Square Pegs

We work this morning with the powerful sense that finding book-related news would be as easy as, well, opening our laptop. Wrong. It is as if the world took the entire weekend off. We cannot understand what could be happening — it seems like something should be catching our attention. In unrelated news, it appears that reading is on the rise. If you factor out high schoolers (and there is a small but vocal group who strongly believe that this is the least one should do during these difficult years). Though it is entirely possible that another study, completely contradicting […]

Sometimes, we think that the Los Angeles Times believes that pop music isn’t real music. After all, there are sections called “Music” and “Pop Music”; jazz doesn’t really get its own section, per se, but sort of tags on the end of pop. This has always been confusing. In the wake of tragedy, Charlotte Church singing about being a Crazy Chick can seem at best an irrelevance, at worst a trivial distraction, but people don’t just listen to music to salve their souls and ease their consciences. Pop is there to raise a smile, to give us something to dance

We have to admire those who put themselves out there. We prefer to hide our embarrassments, but, according to those nice folks who invented the Meyers-Briggs test (we presume they came from the fine Meyers and Briggs families, though we’re not entirely sure have our information straight), it’s not our fault. Thus we live vicariously through the struggles and triumphs of others. Like Thomas Shess, who not only wants to sell his novel, but also wants to take us along as he tries: he second week of my search for a publisher or a literary agent for my novel was

If we were to say, oh, literary fiction sales suck because all literary fiction sucks, not only would people scream, but we’d have to admit to a slight exaggeration. Only some literary fiction sucks — the law of averages prevents all books of any genre from being the best ever. There is excellent literary fiction and there is bad literary fiction. From a consumer perspective, which is presumably the purpose of writing reviews as they come a little too late in the process to help the author craft a better novel, knowing which books are worth reading and which books

Forget the personal trainer. That’s so last year. Anyone who’s anyone has a personal screenwriter. See, it’s not enough to have one, two, three, ten screenwriters toil over a script — the star or director also needs to bring along someone who understands his or her vision. Very important. Of course, being a personal screenwriter isn’t just stepping on toes and revising carefully crafted dialogue. It’s also a highly lucrative job, sometimes lasting the duration of of production. A good writer who scrimps and saves over this period can almost afford a house in Culver City. As long as they

Not everyone’s memories are appropriate fodder for books. Especially when those memories are relatively humdrum. To wit: It was at Keewaydin, [Michael] Eisner writes, that he learned the value of mutual respect, teamwork and leadership, along with such enduring life lessons as “Help the other fellow” and “Be a fair winner and a good loser.” Yes, it’s true. Despite a publicity merry-go-round, Michael Eisner’s book is not selling. This is possibly because while Eisner is somewhat well-known in the greater Los Angeles area (though not as ubiquitious as the industry would like to think), he’s not truly a household name

Yes, kids, it’s time to explore one of our favorite topics: Balancing the rights of copyright owners with the fact that works of art are inaccessible to those who want them. In today’s episode, we follow a group of classical music lovers who are slowly realizing that the cost-benefit ratio of rereleasing classic performances (pun not intended, but enjoyed nonetheless) is not so hot. So ephemeral is music that passionate minorities who appreciate it can’t believe their luck when lesser-known pieces survive multiple centuries, or when radio broadcasts by great, deceased or retired performers can still be heard – and

Mary Beth Lucas once said to us, “Bias is everywhere. Your job is to try to keep it out of your work as much as possible.” We were young, freshman year in high school, and quite sure we would write as neutrally as required. We were going to be Brenda Starr and journalists reported without bias. Ah, how we miss those naive days! To write without bias is to write without personality. Word choice and usage informs a story and it also reveals the bias of the writer (or, in the case of fiction, the character). We laugh at the

Words are dangerous, dangerous things. Access to words can lead to the one thing oppressors hate most: thinking. A thoughtful, questioning populace is the most dangerous threat a dictator can face. In times of fear, cutting off access to words becomes the weapon of choice. In Cuba, though largely underreported by the media, librarians are on the front lines of the thought wars. Jailed for promoting dangerousness (heck, jailed for attending conferences). Subjected to seizure of their entire book collections. Forced to live with the knowledge that books are being burned. These are the actions of a government living in

We admit it: we delighted in the mental image of the Paris literary scene being shaken to the core. Absent live video, we were left to make do with a monolithic scene of Jacques-Louis David clarity, one where all members of said literary scene were conveniently located in the same cafe. The flaw with this image came in our inability to replace glasses of wine with outrage. What has France in distress? Oh, just a little statement of the obvious: In its 2004 report, the SCPA, part of the justice ministry, said it was “difficult to distinguish between jury members,