Booksquare

Around here, we have long discussed the eBay economy and its implications. Most people sell a little and feel fine. Some people run entire businesses online, via eBay. And others, well, not so much businesses as they’re making a good amount of money. It wasn’t going to fly under the government’s radar forever. Perhaps we […]

How do you answer a question like this: “Love isn’t a reason [for writing books],” he explains patiently. “Art needs a function.” (I wonder briefly whether what I do qualifies as art). “So what’s yours? What’s your agenda? And what am I meant to take away from one of your books?” Well, why do you […]

We have tried it every way: clueless, exacting, stumbling in the darkness, thoughtful but wary, index cards in meaningful colors, wing and a prayer. Yes, plotting is the ultimate personality exercise. We admire those who work through a book with soldier-like precision; we cannot draw a straight line with a ruler. For us, the story […]

There is something delightfully…mean…about Tanya Gold’s skewering of Elizabeth Gaskell’s skewing of Charlotte Brontë’s life. Mrs. Gaskell, you have an enemy. An enemy who describes your crowning achievment as …biography is the ultimate piece of feminine passive-aggression, a mediocre writer’s attempt to reduce the brilliant Miss Brontë to poor, pitiful Miss Brontë. Gaskell wrote the […]

We apologize for our inability to control our base urges. There is something inside that makes us want to exult in the humanity of humans. Yes, this means that we derive far too much pleasure from people behaving badly. Today, we bring you a publicist taking exception to a bad review. A corollary of the […]

We would submit that there’s nothing more intriguing on Earth than a marriage. Especially a marriage where the participants “tell each other everything” — a recipe for secrecy and deceit if we ever saw one. Though both Webster’s and OED fail us miserably on this regard, we remain convinced that families, by definition, contain more […]

Atlantic Monthly will no longer publish fiction in its regular issues. But…it’s looking at creating special fiction-only editions. Done right, this could really benefit short story writers. We have faith in done right. Atlantic Monthly’s Fiction to Walk Plank (Second Item)

We lead a fascinating life. Every moment is something to be documented and explored. For example, this morning, we headed straight for the refrigerator and pulled out the juice (not that juice). Normally, we wait until after our first cup of coffee before we hit the hard stuff. This pattern shift surely portends great things […]

Adam Langer, author of Crossing California and winner of Booksquare bonus points for this definition. . . In the author’s dictionary, spouse is defined as “the partner with a health insurance plan.” . . .discusses some striking differences between American and European publishing. While we really enjoyed the concept of magazines, we naturally latched on […]

Sure, we’re lucky, living in a major metropolitan area. Finding decent book coverage is as easy as opening up the Los Angeles Times every Sun–oops, scratch that (for more details on our faux pas, check out The Elegant Variation, link right over there). By necessity, book review sections are limited in scope. Newsprint costs cold, […]