Oprah Should Make 2009 Book Resolution

If your Oprah with bookstores gumming up book jackets with the "Oprah Good Reading Seal Of Approval" slapped on to entice the literate public, 2008 was not the best year. Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived and A Million Little Pieces kind of describe Oprah Winfrey's life, but they are really two Rocky Mountain speed bump books on her literary creds. James Frey wrote a biographical tale that was pseudo and the Rosenblat faux holocaust romance was just psycho. That's just gotta make a busy billionaress cry who already jettisoned books from her TV confab once before. Today, would be a great day for Lady O to make a New Year's resolution on checking the fine print of every single author AND publisher due diligence before putting her name out there. Er, sloppy staff work possibly?

Oprah's had some whoppers when it comes to book issues. Ms. Winfrey put the amazing not in stock very often Kindle on her new favorite things list. Ugh. Then the Frey grilling she gave the author after the lie became public a while ago left him in a million little muscle knots. Then right before taping Oprah to augment the books February release, the bombshell exploded, that oops, we have an octogenarian impostor or rather collaborating impostors. Angel Girl by Laurie Freidman was a published children's story inspired by Herman & Roma Rosenblats' not so true recollections.

Textbooks Cost Too Much Money

Textbooks, a staple of educational systems worldwide, cost way too much damn money. Because textbooks are must-haves, the cost of each of them increases as if the pages were dipped in gold leaf and their bindings were made from the gossamer wings of rare fairies and wood sprites. It is shameful and appalling. In some countries textbooks are shared commodities. Copyrights in South Korea belong to the government and bias as well as content come under fire. There are file sharing websites that some students take advantage of to get their exorbitant class-required materials for free. It has come to a Napster music model for textbooks named Textbook Torrents that is making the US textbook industry overlords nuts. Their overpriced books are being ripped off on the internet while they rip off students at the counter, legally charging the same price for a used book that could have been bought new online.

Pricing on textbooks have gone so round the bend, Congress stepped in
legislating some changes included in the Higher Education Act.

Durbin created the College Textbook Affordability Act for three reasons.

Durbin says the cost of text books is rising four times the rate of inflation.

In America, they change editions requiring more expenditures. College students feel like they are getting their first mortgages as they react to the sticker shock to what one pre-owned textbook costs. Publishers are wielding the prices of the books as if their entire business is about hosing students. Almost 85% of the US distribution of textbooks comes from the monopolistic Association of American Publishers which cast creativity, innovation and the consumer in the circular file. Cornering the market also limits who writes the scholarly works, meaning diversity of ideas is kept to the same old authors writing the same old thing, year after year. It's a crying shame that they charge MORE for the repackaged goods.

Good Grief.

Random House Afraid of Book

Good golly Miss Molly, controversial books have been arbiters of fierce debate and discussion the world over since presses could belch them out. Good books are not about gentility or saving the sensitive readers sensibilities from a shock. Somebody, somewhere, will ALWAYS be offended. Now, a yellow bellied publisher fears doing what better independent publishers have done for a lifetime - put a perspective out there for the public to decide come what may. Instead, we have a vanguard of fraidy cat editors weighing a subset of a subset of the public reactions against a book they had already decided to publish. Then, they ran away from their decision. Truly, it would have been better to never say yes to the author Sherry Jones if the benchmark is somebody is going to be mad in academia.

"We decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication," it added.

The decision was taken "for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel," said the company's deputy publisher Thomas Perry in a statement.

The novel traces the life of A'isha, who is often referred to as Muhammad's favourite wife, from her engagement at the age of six, until the prophet's death.

Salmon Rushdie got a fatwa, a biographical book blathering security detail plus award worthy recognition on a lasting literary work. More context to comprehending the Islamic faith in all its permutations is a worthy publishing endeavor. Not everyone agrees within the faith, hence, Sunnis and Shias. There are degrees that are helped with a novel or book that advances the dicussion rather than staying stuck at a low level of knowledge. Now Random House has decided staying on empty think tanks to keep their speed right where it is, oh what will we do to make money off of more paper trash nobody will remember after the last page. Based on the objections of one non-Muslim Professor Spellberg with puritan pride issues deep in the heart of Texas. RH is trying to sugar coat it as we are oh so concerned about everybody in our supply chain, except the Muslim professor who was in favorite of publishing the book.

Ludlum Franchise Fritters Away Bourne Legacy

The quill of Robert Ludlum developed a style that made him a legend in his lifetime of the spy thriller.  After his  departure to a permanent heavenly psyops, the Ludlum Enterprise hired folks to write under his banner - blech.  They should have just become a publishing company and offered an endorsement and let the author rise or fall off a cliff from their own lack of merit.  One of Ludlum's iconic characters, now a Jason Bourne movie franchise, exists on a one dimensional monetary plane that isn't taking off for this reader. 

Ludlum once lamented the draconian and dreary traditions of the staid publishing prison that decreed fast writing reflected poorly and too many books in a certain amount of time must be kept in abeyance to protect the public from becoming bored.  There's a reason publishers get into trouble, their thinking is still remains lodged in controlling a Gutenberg press and who gets to use it.  Ludlum or his heirs sped this disaster along by letting his name be used sort of like ghostwriting in reverse.  Please make them stop after releasing the one from last week.  If you have it at the beach, take mercy on it and leave it buried in an abandoned sand castle. 

Eric Van Lustbader have you no pride or imagination for your own brand or styling yourself as original.  Killing Bourne's life anchors to scribble a new story arc was predictable.  I really hate the Bourne books now.  My respect remains for the Bourne books Robert Ludlum wrote and has only his name on the jacket.  Whether with a speed typewriter or painstakingly, I appreciated his work. 

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?