At this time of year, our thoughts turn automatically to giving and receiving. How can they not? We are bombarded with emails and commercials both online and off that tell us what to buy and remind us to hurry up and buy it.
Stephanie O’Dea is an award-winning blogger, a bestselling author and a busy mom of three, whose next cookbook ---
I love this story: Comics artist David Sandlin, an instructor at the School of Visual Arts and a current New York Public Library Cullman Fellow, has been selected to do what many graffiti artists would kill for. His art is adorning several subway lines in New York City beginning this month and running through January. Right now, the art is visible from the F line, with hopefully more lines getting his art soon. The three pieces are united in theme, which is a nice touch. Click through to see all the art Sandlin has created for the project.
NPR did a story today called "End Of Days For Bookstores? Not If They Can Help It" about how Amazon and the eBook world are affecting the industry and what the future is both for the chain bookstores and for the independents.
There was another very long story in the Boston Review called "Books After Amazon" on essentially the same topic.
And if I've read these two articles, I've read a hundred more over the past year or two. If you've been paying attention the industry at all, you know it is in major flux. eBooks are on the rise, the big chain bookstores are struggling, Amazon is fighting with publishers over price issues, self-publishing seems to be on the rise and eReaders are the new hot thing.
And everyone - literally everyone in the industry is weighing in. But no one really seems to know how this is all going to play out. And how could they? No one has a crystal ball. They are all just watching the trends and trying their best to stay up to date and offer their readers and customers the right things.
So all of this got me thinking... how do I want this all to turn out? And how do YOU want it all to turn out? If I could create the perfect future for books and bookselling from a reader's perspective, what would it be?
Holly McQueen --- author of FABULOUSLY FASHIONABLE
Mark Waid, one of my favorite writers and the guy behind such bestselling works as Kingdom Come, 52, and Irredeemable, has been working as the Chief Creative Officer at Boom! Studios for the past three years. Last week, though, the company announced that Waid would be stepping down from that position in order to concentrate on freelance writing, which will still include Irredeemable, Incorruptible, and The Traveler (his new collaboration with Stan Lee). Good luck to Mark, and I look forward to keeping up with what you do next.
If you are as obsessed with Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy as most people are these days, you will be thrilled to see that BookReporter.com has chosen the third book THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST as this year's book of the year.<
