News: Books, Buses, And Hidden Snark

Is the corporatisation of book publishing threatening the industry? Seems that way, according to the late Andre Schiffrin, an indie publisher, who was not keen on the profit-driven model for book publishing.

"Whereas before, the average annual profit for a publishing house stood around 3 to 4 percent, now every imprint in a publishing house had to turn 10 to 15 percent profit per year or face closure. This pressure to meet targets, Schiffrin believed, "profoundly altered the output of the major publishing houses.'"

On a slightly related note, there's a study out there that says good fiction "enhances connectivity" in the brain. Until this study is debunked, we now have a compelling reason for the proper screening of manuscripts and publication of good books.

But not everybody agrees that great lit can change your life radically for the better. Nor should it.

"Reading Faulkner doesn’t make me a better person, nor does it teach me much, aside from the realization that Faulkner was a marvelous storyteller," writes Malcolm Jones in The Daily Beast. He adds that "The mid-century novelist Junichiro Tanizaki's women aren't much like my mother and my aunts, but when I read The Makioka Sisters, my family, or at least that sisterly dynamic, snapped into focus like never before. I don't think the pleasure I take from such awakenings will get me into heaven, but it’s enough for me."

All right, moving along:

• Is this really the secret to reading a lot of books or an endorsement of the tools featured inside?
• Hunting for snark in academic papers: Did these people really slip those into the acknowledgements sections? Can't tell, from the way it's written.
• The chief, the "good books advocate", in The Malay Mail Online. Go, chief!
• Forbes's predictions for the book-publishing industry for 2014.
• "...we read or listen to author interviews for the same reason we read novels: to find out how to live. But where novels are often opaque in their wisdom, declining to tell us how to live as plainly as we might like, the interview offers clarity." Seeking writerly wisdom is, apparently, why we read author interviews.
• Laura Miller at Salon couldn't finish these books in 2013.
• "Don't call me an author." This maid in Gurgaon writes books - best-selling ones.
• "Is it time to forgive Greg Mortenson?" asks Jon Krakauer. Short answer: "Nope."
• In memoriam: The Millions remembers some writers who left us in 2013.
• "Speedy consumption of infinite info facilitates short cycles of indignation". How to break the online "rage machine"?
• Dick Metcalf, former Guns and Ammo writer, speaks out in The New York Times.
• Manufacturers of London mayor Boris Johnson's buses want to block a book critical of the design of said buses. Talk about throwing something under a ... bus.
• Got a cocaine habit? If yes, you're killing people. Lots of people. At times, in gruesome ways.