Editors are Timid; Ebooks are Shorter; There is No E-reading in Cafes

The dystopian future is here.

Timid editors. And, I might add, most likely underpaid. Yet, "Books remain a pocket of air in an upturned boat." Jeanette Winterson, quoted in the article at the Guardian.

Are ebooks getting shorter because of smaller devices, or smaller attention spans? NY Times.

"Many indie New York City cafes now heavily restrict, or ban outright, the use of Kindles, Nooks and iPads." o rly? y is that? Does this make sense? Is it the love of books? The resistance to the spelling butchery that goes with texting? Can you even do that with a Nook? Also at the NY Times.

Grounds for revolution

No More Perks: Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users, from the Wall Street Journal.

Laptop users have no outlet.

"Beverage Entertainment

for a hyperprosperous society in search of emotional soothing" is from the Publishers Weekly description of Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture, by Taylor Clark. It's one of many -- how many? You'd be surprised -- titles about Starbucks, which, it should be noted, is not only keeping us awake long enough to get through all the multiformatted reading we must do in the internet age, but has conveniently located itself everywhere in order to do so, and is now also singlehandedly attempting to revitalize publishing with, er, books about itself. Okay, even if it isn't a direct attempt, it counts.

Somebody has to do it, at least until ebook publishers figure out that they must charge *less* not more for ebooks than for hardcovers. Amazon is already doing this with Kindle, but some old habits just do not want to die. The only books I have read onscreen so far are freebies from online sources, so I am not the target audience for ebooks -- tho I stand accused with the rest of the guilty from the previous blog post on used book buying. To lessen my guilt and otherwise cleanse my book-buying karma, I have bought six full-priced paperbacks and two $25 gift certificates from local bookstores in the last couple of weeks, thus nudging my total of unread books which I already own somewhere into the low hundreds. One of these days I have to start cleansing my book-reading karma.

My Five Cents

Can I just say that the Starbucks $.05 promo -- that's right, five cents -- that's what they're donating to AIDS charities for each "hand-crafted" beverage (read: the more expensive ones) you buy within a limited time period -- can I just add that this does NOT impress me in the least? Hey, take plain brewed and send $2 to the charity instead, or, better, drink coffee at home and send $3. Or tell Starbuck's to bite the bullet and send more.

Jeez. Can they even spare a dime?

I guess this is kind of in the bookstore category for me because I only ever go to Starbuck's when I visit the local Barnes & Noble.

Fake Book Signing to Be Held in Los Angeles

Why is that not a surprise? Authors are hiring people to sign their books for them. Too busy fixing their own computers or something? Those complicated new automatic espresso machines?

At Gawker.com and the Guardian.

I have to include a photo:


A friend has one of these. Worth losing sleep over.

Good News of the Day

Coffee won't kill you. This is good news for writers, and coffee fiends, but I hope the news gets better, than just "won't kill you."

Well, the hole in the ozone is smaller.

ADHD could be an eye problem that affects reading.

Is Your Coffee Killing Songbirds?

No, it's not the caffeine, but it may be those out-of-season strawberries you like to have with it.

Organic coffee is bird-friendly, according to Bridget Stutchbury, author of Silence of the Songbirds. As is any organic produce.

Since the 1980s, pesticide use has increased fivefold in Latin America as countries have expanded their production of nontraditional crops to fuel the demand for fresh produce during winter in North America and Europe. Rice farmers in the region use monocrotophos, methamidophos and carbofuran, all agricultural chemicals that are rated Class I toxins by the World Health Organization, are highly toxic to birds, and are either restricted or banned in the United States.

At the New York Times. Not only are birds being poisoned in their wintering grounds in Latin America, but produce covered in poisons is making its way to us. Due to the pesticides used, "tests by the Centers for Disease Control show that most Americans carry traces of pesticides in their blood."

The Secret to Writing

What secrets there may be are either open secrets, or secrets that would be true only for the individual. Everything you need to know you'll learn, and can only learn, from writing, provided you don't delude yourself.

--David Mitchell at The Guardian.

Hm, wonder what he thinks about the proliferation of writing books out there. A friend once asked which ones I'd recommend, but I think any of them can help at a particular moment. It doesn't matter which books you read about writing, only that you do the writing. I don't think any of them will turn you into a well disciplined writing machine. Caffeine seems to help, though. Mitchell, the author of Cloud Atlas, Number 9 Dream, and Ghostwritten prefers his in the form of tea. I'm a coffee drinker first, and tea drinker second, and even know a few writers and one potter who like mate.

And, while we are at it, the secret to Starbucks. Not my favorite place to get a cup of coffee, but definitely reliable. One of my favorite places locally just broke my heart by downgrading their coffee from a deelicious French roast to some common swill. They'd expanded to a neighboring storefront and are trying to save money -- what a mistake to cut the coffee quality! I'll never have breakfast there again. *SOB!!!*

Bitch Bitch Bitch

Bitch Book:
"When a man gives his opinion, he's a man; when a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch." --Bette Davis
Bitch: What a woman gets called if she disappoints someone's expectations of perfect, enabling mommydom. Big Fat Bitch Book review.

Bitchin Doughnuts: That first cup of coffee is a big motivation for getting out of bed in the morning. But I try not to eat normal doughnuts for breakfast, much less the souped-up version: Caffeinated Doughnuts. Besides, I'd rather have that second cup.