Saturday Morning LitLinks
Is Amazon planning to go brick-and-mortar?
Bruce Sterling of Wired Magazine presents “Eighteen Challenges in Contemporary Literature.”
The Lambda Literary Foundation announced its 21st annual awards last night. Full list of winners here.
Publishers Weekly finds a “downsized show” at BookExpo America 2009, but that doesn’t stop them from generating a massive amount of coverage.
Alison Flood, reporting from the Hay Festival, wonders if literary festivals and reading groups are “signs of a thriving literary culture.”
Simon Heffer sums up books festivals thusly: “I suppose you could describe literary festivals as a sort of live porn show for the educated classes.”
Today in Literature: On this day in 1960, Boris Pasternak died at the age of seventy, persecuted to his grave by partisans on both sides of the Cold War.
AuthorScoop
May 30th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Amazon, please skip the physical stores. It is not necessary. You’ve got my business already with a great selection, good prices, new mint copies and free shipping.
I hate to say it but I am giving up on bookstores.
I already have Barnes & Noble if I want to browse bookshelves littered with Starbucks cups and water bottles and or buy dog-eared magazines that have been picked over by pigs that had no intention of purchasing.
I am finished with bookstores.
Not the books fault, of course, it’s the people.
May 30th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
i can only seem to rekindle my love of bookstores in second-hand shops. and i say this as a guy who worked for waldenbooks for more than 5 years back in the 80s. i just can’t stand the big box stores. they’re sterile and soulless.
but i agree about amazon. i can’t see the upside, with the costs of running a physical store - staffing, utilities, rent, insurance, stock, furnishings, losses through shoplifting, etc.
they don’t need to increase brand recognition. it’s weird.