Silverfish - News

So, tell me something I don't know, you must be saying. This report from the Daily Mail says that three-quarters of adult readers in Britain still like to read children's stories like Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, The Chronicles Of Narnia and the Harry Potter books. (They missed out The Vicar of Nibbleswick, my favourite, but then that's because I am dyslexic.)

About one quarter like reading 19th century romances and classics such as Little Women, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Topping the 'secret reads' list is Harry Potter. Others are Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles Of Narnia, Mills and Boon, The Hobbit, Black Beauty, Bridget Jones, Adrian Mole, and The Kama Sutra. (Though I don't understand why it should be secret.)

The survey of 2,000 adults was conducted for lulu.com by YouGov.

The Daily Mail

You know what a pain it is to browse through a hundred titles on the internet, especially if you live in Malaysia with stone age broadband? Anyway, it is so much more fun to go through the books in a bookshop (despite the risk of permanent nect injury from looking at titles sideways at some). Firstly, you get to go through more books in less time. Then you get to touch and feel (or is it caress?) the books, admire the paper and print quality, the embossed title, the UV laminate, and smell them (I mean, take in the aroma) before you are allowed to be seduced and agree to take them home with you -- for they are such beautiful objects. In contrast buying books on the internet is so cold, so utilitarian, so functional, so unromantic, so blah. Worse than that would be downloading a book digitally. (Okay, textbooks and academic material do deserve to be downloaded digitally, though porn is will probably be the first to get there -- erotica, right! )

At Zoomii, 'You can zoom in and out of bookshelves or pan around to navigate the service. The site design feels just like you're browsing a bookshelf at any bookstore except the books are facing cover-forward instead of spine-out. To keep up with the feel of a bookstore, books are organized by author and you can also compare book sizes to get a feel for how big or small a book is ...' and then buy it at Amazon.

I tried Zoomii. It does all the tings it says it does, but I found it a bit clunky. I guess, you could chance to spot a book you have been looking for all your life while Zoomii-ing about, but it does not beat finding one in your local bookshop, and cheaper too.

But now at zoomii.com comes something in between. Still does not quite beat browsing in a bookshop, but it is quite cool.

ReadWriteWeb

Zoomii

We all know about the Cannes film festivals with the stardust and red carpets, but did you know about the Cannes Lions? The Cannes Lions 2008, 55th International Advertising Festival was held from the 15th to the 21st of June. We have been told that this is generally regarded as the Olympics of the advertising world. So, why are we telling you this? Because the advertisement Saatchi & Saatchi, Petaling Jaya designed for Silverfish Books has just won the Gold in the Outdoor Lion category. Ta-daaa!

You can see the winning entries at Silverfish Books (some of you already have) or at this website: http://www.canneslions.com/winners/outdoor/win_2_1.htm

The creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi, Petaling Jaya is Adrian Miller. Sounds familiar? It should. He wrote the short story News in Silverfish New Writing 5 and who was the Creative Director behind the cover design for the book. Adrian just came back from Cannes (after a well-deserved week's holiday in Paris) and is bubbling with excitement. You would too if you won a 'gold' at the Olympics, wouldn't you? The Grand Prix next, Adrian?

Interestingly, Malaysian advertising companies won 11 awards, three of them gold, at Cannes this year.

Cannes Lions

Adoi

1-8 July 2008 will be the inaugural Independent Booksellers Week (IBW) in Britain with more than 320 bookshops participating. The IBW is officially sponsored and supported by The Times which will be providing editorial coverage. The scheme was devised by the Small Business Forum (SBF).

This is from the IBW website: 'The inagural Independent Booksellers Week between 1st-8th July. Independent Booksellers Week is a celebration of independent bookselling, and has been organised by the Small Business Forum of the Booksellers Association (BA). Independent Booksellers Week is funded by Bertrams, Gardners Books, National Book Tokens and the BA and is supported by The Times and The Book Partnership, with additional help from Galaxy and Readers' Digest. Jacqueline Wilson, former Childrens' Laureate, and much loved author, is also supporting the campaign.'

Author Kate Mosse, who is also the television presenter of the BBC Four literary chat show, the Readers' and Writers' Roadshow and who, in 1996, co-founded the annual Orange Prize for Fiction by women, says: "It's high time that we celebrate our vibrant independent bookshops. I've always admired and shared independent booksellers' passion for books and reading, and I feel they play a crucial role in local communities. I hope that this initiative will encourage people to visit their local bookshops and discover for themselves what makes them so special."

Celebrations in the shops are expected to include author signing sessions, school visits for storytelling, and holding children’s and reading-group parties.

Publisher's Weekly

IBW

A Publishers Weekly report quoting results from a poll conducted by Random House/Zogby quotes:

• 11: % of people who enjoy reading books digitally
• 13: % of people under 30 open to reading books digitally
• 6: % of people over 65 open to reading books digitally
• 43: % of people who go into a bookstore looking for a specific book
• 77: % of people who make additional purchases when looking for a specific book
• 52: % of people whose book purchases are swayed by cover art
• 49: % of people whose book purchases are swayed by reviews
• 60: % of people whose book purchases are swayed by recommendations from friends or family
• 35: % of people who have been swayed to purchase a book because of a cover quote
• 86: % of people who seek out books by authors they like
• 49: % of people who shop at indies as well as at chains and online
• 9: % of people who usually shop at indies

Publishers Weekly

Borders Group, Inc., in a press statement on the 10^th of June 2008 said that it has closed on the transaction to sell its Australia/New Zealand/Singapore businesses to A&R Whitcoulls (ARW), the leading Australasian retailer of books and related products owned by private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners (PEP). Borders website says that the final agreement was made on the 5^th of June 2004. (One wonders about the effect of this announcement on Borders Malaysia, which we believe is not part of the Borders group but a franchise.)

But some commentators have reacted with 'shock and horror'.

Stephanie Johnston, of Wakefield Press worries about buying patterns or the philosophy change under the new ownership. She worries about greater discounts (from publishers) and 'pushing up prices to maintain margins' though she is 'looking forward to being paid earlier by accounting offices on the ground here in Australia'.

Others are less charitable. Another publisher says, "I'm worried that A&R's degree of aggression
and incompetence will infiltrate Borders' management." Ouch. It appears that A&R has a reputation of 'cut(ting) back its buying enormously, making initially tiny orders even on books that seemed a natural fit.'

But Peter Phillips, the departing sales and marketing director at Pan Macmillan is more pragmatic: "... if they don't do a good job, then someone else will pick up the market."

Meanwhile, in a AP report, 'William Ackerman, the billionaire hedge fund manager who is a major stakeholder in Borders Group Inc., said ... the bookseller should consider approaching online retailer Amazon.com Inc. about a possible acquisition'.

The report quotes him: "Amazon could buy the company for about (US)$400 million to get those
locations that would take more than (UD)$1 billion to build, "he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in New York. "You have to think of it like how Apple has retail stores across the
country."

So, it looks like the death of 'brick-and-mortar' has been greatly exaggerated.

Borders

The Age

Associated Press (at Yahoo)

Three stories concerning books caught my eye this week. Three different sources but related.

The first, Victor Keegan writes in The Guardian: 'Books are one of the oldest industries, yet they have been hardly affected by the digital revolution. Publishers just go on commissioning and editing them in their own sweet time as if nothing had happened. In an age when your blog could be out of date in minutes, publishers seem happy to leave months, even years, between the manuscript being presented and going on sale. The curious thing is that it doesn't seem to be doing them any harm at all.'

Then another story in Publisher's Weekly by Jim Milliot says: 'The production of traditional books (in the US) rose 1% in 2007, to 276,649 new titles and editions, but the output of on-demand, short run and unclassified titles soared from 21,936 in 2006 to 134,773 last year ... a 39% increase in output to 411,422 (titles)(!!).' That is truly astounding. So, far from killing the book industry, the digital revolution (read internet) has actually been a boon. One gets dizzy just thinking of the possibilities. 500,000 titles a year? One million?!

Then in another story, also from The Guardian from the recent Hay-on-Wye Festival, Aleks
Krotoski wonders Why is the book world threatened by gamers? But are they? Why this virulent antipathy towards multimedia? The traditional novel has already been challenged by graphic novels, an evolution of the comics and has made a slight, but if currently insignificant, dent in the order of things in the book world. It is only a little more than a novelty for now, but it is bound to grow. Then there is that cell phone novel. And with ebooks and all, the possibilities are enormous -- imagine moving pictures to accompany novels, with an infinite number of endings depending on reader interaction.

But will all that mean the end of books? I think not. The death of books has been announced before -- with the advent of the movie, then with the radio, then the television, the computer, the internet, the cell phone and the ebook -- and it will continue to be prognosed.

The book is dead, long live the book.

The Guardian

Publishers Weekly

The Guardian

Jill Lawless of the Associated Press reports that the latest 007 novel has be launched simultaneously in 21 languages. I was still in school when his later novels were published, and I read every one of them after watching Ursula Andress emerging from the ocean in that 1962 movie, Dr No, wearing a bikini and a large hunting knife, and watched every movie after that. Nothing could beat that testosterone and adrenaline rush for the horny adolescent I was. I had to hide the books from my mom though, because of the risque covers. And you know the best part? I could buy some of the books for all of ten cents from the ottu kedai down the street.

James Bond is now back, and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. Will I be disappointed? Probably. Still, I am curious. Are we about to get a somewhat more literary James Bond in the hands of Sebastian Faulks?

Booksellers will be rubbing their hands though, what with Daniel Craig's rippling muscles and that Ursula Andress imitation of his.

The Associated Press

Lindsay McIntosh writes in The Scotsman: 'There are no flashing lights,
interactive car chases or shoot 'em ups and although it can now be played online, it has steadfastly refused to be corrupted by the digital revolution ... Yet Scrabble -- the word game consisting solely of a board and some tiles printed with letters -- has endured through the generations to celebrate its 60th birthday this year.'

I am not a great Scabbler but I don't know of anyone who reads who has never heard of the game or played it before. Here is some trivia from the story in The Scotsman:

• In 1949, Scrabble sold 2,413, and in four years, that is in 1953, it sold almost four million. To date, approximately, 150 million sets have been produced.
• 30,000 Scrabble games take place in the world every hour. (Multiply that appropriately to determine the number of games and players every day, every week and every month. Grand Theft Auto? Take a number.)
• Scrabble is available in 29 languages.
• The highest number of points that can be scored on the first go in
• English is 128 -- with muzjiks -- which means Russian peasants.
• The highest score ever was by one Dr Karl Khoshnaw -- 392 points with
• caziques -- the plural for a West Indian chief.

The Scotsman

The first Booker prize was awarded in 1969. The winner that year was Something to Answer For by PH Newby published by Faber & Faber. There have been 40 winners since, and it appears that now is the time to pick the best of the best. Why now? I have absolutely no idea. I thought they would pick the best of the best, say, after 50 years. (They have picked the best of the first twenty-five before.)

Anyway, the forty is now down to six with Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children leading the pack. Personally, I think it is a good list though I have not read JG Farell whose Seige of Krishnapur won the prize in 1973. I can live with the list which also includes JM Coetzee (Disgrace), Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda), Pat Barker (Ghost Road), and Nadine Gordimer (The Conservationist).

I must admit I was expecting to cringe a little, particularly after the way some recent prizes have been awarded. Thank God there is no Life of Pi on the list, nor that dreadful book by DBC Pierre. (What's it called, again?) I wish some others were in, but the final list is still good.

If you are looking for a must-read list, there you are. My own choice of winner would be a difficult one -- either Disgrace, an unbelievably succinct assessment of the condition of man (and woman), or Midnight's Children which with a few deft strokes changed completely how literature in English would be viewed and written. (After much deliberation, all of ten minutes, I have decided to cast my vote for Midnight's Children, especially after reading his recent Enchantress of Florence.)

You can vote at the Booker website.