At the bottom of the post is the Guess The Back List Book Contest. Before that though there is some stuff about books, sweatshops and other literary dealings.
Apple's Chinese Manufacturing Just Like Everyone Else's Chinese Manufacturing
This is not the first time that a story concerning suicide and despotic management practices at the factory where the Apple iPad is manufactured has come to light.
It is however the first undercover expose of the "hell factory."
Sad aside: Comedian Bill Maher did his jokey politics thing last week at the end of Real Time in which he stated that Apple and Steve Jobs would be a good choice to run the country.
I know it was in good humor but still, there is an undercurrent of seriousness that I find disconcerting.
What I wonder is how can anyone, at this late stage of the game, believe that a large corporation like Apple is any different than the other predatory giants of the world?
Two Tales From MobyLives
The first one is about Stanford preparing for the eventuality of their library being without...books. Luddites be damned.
The second is a rather humorous tour of the best and worst book trailers available on a youtube near you.
Yet Another Entry: The Alex
Noted and apparently ready to be ignored. Meet the Alex.
Really Not Sure What She's Saying But Jennifer Havenner Said This:
The Chicken Littles of the publishing world have clucked about lost points in retail sales of books and the increasing digital format trend. This is partly true. Book sales were actually up 3% last year and increased even more in online stores. eBooks exploded with sales over 175% compared to 2008.
And then this:
Bookstores are repositories of our most important examples of human wisdom, knowledge and art. The role of bookstores is to protect and promote that. Publishers can reserve eBooks for all those billions of dollars worth of fluff they put out every year, but should keep the important works in print and in bookstores.
This is the problem. Bookstores are increasingly being viewed as monastic institutions, which is ironic because it was the monks who lost out when Gutenberg made the press. Sure, the nobility supported their approach to bookmaking and copying but in the end it was the masses and back alley printers who took over the market.
If I were still a bookseller and I had five-year lease and was struggling to make ends meet I would take little consolation in the sentiments of Havenner. They are not uncommon notions, but at the end of the day the stone set jaw and romanticism of monkish dedication is not the same thing as bread and beans.
Bookstores are being cut out by electronic books. They won't survive if ebooks become a dominant format.
Contest Time - Guess The Back List
Okay people, it's time to guess the back list title for next week.
This upcoming week the back list title will not relate to the front list selection. Instead it is apropos of the current environmental tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico.
It is a work of fiction set in a dystopic future where the environment has reached a critically toxic state. A weak, corporate controlled government is unable to do anything about the increasingly dangerous levels of toxicity. Their feebleness is, to borrow a cliche, bought and paid for.
The America of the novel has been compared to that of our last President, where regulation and safeguarding were sacrificed on the altar of business profits.
That is all I will say for now. On Sunday or Monday I will offer an additional clue.
Remember, one guess per person and all entries must be made on Facebook in the comment section of this post's link.
Good luck.
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