School’s out, summer’s right around the corner. Time to kick back a little and browse through some of the interesting bookish news and information that is floating around the web. Here are a few of my picks.
>> Book Blogs - Important – to actually see the site click on the little chain link icon right next to the word “follow” in blue. Click anywhere else and you’ll get a promo message from Feed Spot with a pitch for subscription for their service. This list is by no means comprehensive and it’s coming from a website that wants to sell you info and data on niche markets. Still it provides a pretty wide assortment of individuals, institutions and dealers and it comes with some metrics info too. You could do worse. If you click the link - which is recommended and why we’re putting it first, you are still likely to get a follow up email offering data services, but most of the 30+ blog sites they’ve chosen are well worth a visit.
>> Print is dead or is it? Haven’t you heard no one reads, much less buys books any more? Here’s the rebuttal that ran recently in Slate It says there are lots of creative ways to use statistics that might tend to be misleading, especially if you’re a party to a big lawsuit in a publishing merger. Plenty of data, nicely presented.
>> Reddit anyone? I confess to being a Reddit junkie, love it for all the odd bits of first hand news and information that gets mixed together on a daily basis. While it’s heavy on internet gamers and ageist sentiments (i.e. everything bad is the fault of old people, die already and give us your stuff) there is a staggering amount of book related subs in r/books with an aggregate membership of 24 million. All three of these links are a little different, so if you are not currently browsing Reddit suggest you click through on the trio.
Warning: Reddit is addictive and a lot of it is, shall we say, strange. There’s lots of youthful internet slang that I have to look up such as NSFW (not suitable for work), AITA? (Am I the a**hole?) and AMA (Ask me anything). It can be fun and informative, or it can be a huge doom scroll.
>> Movie star turned book recommender: Unbeknownst to some of us in the more esoteric reaches of bookish lore the actress Reese Witherspoon has become influential in book club circles. So who knew? Here’s a gift article to get you around the NY Times paywall to find out what’s hot in book club land.
>>> Tattered Cover the legendary Denver book shop goes on the bankruptcy block this month. June 10th is the bid deadline for the auction which will be held June 12. The article says there are eight prospective bidders.
>>> And in other news from bookstores, Paul Yamazaki head buyer from City Lights in San Francisco shares some of his thoughts and literary tastes with the NY Times. Again, it’s another gift article so presumably you’ll be able to access the site.
Have a good summer.
Reach writer Susan Halas at wailukusue@gmail.com
