Stay up to the minute with authors, store news, industry news, literary happenings, everything you need to fully experience book culture and enhance your love for the written word.

 

 

12.19.09

More on Google Book Search

From Robert Darnton's essay Google and the New Digital Future in The New York Review of Books:

 

The governments of France and Germany sent memorandums [sic] urging the court to reject the settlement "in its entirety" or at least insofar as it applied to their own citizens. Far from seeing any potential public good in it, they condemned it for creating an "unchecked, concentrated power" over the digitization of a vast amount of literature (this according to the French memorandum) and for doing so (according to the Germans) by a "commercially driven" agreement negotiated "in secrecy...behind closed doors by three interested parties, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google, Inc."

In contrast to the commercial character of Google's enterprise, both governments stressed the higher values represented by their national literatures. The French began their memorandum by invoking Pascal, Descartes, Molière, Racine, and other writers through Camus and Sartre, while the Germans summoned up the line that led from Goethe and Schiller to Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass. Each country cited the number of its Nobel Prize winners in literature (France sixteen, Germany twelve), and each buttressed its case by other evidence of high-mindedness. The Germans insisted on Gutenberg and his contribution to "the spread of science and culture." The French cited the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 in order to uphold the principle of "free access to information" threatened by Google's "de facto monopoly."

It is an odd spectacle: foreign governments defending a European notion of culture against the capitalistic inroads of an American company, and submitting their case to Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District Court of New York. What Judge Chin, who grew up in Hell's Kitchen in a family of poor Chinese immigrants (and won a scholarship to Princeton University) made of it all is difficult to say. He did not tip his hand on November 13, nor did he say when a hearing would take place.

 

-- Read Darnton's 12.17.09 article in its entirety.

 

 

12.17.09

Acrobatics of the Past

Diesel Brentwood bookseller Thomas Bailey reports:

 

On an unusually rainy Monday in Los Angeles, we here at Diesel were fortunate enough to catch a glimmer of sunlight through the most unsuspecting customer. All wrapped up and slowed by the ice-cold downpour, she looked to have seen the greater part of the past century. Turns out she had indeed seen quite a bit.

After purchasing what seemed to be just another customary holiday gift book, the lady turns around to me and asks if I recognize anyone in particular on the cover photo of Taschen's recent portraiture of Los Angeles. Lo and behold, not only was she just one of the bright kodachromatic faces on the cover, but the fearless high-flying body intersecting the title!

As she unfolded the stories of each ecstatic face on the cover I noticed nearby customers slowly drawing closer to this magnetic force. Old Hollywood tales of Gene Kelly jumping in and out of cars, the spirit of Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish and the days of celebrity and spectacle untouched by the greedy hands of today's paparazzi and the overbearing sense of being documented and displayed with little regard for the subject. We had been transported to times when people came to the beaches of Santa Monica just to fly around in the air, master stunts and rework routines for the next George Cukor musical.

Despite the confining rain as of late, the stories reminded me of the abundant activity and the independent spirit that has been seminal to shaping the greater Los Angeles area. As an independent bookstore it's always rewarding to feel such resonant traditions.

 

12.16.09

Judging A Book By Its Cover

 

Christmas approaches and that means end of year lists! Over at the Book Design Review, they asked three different independent bookstores to submit their favorite book covers of the year. The results are fantastic.

Similarly, we often have visceral reactions to books with bad covers. Every year, there are loads of books that merit attention that receive little due to terrible covers. Joe Queenan has a cheeky essay about bad book covers in the New York Times.

So, along those lines, we want to share with you some of our favorite covers of 2009:

 

 

 

 

 

 

<-- Newer Chatter