laughing matter. So if I'm a bit grumpy don't blame me, blame the weather. And then do something about it.
*** As many of you know, or even if you don't, your friendly neighborhood bookseller depends quite heavily on the US Post Office. Make that, completely depends on the USPS. And over the past few years he has noticed the level of service at his local post office plunging. It's not good. That's not to say that the fine people working the counter are to blame, they're not. Some are faster than others, true, but overall they work hard and fast and BBG has no complaints. Except that there aren't enough of them.
My post office has 5 windows and usually only two are manned at any given time, regardless of how long the line may be. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, there are three. A few weeks ago I walked in, the place was jammed with customers, but all five windows were manned and the employees were flying around like they were possessed. I knew at soon as I walked in that some bigwig must be in the house, and so it was: the local postmaster was paying a visit. Amazing what you can do when the boss is watching.
Anyway, we now learn that the post office wants to cut back on delivery days. Unlike the private sector, where poor service that leads to lower business means somebody gets the axe and somebody else increases the quality of the service provided, the government decides that if they can't serve you in the proper fashion and you take your business elsewhere, instead of improving themselves they will just cut back on the level of service they provide. Brilliant. Instead of delivering mail 6 days a week they want to cut back to 5. Why 5, then? Why not 4, or 3 or 1? That would save lots of money.
The truly ironic part about this linked article is how it would affect ebay sellers. You have to laugh, don't you? Ebay, which should have been flourishing as people try to sell their stuff to makes ends meet, is dying because of gross mis-management by a con man, and now the USPS wants to cut back because of mis-management. Ebay sellers must think they have been forsaken. Glad I'm no longer one of them, although I do depend on the post office.
I think I agree with the commercial: put firefighters in charge and get out of the way.
Post Office is tired from working semi-hard and needs a break
*** Speaking of ebay, their newest, and possibly their one-day-to-be biggest competitor, Bonanzle, topped the 1 million listing mark the other day. Pretty impressive stuff. The site now has over 23,000 members and the page hits are approaching a quarter million.
*** And while we're on the ebay thing again, the con man John Donohoe has a new scheme up his sleeve: Fulfillment by Ebay. Essentially, sellers will ship their items to a central Ebay warehouse, who will them send them to the customers. Oh boy, doesn't that sound like a good idea. The guy who drove the stock from $34 down to the $12-13 range wants sellers to trust him to deliver the goods. Really, you have to laugh. But what's the most humorous is that some people are going to take him seriously and actually debate the merits of this lunacy.
*** The world has changed and I can now admit this: growing up, I was a comics guy. That's right, I read and collected comic books, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I am, however, ashamed to admit that I sold them all off long ago. At one time I had a decent copy of X-Men #1, Spiderman #3 (and up), Conan #1-up, Avengers 1-66...well, I had some great stuff. Anyway, I wish I had been as smart as the guy in the article below, keeping them until I could donate them to a library and take the tax write-off. Not that I need a tax write-off these days.
Old friends in a new home
*** There is a project to digitize the books in the Library of Congress, to make them available to everyone. Assuming that whoever puts together the website where these could be used knows what they are doing, I think this is a fine idea. But, seeing as how I'm feeling cold and snarky today, I have to wonder whether a library maintained for the use of Congress has ever been used by one of the elected leaders in the Congress today. And I have to doubt it. For the Founding Fathers, of course, it was virtually mandatory. Indeed, after the British burned the original library it was re-started by Jefferson giving his personal library to the country. Today's politicians seem too self-absorbed, though, too busy stepping in and out of limousines and giving press conferences, to actually sit down and read something. So if this project makes the rare works in the Library of Congress accessible to those who will read them, I think that's just dandy.
*** Keeping with today's theme, me being cold and tired of winter and overly critical, here's an article on something that just offends the heck out of me: authors as brands. James Patterson and Stuart Woods are two examples of this, writers who don't so much write as disgorge material that is, supposedly, theirs, but which I suspect is thrown together by others from some passing thought the Branded Writer throws out. Maybe that's just me being cynical, but does James Patterson have time to actually write the 40 or 50 (or however many it really is) books that come out every year with his name on them? Is it even physically possible to do this? I know they use about an 18 point font and probably don't have more than 30,000 words per book, but still.
Oh well. Maybe I just know too many worthy authors who either can't get published, or can't get noticed behind the stacks of Patricia Cornwell's latest monstrosity at the chain bookstore. I think of all the good stuff out there lost in the drek and am sad. Or maybe it's just me. I'll let you decide.
Authors as Corn Flakes
Friday, January 16, 2009
This, that, the other and more
Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.
When I said I might miss a few blogs this week, I didn't think it would mean the whole week. Sorry about that. I was in Arlington, VA., for the funeral of my uncle, a most solemn and moving experience. It's hard to express how you feel when you realize that someone you thought of as merely 'uncle so and so', a nice man who was there your whole life wearing his cherished but heavily worn jacket, his baggy pants, paying you to wrap his Christmas gifts when you were a kid, growing his own vegetables and pickling them for Christmas gifts, that seemingly ordinary man who was your uncle earned through his career the honor that brought 40-50 men and women of the United States Army to venture out into the January cold for his funeral, people he had never met but who honored him as one of their own. There was a band, an honor guard, a horse-drawn caisson, the riderless horse with the boots backward in the stirrups. There was the shooting guard firing its salute, and an honest-to-goodness bugler to blow Taps. He was buried less than 200 yards from his oldest brother, both in the shadow of the Pentagon. From five brothers born to a middle class family, two are buried at Arlington.
I guess I always knew my uncle was special, just not special in this particular way.
Now I'm back, so let's get to blogging.
*** Okay, someone has my ideal life. Or one of my ideal lives, anyway. Running a bookstore on the high seas. Yep. If we can have a ship that is a floating condo complex, why not one that is a giant bookstore? This is one of the neatest things I've ever seen, I wonder if it could navigate the Mississippi River up to Memphis? I have to assume that the books are all new, unless the public brings in their used books to sell (trade?) while the ship is in port, which would really be kind of neat. The link is to an older story about the ship, there are newer stories but this one had the best pictures.
Floating bookstore
*** During the 60's and 70's there was a flurry of activity surrounding Japanese soldiers who were left behind and forgotten on various islands scattered around the Pacific during World War II, men who didn't know the war had ended and were still fighting (or, mostly hiding from) US forces. I have read the autobiography of one such man, Onoda, who was trapped on a small Phillippine Island until 1974 but who was accused of cowardice on his return to Japan. (The Japanese of the pre-war period weren't big on forgiveness) Now here's the story of another such man who, for some inexplicable reason, lived a similar story but was NOT thought of as a coward on his return to Japan. I think to know the reason one was thought a coward and the other was not, you would need to be Japanese.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/KA17Dh01.html
*** I know, you're going into withdrawal. It's been more than a week without a story bashing ebay. Well, this is a Bonanzle story, not an ebay, exactly. Of course, without ebay's momentous choke job last year there would not BE a Bonanzle, not one growing so fast as the 2009 version, anyway, so the following story from CNN shows just how far the little-site-that-could has come. More than 20,000 members now and you can only think it will grow exponentially from his point.
*** Bonanzle gaining steam and members
*** The demise of the independent bookstore is rather an old story by now, but there is still room to mourn when a good one goes under. I never shopped at Cody's, but it seems like the sort of store that I would have liked. Our local independent small-chain seller, Davis-Kidd books, is terrific, the personnel irreplaceable, but one can only hope they are in this for the long run. Losing them would hurt very badly, so I understand the sense of loss for Cody's loyal customers.
A good one bites the dust
*** There was a time when I took historian David Irving seriously. As did many other people, I might add. He was British, he was a historian, he sounded good and had the right credentials. His opinions were a bit different than most, but so what? Mine are too. Of course, this was before he wound up in jail in Austria for denying the Holocaust. (As an American this seems bizarre, that someone could be thrown in jail for espousing a political view, even one as awful as this. But if I am ever in Austria again, and I hope that I am, you can be sure I won't be denying the Holocaust or Sieg Heil-ing down Kartnerstrasse, even if I were so inclined, which I'm not. I mean, how stupid can you be?)
Anyway, Irving lost pretty much all credibility when he went about saying the Holocaust wasn't real and didn't happen, but this has lead to a most interesting turn: Irving, it seems, was chosen by Hitler himself to be his biographer. Not that the two ever met, of course. Irving spent part of his childhood dodging bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe and was still a child when Hitler ate the end of a Walther. But, no matter. Hitler somehow knew Irving would come along one day and appointed him the task of writing his 'true' biography. How could he know such a thing? don't think about it, you'll get a headache. Instead, read the attached article, it's fascinating and eerie and you'll hope you're never sitting next to Irving on a long plane flight.
David Irving is even stranger than you thought
*** I note that Patrick McGoohan died Tuesday in L.A. 'The Prisoner' was one of those fleeting moments of remembered greatness in one's youth, so transitorily wonderful that you never forget it. During one of my two years at UT Knoxville there was a marathon of 'The Prisoner's' one and only season that I sat through until my backside ached. The series was one of those that was so uniquely English that it could never have been made anywhere else, and efforts to try would have failed miserably.
A legend has passed.
*** Not merely one legend, however. I see where sir John Mortimer has died and this is truly a loss that I will feel. For those who haven't discovered Rumpole of the Bailey, I feel sorry for you. Second only to PG Wodehouse in my estimation of the great 20th century British humorists, Mortimer could seemingly will laughs from even the most dour reader. 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' is something all husbands can relate to and none would admit to doing so. Sigh...
No more Rumpole
When I said I might miss a few blogs this week, I didn't think it would mean the whole week. Sorry about that. I was in Arlington, VA., for the funeral of my uncle, a most solemn and moving experience. It's hard to express how you feel when you realize that someone you thought of as merely 'uncle so and so', a nice man who was there your whole life wearing his cherished but heavily worn jacket, his baggy pants, paying you to wrap his Christmas gifts when you were a kid, growing his own vegetables and pickling them for Christmas gifts, that seemingly ordinary man who was your uncle earned through his career the honor that brought 40-50 men and women of the United States Army to venture out into the January cold for his funeral, people he had never met but who honored him as one of their own. There was a band, an honor guard, a horse-drawn caisson, the riderless horse with the boots backward in the stirrups. There was the shooting guard firing its salute, and an honest-to-goodness bugler to blow Taps. He was buried less than 200 yards from his oldest brother, both in the shadow of the Pentagon. From five brothers born to a middle class family, two are buried at Arlington.
I guess I always knew my uncle was special, just not special in this particular way.
Now I'm back, so let's get to blogging.
*** Okay, someone has my ideal life. Or one of my ideal lives, anyway. Running a bookstore on the high seas. Yep. If we can have a ship that is a floating condo complex, why not one that is a giant bookstore? This is one of the neatest things I've ever seen, I wonder if it could navigate the Mississippi River up to Memphis? I have to assume that the books are all new, unless the public brings in their used books to sell (trade?) while the ship is in port, which would really be kind of neat. The link is to an older story about the ship, there are newer stories but this one had the best pictures.
Floating bookstore
*** During the 60's and 70's there was a flurry of activity surrounding Japanese soldiers who were left behind and forgotten on various islands scattered around the Pacific during World War II, men who didn't know the war had ended and were still fighting (or, mostly hiding from) US forces. I have read the autobiography of one such man, Onoda, who was trapped on a small Phillippine Island until 1974 but who was accused of cowardice on his return to Japan. (The Japanese of the pre-war period weren't big on forgiveness) Now here's the story of another such man who, for some inexplicable reason, lived a similar story but was NOT thought of as a coward on his return to Japan. I think to know the reason one was thought a coward and the other was not, you would need to be Japanese.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/KA17Dh01.html
*** I know, you're going into withdrawal. It's been more than a week without a story bashing ebay. Well, this is a Bonanzle story, not an ebay, exactly. Of course, without ebay's momentous choke job last year there would not BE a Bonanzle, not one growing so fast as the 2009 version, anyway, so the following story from CNN shows just how far the little-site-that-could has come. More than 20,000 members now and you can only think it will grow exponentially from his point.
*** Bonanzle gaining steam and members
*** The demise of the independent bookstore is rather an old story by now, but there is still room to mourn when a good one goes under. I never shopped at Cody's, but it seems like the sort of store that I would have liked. Our local independent small-chain seller, Davis-Kidd books, is terrific, the personnel irreplaceable, but one can only hope they are in this for the long run. Losing them would hurt very badly, so I understand the sense of loss for Cody's loyal customers.
A good one bites the dust
*** There was a time when I took historian David Irving seriously. As did many other people, I might add. He was British, he was a historian, he sounded good and had the right credentials. His opinions were a bit different than most, but so what? Mine are too. Of course, this was before he wound up in jail in Austria for denying the Holocaust. (As an American this seems bizarre, that someone could be thrown in jail for espousing a political view, even one as awful as this. But if I am ever in Austria again, and I hope that I am, you can be sure I won't be denying the Holocaust or Sieg Heil-ing down Kartnerstrasse, even if I were so inclined, which I'm not. I mean, how stupid can you be?)
Anyway, Irving lost pretty much all credibility when he went about saying the Holocaust wasn't real and didn't happen, but this has lead to a most interesting turn: Irving, it seems, was chosen by Hitler himself to be his biographer. Not that the two ever met, of course. Irving spent part of his childhood dodging bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe and was still a child when Hitler ate the end of a Walther. But, no matter. Hitler somehow knew Irving would come along one day and appointed him the task of writing his 'true' biography. How could he know such a thing? don't think about it, you'll get a headache. Instead, read the attached article, it's fascinating and eerie and you'll hope you're never sitting next to Irving on a long plane flight.
David Irving is even stranger than you thought
*** I note that Patrick McGoohan died Tuesday in L.A. 'The Prisoner' was one of those fleeting moments of remembered greatness in one's youth, so transitorily wonderful that you never forget it. During one of my two years at UT Knoxville there was a marathon of 'The Prisoner's' one and only season that I sat through until my backside ached. The series was one of those that was so uniquely English that it could never have been made anywhere else, and efforts to try would have failed miserably.
A legend has passed.
*** Not merely one legend, however. I see where sir John Mortimer has died and this is truly a loss that I will feel. For those who haven't discovered Rumpole of the Bailey, I feel sorry for you. Second only to PG Wodehouse in my estimation of the great 20th century British humorists, Mortimer could seemingly will laughs from even the most dour reader. 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' is something all husbands can relate to and none would admit to doing so. Sigh...
No more Rumpole
Friday, December 12, 2008
Happy Birthday Mom!
Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.
*** Tomorrow I'm having my last Bonanza of the year. Maybe you can find something there you like, but even if not, check out Bonanzle for yourself. The fastest growing sales site on the net.
*** Did you know that The Guinness Book of World Records only has one printing? It's true. Once it's sold out, it's sold out. And despite an 11% increase in copies this year, the publisher has completely sold through their stock.
*** The cathartic aftermath of losing Forrest J. Ackerman continues as those who knew him grieve and remember. I was not so privileged, but knowing he was around somehow made life a little better. Heaven is probably filled with lots of Forrest Ackerman's.
25 things we miss about Uncle Forry
*** Sal Yvars had passed away. Sal was a baseball player, a catcher, who supposedly signaled Bobby Thompson that a fastball was headed his way during a game in 1951, a pitch that Thompson smacked out of the park for one of the most famous home runs in history, 'The Shot Heard Round the World.' Whether Yvars did this or not still isn't known for certain, but the incident has been written about in a number of books and so merits a very tenuous mention in this blog. (I wasn't sure if the connection was close enough to books so I asked the editor, who okayed its inclusion. Of course, I'm the editor.)
*** In the 'the horse is dead, let's see if we can beat it back to life' category, a new trend for Ebay-ites fed up with John Donahoe's nonsense is for sellers to sue buyers who leave them negative feedback. This, of course, is necessitated because JD left them no option when he shut down what had always made Ebay work, its two-way feedback system. Who said the collapse of a major corporation wasn't entertaining?
This ought to get Ebay some good press
*** I guess we've all heard of the King James Bible. I didn't realize that only 50 copies of the first 1611 edition still existed. The linked article has a nice photo of one that was donated to Hardin-Simmons University. This is the sort of story that appeals to my imagination, because it is possible that William Shakespeare could have handled that very book. (Yes, yes, I know the odds and everything. Jeez, can't a guy dream?)
And if flights of fancy don't appeal to you, the story of the couple who donated the Bible, along with a whole collection of other Bibles and related material, is quite touching. Karma can be bad, but it can also be very, very good.
Rare 1611 King James Bible
*** Finally, yes, it's my mom's 91st birthday today. I wish I was half as spry. Happy Birthday Mom!
*** Tomorrow I'm having my last Bonanza of the year. Maybe you can find something there you like, but even if not, check out Bonanzle for yourself. The fastest growing sales site on the net.
*** Did you know that The Guinness Book of World Records only has one printing? It's true. Once it's sold out, it's sold out. And despite an 11% increase in copies this year, the publisher has completely sold through their stock.
*** The cathartic aftermath of losing Forrest J. Ackerman continues as those who knew him grieve and remember. I was not so privileged, but knowing he was around somehow made life a little better. Heaven is probably filled with lots of Forrest Ackerman's.
25 things we miss about Uncle Forry
*** Sal Yvars had passed away. Sal was a baseball player, a catcher, who supposedly signaled Bobby Thompson that a fastball was headed his way during a game in 1951, a pitch that Thompson smacked out of the park for one of the most famous home runs in history, 'The Shot Heard Round the World.' Whether Yvars did this or not still isn't known for certain, but the incident has been written about in a number of books and so merits a very tenuous mention in this blog. (I wasn't sure if the connection was close enough to books so I asked the editor, who okayed its inclusion. Of course, I'm the editor.)
*** In the 'the horse is dead, let's see if we can beat it back to life' category, a new trend for Ebay-ites fed up with John Donahoe's nonsense is for sellers to sue buyers who leave them negative feedback. This, of course, is necessitated because JD left them no option when he shut down what had always made Ebay work, its two-way feedback system. Who said the collapse of a major corporation wasn't entertaining?
This ought to get Ebay some good press
*** I guess we've all heard of the King James Bible. I didn't realize that only 50 copies of the first 1611 edition still existed. The linked article has a nice photo of one that was donated to Hardin-Simmons University. This is the sort of story that appeals to my imagination, because it is possible that William Shakespeare could have handled that very book. (Yes, yes, I know the odds and everything. Jeez, can't a guy dream?)
And if flights of fancy don't appeal to you, the story of the couple who donated the Bible, along with a whole collection of other Bibles and related material, is quite touching. Karma can be bad, but it can also be very, very good.
Rare 1611 King James Bible
*** Finally, yes, it's my mom's 91st birthday today. I wish I was half as spry. Happy Birthday Mom!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
No contest
Good morning bookies! It's Thursday, time for news and comment.
*** Good grief. Ebay can't even run a contest right these days. What a mess. You have to wonder if they are screwing up the site on purpose, because if they aren't, they should be. With page views down, time spent on the site down, the stock way down, even the dunces running the company realized something was wrong, so they had the good idea to do something about it. Fix what they had screwed up?
Well, no.
They decided that what Ebay needed was a contest! That's right, some good old-fashioned smoke and mirrors. But at least a contest might draw in traffic and drum up some good will, right? Wrong. At least, wrong when you leave it open to automated scripts and wind up angering the very people they were trying to make happy. Like every single change Ebay has made since disruptive destroyer Donahoe took over, this latest debacle has the feeling of haste and waste written all over it.
Ebay screws up their own contest
*** It has long been said that the book publishing industry is recession proof. I've never quite understood that logic, in the final analysis books are a commodity in many way, but that has been the common wisdom. At least until now. The big boys of publishing, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, they are all down-sizing, laying off and in general consolidating.
Darwinism in the publishing world?
From this vantage point, however, this might not be all bad. In the end the industry will be forced to change, to take a long, hard look at itself, and that is generally a good thing. What may emerge is a better, more responsive publishing industry. What form this will take is hard to say with certainty, but it's entirely possible that small publishers will have a new chance to make inroads into the market, something they did not have before. After all, book distributors have to have books to distribute, and if the big houses aren't supplying them they will have to look elsewhere.
As all bookies who are addicted to this blog know, Ebay is a frequent topic here because your friendly neighborhood bookseller once sold lots and lots of books on Ebay, that is, until they went and screwed up the site and...and...wait, where was I? Oh, that's right. As everyone knows, Ebay's declaration of war on sanity has given new startup competitors a chance to make inroads into the marketplace, and in John Donahoe's wreckage-strewn wake such potentially lethal adversaries as Atomic Mall and Wigix and, my current favorite, Bonanzle.com, have sprung up to challenge the king of the hill. And there is no reason to think something similar cannot happen in any industry, including publishing.
*** Good grief. Ebay can't even run a contest right these days. What a mess. You have to wonder if they are screwing up the site on purpose, because if they aren't, they should be. With page views down, time spent on the site down, the stock way down, even the dunces running the company realized something was wrong, so they had the good idea to do something about it. Fix what they had screwed up?
Well, no.
They decided that what Ebay needed was a contest! That's right, some good old-fashioned smoke and mirrors. But at least a contest might draw in traffic and drum up some good will, right? Wrong. At least, wrong when you leave it open to automated scripts and wind up angering the very people they were trying to make happy. Like every single change Ebay has made since disruptive destroyer Donahoe took over, this latest debacle has the feeling of haste and waste written all over it.
Ebay screws up their own contest
*** It has long been said that the book publishing industry is recession proof. I've never quite understood that logic, in the final analysis books are a commodity in many way, but that has been the common wisdom. At least until now. The big boys of publishing, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, they are all down-sizing, laying off and in general consolidating.
Darwinism in the publishing world?
From this vantage point, however, this might not be all bad. In the end the industry will be forced to change, to take a long, hard look at itself, and that is generally a good thing. What may emerge is a better, more responsive publishing industry. What form this will take is hard to say with certainty, but it's entirely possible that small publishers will have a new chance to make inroads into the market, something they did not have before. After all, book distributors have to have books to distribute, and if the big houses aren't supplying them they will have to look elsewhere.
As all bookies who are addicted to this blog know, Ebay is a frequent topic here because your friendly neighborhood bookseller once sold lots and lots of books on Ebay, that is, until they went and screwed up the site and...and...wait, where was I? Oh, that's right. As everyone knows, Ebay's declaration of war on sanity has given new startup competitors a chance to make inroads into the marketplace, and in John Donahoe's wreckage-strewn wake such potentially lethal adversaries as Atomic Mall and Wigix and, my current favorite, Bonanzle.com, have sprung up to challenge the king of the hill. And there is no reason to think something similar cannot happen in any industry, including publishing.
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