Book Tantrum! ! !: July 2008

Twilight, Teens & Vampires

Completely missed, ignored or insanely oblivious to the whole brouhaha happening in damp Forks, Washington. No worries because Harry Potter wasn't working for me until Order of the Phoenix. Jordan, Edward mix it up over a teenager character named Bella with a bit of a Goth twist in a rainy landscape. Some book people and editors at Entertainment Weekly have completely fallen out of the trees onto their pointy heads hyping the Twilight series as the next Harry Potter, uh no. It does have just under 2,000 people gushing over it on Amazon.

Bringing the funny to the comparison is the Edward Cullen actor in the Twilight movie was Cedric Diggory in the HP movie, making that the only tie between the two media entities. Bella burgers and midnight parties are rare with few authors drawing crowds to offset the event costs. In September, Brsingr the third installment of the Christopher Paolini fantasy series will bring out a fair few fans too.

Movie kickoff for Twilight holds a last choice in a 3 for $20 sale DVD appeal. However, the artistic book jacket for Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers kicks ass. Supposedly it's the last one in the series, we will see after everybody finishes counting their filthy lucre while seeing the clamor from the bitingly committed teen girl fan base.

My Vote for Old Fashioned Paper Books

Holding the book in your hand, then fingers as the plot or information compels them to turn the pages on automatic pilot, thereby finally winning a coveted spot in a bibliophile's library is the story of a good book finding Heaven. Here, read my E-Book techo gadget is just close to the same. Kindle costing in at $360US has new competition from Sony at $300US for the hearts and minds of the tech savvy bliblioratti. Electronic books are an individual media. All books travel with you in the sterile, yet densely packed device. For those who enjoy sharing a good read and will not panic when the book stays over night with a friend, handing over the electronic version will not happening. It is the equivalent of giving up the whole library cold turkey - that's a Hell No. Can you imagine leaving the damn thing on an airplane? Now that's money down the tubes as each reading edition has to be bought too.

Getting an E-Book and the hard copy is pricey and the province of wealthy readers. Sony versus Kindle is boring. Each E-book device is upgrading and doing other business hocus pocus to entice a wary audience of book lovers to commit. Its like the Blue Ray thing - eventually there will be a standard and an open format that will benefit reader, publisher and author. I personally can't see myself with a device and calling myself a reader. I do electronic reading on one device. Mine is called a laptop.

LA Times Kills Book Coverage

For the Love of Money, literature shall fall behind Oliver Twist to ask for a second ~~helping~~ chance. The newspaper business in general suffers the bonfire of the inanities as alternative media grows in power in scope. Little reason to wonder why subsections of the newspaper are suffering humiliating removals from their pages as dollars shift to cover the inane rather than the profound. The LA Times announced their latest cutback by shoving Books deep inside the Calendar section, struggling like a tired soldier behind enemy lines.

One pertinent issue is the business model allowed for a small cadre of professionals to choose which books were reviewed without encompassing book reading communities. More focus on what were people anticipating and their involvement is/was necessary, especially in markets that show potential and growth (people of color), rather than a focus on important works appreciated by an erudite few. Publisher Condé Nast is freaking out that they even needed to get 40,000 more copies of the Vogue Italia edition featuring an all black sumptuous edition after a brown out in recent years, thinking it permanent. The still necessary book section being dissed and squeezed smacks of the wayward quest for nonexistent profits chasing the wrong model. Quality of life issues involve culture, but hey, The LA Times don't need no stinkin' book culture.

One thing they did well under former editor Steve Wasserman was the LA Times Festival of Books. How do you have a Book Fair when the book section is dead, killed by its own publishing parent?

Political Vanity Books

If one's title starts with Representative or Senator, cease and desist immediately writing your biographical coffee table book with the other 500 plus cafeteria colleagues in mind. It is fashionably rude to pretend the huddled masses just can't wait to plunk down $20 bucks to relive the glory of your campaign promises while skipping over the gelding of the people's business. It makes my blood boil. Positively American, Chuck Schumer should wince. He was a virgin, loudly focusing his first book on the fake Baileys.

Scandal plagued pols try to revise and extend remarks in less than 75,000 ghost written words, rarely fully owning their sewage level impulses for longer than a page or two. Larry Craig clearly states three things: He's not gay, he's from Idaho and he has a wide stance. See, I just wrote his upcoming book.

Timing of marketing campaigns are usually for pols is The next election is coming with rhetorical flourishes and behold, the congressional junket off season book tour. Books by congress critters should be interesting for longer than a one minute speech or naming a post office after a recently demised big donor. Jim Webb and Barack Obama came to congress with proven writing chops and no ghost writers. One of the absolute worst self serving torpedoes of tripe printed on acid free paper in recent years was Rick Santorum's remainder bin reject, It Takes A Family.

Jim Webb and Barack Obama came to congress with proven writing chops and no ghost writer du jours. A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America focuses on the issues of class wrapped in the spit and polish of a regional, global and historical construct and lamenting the lack of real leadership in the era of Bush administrative incompetence.

Elder statesman Robert Bryd is one exception as senatorial historian and keeper of the golden oratorical keys. His recent work, Letter to A New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader is autobiographical and themed around his abiding respect and love of The Constitution and disgust with the twits that broke it, making his audience the next president of the United States. Fire Breathing Liberal, Robert Wexler at least backs up the title in real life by being firmly in the Impeach Cheney camp for his terrible crimes against the constitution.

Oh joy, tis the silly season for the upcoming crop of some political vanity offerings with a few rare thoughtful pieces included. I hate sifting through the muck to find the rare diamonds.

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