Books/Mags/Blogs

Even as we get excited about innovative marketing campaigns, we find ourself wondering what stops reporters from asking the tough questions. Like, oh, “When did living off the grid start meaning becoming invisible to real-life surveillance networks? Have you never heard of spy satellites?” Yes, indeedy, folks. We have ourselves a situation where the publisher is convinced they have the next Da Vinci Code (hey, they have the editor — it’s not such a leap of logic), but the author isn’t willing to get caught up in the publicity machine. So much so that Jason Kaufman felt obliged to defend […]

Such is our cynicism that when we saw a New York Times profile of Evanovich, Inc., we immediately thought, “Hmm, there must be a new Stephanie Plum novel out.” Lo and behold, our powers of prediction are undulled by the lack of caffeine. Which reminds us. . .would the intern in charge of coffee please report to HQ? Since running out of, uh, positions, Janet Evanovich has revamped her career (alas, to the point where we have lost interest in her hapless heroine and hunky heroes, but that’s another post for another day). This profile, by our darling Edward Wyatt,

For books, and the people who love them, there is nothing more frustrating than failing to reach an audience. The poor book tries. It struggles to be written, forces itself to face humiliation in the form of rejection just because it believes it has something to say, it endures awful covers and misleading blurbs, and then it lands in the market without so much as a round of introductions by the host. Setting aside our firm conviction that the entire publishing paradigm needs to be revisited, the entire bookselling machine could use a good old-fashioned tweaking. It is true, as

We rarely use this space to promote the lives and welfare of our friends*, but sometimes need triumphs time. Tina Ferraro is a particular friend of Booksquare and has, over the years, served as sounding board, whining board, sympathy board, understanding board, and friendly board, among others. She is also incredibly talented while remaining firmly cynical. Thus, we are pleased to announce the following: Debut YA author Tina Ferraro’s TOP 10 USES FOR AN UNWORN PROM DRESS, about a high school girl who was dumped a little over 24 hours before last year’s prom and now has two guys fighting

The folks at Collected Miscellany are taking a pre-emptive strike against summer by holding a short story contest. It’s quick (like at July 4 deadline, but you get to email your entry) and easy (surely you have an 800-word story polished and ready to go). For a moment, we thought there’d be fame and fortune, but they’ve put our minds to rest on that issue: Inspired by Phil’s suggestion, we have decided to enter into the murky arena of short story contests. I should note before I go any further that this is not a cash prize and is not

This is going to take a bit of cleverness, but we’re going to try to work two entirely different concepts into a single post*. Making this a particular challenge is the fact that it’s Monday morning, and one should never attempt cleverness on a Monday morning. We shouldn’t even attempt spelling — our first post was rejected by our brilliant human spell checker three times. Even our corrections had flaws. The spell checker quit when we cried because she’s mean. HelenKay Dimon has admitted a sordid truth: she reads Entertainment Weekly. But only for the articles. Apparently the fine folks

Our friend Lauren Baratz-Logsted (whom we’re learning is incredibly shy and not one to heckle her fellow authors) is helping our other friend Dan Wicektt out at Conversational Reading. Lauren is preparing for the release of A Little Change of Face by reliving some of her favorite adventures in self-promotion, including her blitz for her debut novel The Thin Pink Line. This meant the only person there was a nine-year-old girl with a notebook. She told me she wanted to be a writer too, but we both agreed that her mother probably wouldn’t approve of her reading my novel just

Janet Maslin has surveyed the crowd and she’s not impressed. We don’t blame her. Reading her recap of the opening pages of the new Arnold Schwarzenegger biography made us want to take a shower. We can only imagine what actual hand-to-eye contact with the smarm might do. As we read through Maslin’s accounts of upcoming non-fiction reading, we saw a distinct thread: there are no books there. Except for Umberto Eco’s book; we’re sure he actually had a point and through-line. Far be it for us to suggest anything, but perhaps the trend of biographies and autobiographies of dubious pedigree

Sure, we could be rushing out the door right (one must always rush toward the inevitability of sitting on the freeway), but instead we allowed the distraction of this interview with Sarah Vowell to derail our plans. As we read it, we thought, “This is the sort of pleasure we’d miss if we were in New York*.” We would return to an over-overflowing inbox and would be in frantic skim-and-delete mode. It’s much better this way. For those who have been sleeping through the media blitz, Vowell’s new book Assassination Vacation ties together the first three American Presidential Assassinations, omitting