Square Pegs

We are delighted to bring you a charming story of a deal that seems to be a little cozier than appropriate. We are sure that most of you out there are aware that publishers have international units. Not all of those sales to small countries such as Djibouti are done to unaffiliated third parties*. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need to maintain words like “subsidiary” in the English language. Two authors have sued Pearson for underreported royalties, in the range of of hundreds of thousands, due to apparent lowballing of sales. As always we remain fascinated but woefully […]

Admittedly, our fascination with the recent Michael Jackson trial was limited to the idea that a lot of people were being introduced to the idea that Santa Maria is a real city. Then, of course, came the jurors and their book deals, sort of like rainbows after rain. As we weren’t planning to purchase and/or read these first-hand accounts of harrowing deliberations and mind-changing, we rely upon the media to keep us updated. And you rely upon us to point out that the world is, indeed, stupider than you thought. You all remember Ray Hultman, right? He was one of

We couldn’t help but notice that our blog was napping all afternoon. Apparently, the second the power in Los Angeles went out, the site decided to climb into the hammock and nap. We are uncertain as why the blog could take the rest of the day off while we had to pretend to work, but clearly we have less pull with those in charge of our life than we thought.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog reading to point you to an exciting new product. Someone let us share our thoughts on a book we recently read. We’ll be doing this regularly at Paperback Reader. Too Wilde To Tame by Janelle Denison

It is one of those days when not much is catching our attention, except, of course, this lovely quote from the BBC, circa 2005: A Day In The Life, the Beatles’ most ambitious work to date, featured what Lennon described as “a sound building up from nothing to the end of the world”. This is where we suggest that sometimes it’s helpful to pay attention to what you write. Beatles hailed ‘best of British’ – The 1967 Beatles track A Day In The Life has been hailed the best British song of all time.

Ron Hogan is guest hosting Galleycat this week (Sarah Weinman did the job last week) and, in addition to returning the site to our list of regular haunts, reminds us of a word we haven’t encountered in a while: fnord. It’s also nice that someone else out there copped to the fact that Dan Brown merely updated the works of Robert Anton Wilson. . . Pining for the Fnords Robert Anton Wilson

While we wait in vain for a decent production of Northanger Abbey, we like to contemplate Jane Austen’s reactions to her increasing popularity. One would have thought her star would fall (or shoot or whatever it is that stars on the wane do) about the time Hugh Grant donned a cravat. Instead, Pride and Prejudice is being made into a motion picture event for like the thousandth time. Not that we’re complaining, but it does feel a bit strange. Shouldn’t we do a bit of Edith Wharton worshipping as well? C’mon, it’s time to spread the love. After all, shouldn’t

Our special thanks to Jill, who once again anticipated our inability to get with the program this morning (her sacrifice of personal time will be noted on her permanent record). She noticed that we were mentioned in a very nice Christian Science Monitor story about litblogs. . .and she noticed that we fit the profile a little too well. Again, we note that’s there’s no shame in snobbery. Book blogs’ buzz grows louder

We’ve been jumping from place to place, trying to track down all the various Katrina relief efforts started by the literary community. Suffice to say many have stepped up and we expect even more. Below are a few links to resources. Also, we know we’ve mentioned this before, but give blood. Thank you. Close To Home Romance Designs Literary Relief: Helping those in need (Note: registration required)

We know, give or take, two people who have obsessively (and we use the word with all due fondness) saved each and every email they have sent and received over the past dozen or so years. This leads to some embarrassment if others take a position contradictory to statements they made under who-knows-what-influence in 1996. One should not be held responsible for email statements more than a year after the fact. Of course, our lack of consistency is neither here nor there at the moment. What is at stake is nothing less than the history of letters. Many thought the