There is this thing out there called Goodreads, which appears to be a kind of Facebook for books and book people. I signed up today to see what it's all about. I only have one friend so far, so it's not very "social" for me yet. If you're the sort of person who's into that kind of thing, we should be friends. I've added a little under half of my books to the account already, and will be adding more as the week progresses.

I've been reading through the Caustic Cover Critic's archives at work (hey, I have that kind of job), and I just noticed this evening that David Drummond, the book designer I mentioned in a post this weekend, actually has a blog, where he looks at some of the approaches he takes to designing covers. His comments aren't as in-depth as I would like (they tend to be limited to only a sentence or two), but it's still a pretty cool "inside baseball" kind of thing for those of us, like myself, who geek out over both books and graphic design.

I've mentioned this on Twitter, but since I know most of you aren't following me there, I thought I'd mention it here. A.L. Kennedy on Writing is seriously the best writing column on the Web. I know you aren't reading it (I know you aren't, don't give me that look), but you really should be. Kennedy is a goddamn treasure, and we need to encourage more of this sort of thing.

I read this morning on the Quill and Quire blog that a school board in California is banning the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary because it contains a "sexually graphic" definition of "oral sex". The stupidity of this boggles the mind; why someone would want to deprive children of a valuable, bog-standard reference text just because it has a couple dirty words in it is beyond me. But then I find it ridiculous that grownups are afraid of words at all. I wonder if Latin's not on the curriculum so the kids won't learn what irrumatio means.

It's been quite some time since I posted an entry; no doubt those of you who don't follow me on Twitter will have simply assumed that I've been eaten by dragons, or abducted by aliens, or sequestered in some dungeon by shadowy men in black Ray-Bans. None of these things are true, but they're rather more interesting than the truth, the truth being that I've been struggling with a pretty severe bout of depression for most of the last year and a half (for reasons I have more than once alluded to, but will not go deeper into today), and have done little more than stare glassy-eyed at television and video games. I don't vilifiy these things the way some do, but I've certainly let them take up more of my free time than I should have. Well, to be fair, I've also taken up running, but that's a far more recent development.

Right now I'm seven book reviews behind, and I also owe my man Josh Ellis of Red State Sound System an album review, something I've never done before here on vestige.org. I'm going to do my level best to get caught up on those things, starting this weekend. In the meantime, I'd like to share with you some bits of news, and a couple of sites that have recently captured my attention.

First the news:

As you're all by now aware, Canadian novelist and musician Paul Quarrington passed away Thursday morning after a much-publicized battle with cancer. I was not fortunate enough to meet Mr. Quarrington, nor have I yet read any of his works, though the much-acclaimed Whale Music is lined up for later in the year. I direct you to Mr. Beattie for a better sense of the man and his impact on Canadian letters, and links to the various tributes that are being gathered around the Web.

Respected Canadian poet P.K. Page also died earlier this week, at the age of 93. New Quarterly editor Kim Jernigan remembers her.

Blogger Ed Champion has an excellent piece on the recent San Francisco Panorama issue of McSweeney's. Definitely worth reading.

The Canadian Periodical Fund guidelines have at last been finalized and presented to the public, and the results are grim. There are no exceptions for literary journals or other small arts magazines. I have no doubt this means a great many fine journals will not be able to survive. You can find more of my (rather quickly dashed-off) thoughts on the matter in the comments for this article at the Quill and Quire blog.

Brian Joseph Davis kept things classy over at the Globe and Mail today with this piece on one of the rumored names for the tablet computer that Apple is expected to unveil next week.

Finally, Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This is doing an independent alternative to this year's Canada Reads lineup, called Canada Reads: Independently. It features an exciting list of panelists and, to this blogger anyway, a much more exciting list of books.

And now the sites:

The first is The Dusty Bookcase, "A Very Casual Exploration of the Dominion's Suppressed, Ignored and Forgotten" (no Oxford commas for Mr. Busby, apparently). It's a remarkably fun look at books and writers from Canada's past that have more or less been lost to all but those troubled few who rummage through the scrapheap of literary history. What I thought I knew about the history of Canadian publishing has been completely turned on its head by this blog, and it only makes the outright snobbishness of our literary lights (we don't produce mass market pulp here, no sir, our publishing stars are all Literary writers, with a capital "L") all the more disgraceful. The Dusty Bookcase is a must read for anyone interested in what has come before us—the entries on Harlequin alone make digging through the archives more than worth it. I should point out that this blog was brought to my attention by a post Daniel Wells made on the CNQ blog.

The second blog I discovered by way of The Dusty Bookcase. Caustic Cover Critic is maintained (if I understand things right) by Australian writer/editor/book designer (?) JRS Morrison. The blog not only features book covers from a variety of countries in an astonishing array of styles and genres, but Morrison also provides great, meaty histories and commentary regarding the evolution of cover art and the work of specific designers. He's also managed to get some book designers to speak about their work and process, including David Drummond, who designed Dead Man's Float by Nicholas Maes, a book I wrote about back in January 2008, and originally only picked up because of its cover.

Speaking of book covers, if anyone over at Capuchin Classics wants to send me some review copies of their absolutely gorgeous books, I'd be more than happy to write about them. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Knowhatimean, saynomore, saynomore.

Well, it's official: I've decided to relaunch Wooden Fish. All that's up right now is a placeholder until I figure out the specifics of how I'm going to organize it, how I'll accept submissions, the new look, and so on. Hopefully the more important bits will be figured out in the next week or two, though I think that it could be several months until it launches officially with its first issue. Any and all queries regarding Wooden Fish can and should be directed to august@woodenfish.ca. Thanks for your time, your input, and your support!

A long-time acquaintance of mine, graphic designer Ben Pieratt (known for, among other things, being the guy behind the FWIS book cover site), has left his old agency—and the old book cover site—behind, and launched The Book Cover Archive. It's an amazing site that not only highlights well-designed book covers but also cross references those covers using a pretty comprehensive selection of meta-data, including not only the obvious things like author, publisher, and designer, but also art director, photographer, illustrator and genre. For those of my readers who might decry the lack of Canadian titles, they do accept recommendations to be added to the Archive. And of course there's the obligatory blog, which actually debuted some time ago, and which I've been following with interest. I hope that you all get as much enjoyment from exploring the Archive as I have.

For three years I published and co-edited (as fiction editor) an online journal of literature. Lately I've been feeling uninvolved in the literary community, and I'm searching for ways to connect. I'm considering relaunching the journal. In the past we published fiction and poetry. If I did decide to relaunch it, I would publish only fiction.

My question is this: would you be interested in reading such a journal? Would you submit to such a journal (on the understanding that I couldn't pay you)? Would you be willing to post about such a journal on your blog? If yes to any of these, would you be willing to donate money (I'm thinking about micro-donations, a dollar here or there), with the understanding that any donations would go exclusively to the hosting bill? Why (or why not—this last question being an addendum to any and all of the above)? Please leave a comment below (and if you wish your answers to be more private, feel free to email me).

Thanks in advance for your time.

A couple of years ago I was big, and I mean big into podcasts. I had a job that didn't require a lot of concentration, and we were allowed, even encouraged, to listen to iPods and CD players and so on while putting in our twelve hours a day (that's right, twelve). I listened almost exclusively to podcasts, and MobyLives was far and away the best book oriented podcast around. And then one day it disappeared.

But before it was a podcast, MobyLives was a blog. And finally, after two years or more on hiatus, it is a blog once more. I'm not sure if anything can live up to expectations I have, thanks to the amazing quality of the podcast, but I have no doubt that the new MobyLives will be a worthy addition to my daily reading, and to yours too. (Thanks to David for the heads up.)

Welcome to the second installment of "Bookcasts", where I give you a brief rundown on the podcasts that I follow. Those that don't have books as their primary subject matter will be marked with an asterisk. Part one is is here.

In Our Time*

In Our Time is a long-running BBC Radio programme that's very much like CBC Radio's Ideas, although the topics turn more frequently to literary matters (I'm not sure if it's still up in the archives, but there was an excellent show on Borges a while back).

The Good: Even though his pronunciation can be a little idiosyncratic, Melvyn Bragg is a spectacularly good host. He's well-informed, well-spoken, and he manages to keep the discussion on track so that as much of a given topic can be covered—although it should be noted that the discussion doesn't ever descend into superficiality.

The Bad: Once in a while Bragg will try to push the expert guests into discussing popular preconceptions about the issue when they clearly don't want to, but otherwise I've got nothing at all bad to say about this podcast. It's probably the one I anticipate most eagerly.

KCRW's Bookworm

What we have here is an excellent series of author interviews from a radio station in Santa Monica.

The Good: Michael Silverblatt (the host) asks the most sophisticated questions of any host in any of the podcasts I listen to, and the guest are always obliging in that they give equally sophisticated answers.

The Bad: His voice, while eventually soothing, takes a little while to get used to, and sometimes I think that you need a literature degree to follow the show.

New York Times Book Review Podcast

The New York Times delivers essentially an irreverent version of its weekend literary supplement in this podcast.

The Good: The podcast offers an insider look, not at the literary imagination, but at the behind-the-scenes world of publishing and criticism. The best thing about it is they present it like they're just a bunch of folks getting together to talk about books. And they just happen to be smart and connected.

The Bad: Sometimes they get a little bit too into the inside world and forget that they are broadcasting to an audience that doesn't know these people personally, and it can be hard to follow their banter. The telephone interviews don't always have the best sound quality either.

Part three tomorrow, probably.

I am lucky enough to have a job that lets me work with books. I am doubly lucky in that my job allows me to listen to headphones, and rather than listen to music, I listen to audio books and podcasts, most of them dealing with the subject of books. As this is, of course, a book-related blog, I thought I would share those I listen to with you. Those that only occasionally deal with books (their primary subject matter being something else, or perhaps even simply general interest) will be marked with an asterisk. There are quite a few of them, so I will spread the out over two or three posts.

Authors On Tour—Live!

Recorded in Denver at an indie bookstore called The Tattered Cover, this podcast is a weekly series of author readings. It features authors from a multitude of genres, from fiction authors of all stripes to historians, politicians and journalists.

The Good: Most of the authors are clever speakers and often they show a personal side that doesn't come out in formal interviews.

The Bad: The sound quality can be hit and miss.

Barnes & Noble's Meet the Writers

This is a series of extremely short interviews with authors, conducted by Steve Bertran (sp?) on behalf of American big-box bookseller Barnes & Noble.

The Good: For such short interviews, Bertran does an enormous amount of research, asks intelligent questions and has an easy rapport with most of the writers.

The Bad: If Bertran doesn't get the answer he expects he will often rephrase the question two or three times in what seems like an effort to elicit the desired response. The authors don't seem to notice so much, but it can be irritating at times.

Books on Guardian Unlimited

The Guardian podcast is a mix of book news, author interviews, and every so often features a "book club" Q & A session with a live audience.

The Good: The Guardian is extremely professional and covers stories that won't always appear in the North American press. The book club segments are exceptional.

The Bad: The audio quality sometimes borders on amateurish, and updates are few and far between.

CBC Radio: The Best of Definitely Not the Opera*

Hosted by my long-time celebrity crush, Sook-Yin Lee, the show mostly focuses on whatever topic strikes Ms. Lee's fancy on any given week. The show airs every Saturday on the CBC, but the podcast only airs certain portions of the show (the music, for example, is cut out for reasons of copyright).

The Good: Sook-Yin Lee! The show is funny and irreverent, and many of the guests can be extremely entertaining.

The Bad: Book-related content is fairly rare, and when it appears over the airwaves on Saturday it doesn't always make it into the podcast on Sunday. Also, many members of the DNTO team don't seem entirely comfortable in a radio setting (Sook-Yin, while still cool as hell, does better on television, for instance), and as a result it sometimes feels like a college radio show with a budget.

CBC Radio: The Best of Ideas*

Ideas is probably one of the longest running programmes on CBC radio, and also one of the best. Every week features a new topic, normally unrelated to the previous week, and spanning nearly every conceivable subject. Literary subjects are fairly rare, but they do pop up from time to time.

The Good: This show is remarkable in the depth and breadth of its reportage. It would be impossible to say too many good things about it.

The Bad: Sometimes the show falls into the CBC cliché of addressing its audience as though they are all senior citizens, and additionally Paul Kennedy's voice is somewhat cloying.

CBC Radio: Words at Large

Words At Large collects book-related content from a variety of CBC Radio programmes; everything from interviews, news items, and short documentary pieces from the CBC archives.

The Good: The content is varied and the hosts are obviously long-time broadcast professionals.

The Bad: The content is sometimes trite. Many times a book will be mentioned only to spark a conversation about the topic of the book with little or no attention being paid to the actual content of the book itself, or issues like the writing process or literary creativity. An episode just before the holiday hiatus featured a wine-related book, and the episode felt like an extended advertisement for the LCBO's wine section. It often feels like an infomercial rather than a serious radio show.

Part two will be up in a day or so.

Current web-app superstars (or arrogant prima donnas, which ever you prefer) 37 Signals have written a book and are distributing it solely as a PDF, for $19USD a pop. They are now claiming that because of their success with the book (1750 copies sold so far) that there is "a new sherrif in town" (ie. DIY publishing).

But is there really? Kottke chimes in as usual with a look at raw numbers rather than context and calls it good (well, "an interesting expirment" is his final declaration, but the rest of the short post seems more optimistic than that), but then I expected no less.

What I think we really have to look at is this:

1. Who is their target audience? In this case it's tech-savvy entrepeneurs who are trying to get the most out of their budgets and still learn from people who are successful. Go to the business section of your local bookstore and you will notice two things. First, you will notice that the market is glutted and that it's hard to determine (from the way the books are designed and placed and so on) whose reputation is actually worth a damn and who is a two-bit huckster. Second, you will notice that these books are grossly over-priced. $19 probably looks pretty attractive from proven industry insiders (the questionable quality and originality of their material aside).
2. What's the shelf-life of this book? Probably not very long. They've already updated it and it was really only out for a day, which means two things. It means they weren't really ready to ship it (which a decent editor would have been able to tell them) and that they don't expect the book to be a long-time source of income for them. Now you may think, "whoa, if they keep updating it then they do mean it to be a source of long-term profits". Not so. They're using their initial buyers to tweak the product and then they are going to let it slowly drift away after the initial market buzz is over. Continually updating it will mean a lot of work for the customers who have already paid for it to keep up with a book they've already bought, and that is something readers really hate doing, and I'm sure the 37 Signals crew knows this.
3. Would this approach work for other markets? Literature for example? Probably not, at least not widely. We all know about Corey Doctorow giving his books away for free online, but his success, I would argue, is more from novelty than from a real shift in the market. The market for literature (with the exception of science fiction readers), history, and so on is notorious for being aggressively luddite. The printed book hasn't changed fundamentaly (and not for lack of trying) in four hundred years, and there are reasons for this, though I'm not going to get into them here. There's also the problem of grabbing the reader's attention. 37 Signals is an established name with an established readership based on a very specific technology. Most writers in other genres have no such thing backing them and therefore no easy way to reach their market. Yes they could start a website or something, but how many writers are really that tech-savvy? How many know how to promote a website? How many readers browse personal websites looking to buy books? The answer to all those questions is "not very many". The publishing industry is hugely flawed, but one of the things that it does is get books where readers will see them, in bookstores. A bookstore is not going to spend what little money it has on an author that nobody has heard of that hasn't even passed through the (albeit questionable) gateway of quality control represented by a publishing house.

New sherrif indeed. What we're really looking at here is a success story based on acurately reading a very specific market that has very specific tastes and a certain degree of knowledge that renders the electronic learning curve moot. What we do not have is anything even remotely resembling an industry shift. Barely even a twitch.