How YOU Create a Sustainable Book Culture

At the Hairpin, Emily Gould of Emily Books was asked to weigh in on the vexed topic of website links to on-line booksellers, which brought her to a  discussion of the future of book-buying and how we can all contribute to a healthy ecosystem:

In the good future, readers make the connection between the books they enjoy and the publishing infrastructure that enables those books to be created. We buy new hardcovers when we can afford to, ebooks when we want instant gratification and convenience or to audition books we’re not sure we want on our shelves forever, and we take out books from the library when we don’t feel like paying full price at a bookstore. We buy from Amazon, from Kobo, from the iBookstore, from our local independent bookstores and from B&N as long as they exist. We buy books directly from publishers and authors when we want to make extra sure they’re getting the biggest cut they possibly can, and we buy from other places when convenience is more important or the authors are long-dead anyway.

We might have a small quibble with the implied wave of the hand given to publishers of “long-dead” writers, but otherwise, we say, Bravo!

Read the entire interview.

“‘May I’ I asked with diffidence, ‘take a moment to acquaint myself with, and taste the fine qualities of, the most sterling and serious, and therefore of course the most read and most quickly acknowledged and purchased, reading matter? You would pledge me to unusual gratitude were you to be so kind as to lay before me that book which, as certainly nobody can know so precisely as you, has found the highest place in the estimation of the reading public, as well as that of the dreaded and thence surely flatteringly circumvented critics, and which furthermore has made them merry.’”

— Robert Walser displays the correct way to approach your bookseller. From The Walk, out June 5th from New Directions in a newly mulled-over translation by Susan Bernofsky.  (via mcnallyjackson)

prolixcorpuslibris:

Guess what? Ann Patchett and I co-wrote a book together! Sort of. Recommendations from lots of fab booksellers, and an introduction by one of the newest (and loudest) among our ranks…

unabridgedbookstore:

Stefan is in this book! Plus other amazing booksellers from across the country talking about the books they love. Hold your horses! Its not out until September. We’ll remind you gently when the time comes.

readthisproject:

Read This!

A bookseller recommendation haiku for Tove Jansson’s Fair Play:

You may know Moomins,
but she wrote adult books too.
this, one of the best!

Taken at Book Passage, Ferry Building

“[Google Books’ director of strategic partnerships, Tom] Turvey asked why “all book recommendation engines suck” before answering his own question: there isn’t an algorithm that can compete with a competent, real-life bookseller. ‘Hand-selling can make you look like a genius,’ he said. ‘After just a few questions, [a bookseller] can say, “Here is what you want to read next” ’ with startling accuracy.”

— 

Publishers Weekly, “BEA 2011: E-book Future, Google, and Facts” by Marc Schultz , May 25, 2011

In related news: Bookhouse of Stuyvesant Plaza will be holding an ebook workshop for people interesting in learning  “just how easy it can be to enjoy eBooks AND support you local bookstores.”