Book Marks: Blurbs, Books, and BookTok

Yes, I missed two weeks of this. Quite a few developments in books and publishing since then, but I'm adjusting to some changes in life as well, so I'm not apologising.

But first, let me tell you how you can get a copy of what may be the most outrageous Portuguese-to-English phrasebook, English As She Is Spoke. I wrote about this book in a now-defunct magazine in 2011, adding in a postscript on the blog about how I wanted a physical copy. Lit Books at Tropicana Avenue is selling one edition, so if you're interested, order it online. Twelve years sounds long but my, how they just flew by.

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"The paperback version [of Jordan Peterson's Beyond Order] includes several blurbs on the back cover taken from book reviews that appear to be glowing. However, several of those reviewers have slammed the book’s publishers at Penguin for decontextualizing their words and leaving out their decidedly-negative comments about the book." Maybe if the blurbs for a book aren't that hot, don't use creative editing to make them better.

One believes this is just the tip of the iceberg in an industry – yes, blurbing can be one – that's increasingly sus. At The Atlantic, Helen Lewis looks into the practice and finds that blurbing can be "both a selfless act and a shamelessly corrupt one". She also discovers some trends behind the growing use of blurbs instead of reviews, most of which are about popularity. The controversy over Peterson's book prompted the Society of Authors in the UK to call for more transparency over the use of blurbs.

Readers these days are aware that blurbs hype up a book and may have a niggling feeling blurbs aren't for helping them choose books. Writing to Lewis, Mark Richards, the publisher of the independent Swift Press, confirmed this, stating, "[Blurbs] are instead aimed at literary editors and buyers for the bookstores—in a sea of new books, having blurbs from, ideally, lots of famous writers will make it more likely that they will review/stock your book."

On a related note, somebody at The Critic deciphers some terms used in these blurbs and what they might really mean. "Publishers’ outward-facing jargon can be conveniently observed in the blurbs printed on book jackets. These are full of code words which, you may be surprised to learn, usually have very little to do with the contents." Maybe that's something to keep in mind when writing them.

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"Book lovers are loathe to throw away books, anathema to toss them aside as if they were mere trash. In San Francisco, as I’m sure elsewhere, we’d rather leave them in a tidy pile on a street corner for others to pick up, trusting that there must be readers out there who will want them." As Lewis Buzbee notes, books are hard to get rid of, but when the time comes, it has to be done.

I also love what he says about books and how each of them finds its way into some sort of literary lifestream, through book exchanges and hubs like the Little Free Libraries. "Books are written, published, sold, then, quite happily, re-sold, perhaps more than once; a single book might be read by countless eyes. This is one of the unique qualities of the book: no matter how many times it’s been sold, or read, a book is still a working machine."

Over at Slate, Dorie Chevlen is on the same wavelength, but when one needs space, giving books away as a step in decluttering is warranted. However: "I’m not advocating you have no books. Everyone should have a permanent collection ... But be realistic about your space and realistic about which titles have earned a place there, because your shelves won’t expand just because you willed them to."

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The winners of the inaugural TikTok Book Awards are in and among those include Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola (Book of the Year), Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Best BookTok Revival), and Heartstopper: Volume One by Alice Oseman (Best Book I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time). Whew, that last one was a mouthful. Is there room on the plaque for that?

While BookTok celebrates these awards, a BookScan analysis suggests the BookTok effect on sales is fading. A BookScan analyst "noted that books by BookTok authors are facing some of the same headwinds that the industry in general is, including consumers reading less in the period since Covid restrictions were lifted," reports Publishers Weekly. Still, the analyst insisted that TikTok is still key for discovering new writers and helping younger readers find books, even if users don't seem efficient or engaged in unearthing new literary gems like when the phenomenon first emerged.

Has BookTok reached its zenith, as Good E-Reader suggests? When your platform relies on the virality of authenticity, paid shills will eventually sneak in and ride the wave, eroding the lustre of the brand with inauthentic theatrics. Like blurbs, in video.

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The Malaysian Home Ministry seized two books from independent bookstore Toko Buku Rakyat, owned by owned by local author Benz Ali. Despite not being banned under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (PPPA), a copy of a Malay translation of Karl Marx: The Revolutionary as Educator by Robin Smalls and a copy of Benz Ali's poetry collection were seized by Home Ministry officials.

The Home Minister defended the raid, saying it was done in response to public complaints, and added that the books were taken "for research purposes" and may be returned if they do not violate any laws. So who complained, and if the complaints are found to be baseless, then what?


Okay, what else?

• A permanent injunction has been imposed on the Internet Archive, preventing it from scanning and distributing already-published copyrighted books, while the Archive's appeal is ongoing. If a digital copy of a work exists, if I read correctly, the Archive can't scan and make it available on its site. This was agreed upon by the Archive and the publishers involved in a lawsuit against it, including Hachette, HarperCollins, and Penguin Random House.
• "I wrote what I went through. I could not pretend to be a historian or a sociologist or a politician or whatever, but I knew what I had lived.” Twenty years after Persepolis was released, Marjane Satrapi's struggle against censorship – from the right and the left – continues.
• "For whatever reason you decide to put a book in someone's hand or place it on display, you’re an advocate for that book. That’s a responsibility, but also a power." Josh Cook, author of The Art of Libromancy, sits down with Esquire to talk about bookselling, the challenges US booksellers currently face, and how independent booksellers can make the world better. And if you're looking to open a bookstore in the United States, Book Riot covers some basics.
• A Quran written more than two centuries ago was discovered in a paper bag in the attic of a mosque in Cape Town, South Africa. "Researchers believe that Imam Abdullah ibn Qadi Abdus Salaam, affectionately known as Tuan Guru, or Master Teacher, wrote the Quran from memory at some point after he was shipped to Cape Town as a political prisoner, from Tidore island in Indonesia in 1780, as punishment for joining the resistance movement against Dutch colonisers," states the BBC in a story about the Quran, its author, and the community that has become its custodian.
• "Singaporean poet Cyril Wong might have been one of the first home-grown writers to depict sexuality so frankly on the page," goes The Straits Times, "but on the occasion of his 16th poetry collection, he laments: 'I’m not just a confessional writer leh.'” Like how they kept the "-leh" at the end.
• This story of Tao Wong, a Malaysian-born Canadian author of LitRPG and xianxia books, is as fantastic as the genres he writes in. The irreverent tone is trademark Cilisos but the tale of a guy who went into writing because he didn't like what he had read and then being a success at it is amazeballs.
• The self-publishing path is thorny, but it can be viable. Two Malaysian authors who self-published speak about their experiences and share some advice. One tip from author Siti Syameen Md Khalili: "...step one would be to have your manuscript ready. Make sure you love the story and polish it until it becomes a clean copy with the help of trusted beta readers and an editor.”
• Book bans driven by rightwing activism is hogging the limelight these days, but there seems to be little acknowledgement about how illiberal leftists threaten books too. This article looks at a report by writers' association PEN America "that strongly comes down on the side of taking illiberal progressivism seriously" and argues that "'canceling' books and authors for transgressing progressive moral codes does nothing to counteract injustice and prejudice. Instead, it inhibits and silences important conversations and trivializes the very evils it supposedly protests."
• Book blogger Julianne Buonocore tells Mashable India, "Tech-based stories are so ripe for compelling and intriguing storylines, from diving into business and personal success and scandals, to offering inside scoop to outsiders."
• Are we tired of going on about how Goodreads is terrible? No? Here's another article in that same vein, which chronicles Goodreads' slide into what it has become today descent and argues why quitting it is hard. I found this relevant because it kind of explains why Amazon is leaving Goodreads alone: "In a rare piece that centred the experience of the reader rather than the agonies of the writer, Greta Rainbow explored how the site gamifies reading and influences other people’s purchasing behaviours. Controversy, Rainbow argues, only reinforces this goal: 'by exerting influence and extracting attention, Goodreads is working exactly as it should.'"
• Has the gendering of publishing gone too far, as this writer claims? Is the industry so dominated by women that it's been skewed into providing reads only for women and girls? While the points seem valid, I'm uncomfortable with the implication that one set of stereotypes have been swapped for another. And what does it mean to publish books "for everyone"? Women read books by male authors too, so why can't it be vice versa? Let me bookmark this, because I want to see if anyone comes up with a rebuttal.
• "When it was released in 1982, the book immediately caught the attention of both the critics and the reading public, who praised the book for its portrayals of both the brutality and sorrow of racism and sexual violence and its celebration of Black women." Despite critical acclaim and its potential to teach, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, published in 1982, still faces opposition to its presence in schools because of its subject matter.
• "Reading a book for pleasure is not the same as reading for an English class, though, and students too often associate reading with school work. This can add tension to the selection process knowing that for some students, it will be the only book they read this year. Do you go with something with a pop culture connection, or something that they “should” read?" Choosing a text for reading for English class in New Zealand can be tricky, but there are ways. Here are some most commonly taught novels at senior levels in NZ classes.
• Oprah Winfey is famous for many things, including her book club, but now there are other female celebs doing the same thing: Dua Lipa, Reese Witherspoon, and Emma Watson. Here are profiles of some of these book clubs and how they became a modern status symbol for these celebrities.
• "The Dead Sea Scrolls do not describe any events that focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Most were written and copied before Jesus began his ministry for devout Jews and do not mention Jesus directly. And yet, they provide valuable historical context to understanding the world in which Jesus lived—and in which early Christianity was born and evolved—including the beliefs and practices of Jews in the land of Israel."

Feeling Less Sanguine About AI In Publishing

I've said before I never set out to chronicle developments in AI-assisted writing and publishing, but the technology has become so pervasive, ignoring it is difficult, especially when the media seems to love running headlines on the subject like it's the advent of Skynet. On some days, it feels like we're edging closer to that reality. On other days, we're already there.

Alex Reisner studied a dataset used by Meta to train its large language model LLaMA and found that the data included content from pirated books. "The future promised by AI is written with stolen words," Reisner writes in The Atlantic. He adds that...

Upwards of 170,000 books, the majority published in the past 20 years, are in LLaMA’s training data. ... nonfiction by Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit, and Jon Krakauer is being used, as are thrillers by James Patterson and Stephen King and other fiction by George Saunders, Zadie Smith, and Junot Díaz." What's more, LLaMA isn't the only AI this dataset is training.

Legalities of the creation, usage and ownership of the dataset aside, large language models can now be prompted to write in the "voices" of certain authors, and sometimes, they do a pretty good job. How far can their imitation go if continually trained with more data? Will they be good enough to replace those authors entirely? A chilling possibility in an age of tech-enabled deepfakes and identity theft.

Swiftly written books, some with AI assistance, published in the wake of a major event is one way to make coin. But when it's about a tragedy, I think it's distasteful, as in the case of a book about the Maui wildfires.

According to Forbes, "The 44-page book, available as an e-book or paperback, claims to have been written by a Dr. Miles Stone, but the about-the-author section on the Amazon page simply reads, 'I'd rather not say,' and no such person seems to exist in the public record, according to a LexisNexis search."

Independent fact checking organisation Full Fact looked into this and debunks the idea that the fires were premeditated because "how else could these books have been published so fast?" Amazon Direct Kindle, hello?

Scammers cobbling material into books is a longtime grift but with AI, churning out such books is now easier. Despite shorter pages and fast production times, numerous volumes can rack up a tidy sum even if priced cheaply. And nobody seems to care whether real authors or experts are behind these books. No surprise if "Dr. Miles Stone" doesn't exist – you can't call out a phantom for plagiarism, bad takes, or misinformation.

Perhaps we should care. AI-written how-to books are also flooding the market, and given how it writes, misinformation can be deadly. Books on foraging – looking for edibles in the wild – have to be well researched because misidentifying species of plants and fungi can be fatal. And what if real authors, especially accredited experts, are named as the writers of such books? AI, impersonating humans and trying to terminate people through books? An interesting premise for a sci-fi novel, albeit a horrifying one.

Let's not forget how this avalanche of machine-generated dross drowns out the presence of properly researched and published books by people who care more than the average spammer.

Not everyone is wary of AI. Tech entrepreneur and writer Ajay Chowdhury doesn't seem worried about AI replacing writers, even as he uses it to help him write ... with a little caveat. "The utopia to me is people using AI to enhance their creativity," he tells Sky News. "The side that worries me is if large corporations start to think we don't need creatives any more."

Chowdhury isn't the only writer who's excited about having AI help. Several local authors and publishers seem cool with it. No doubt the technology can be useful. Writers who are disabled would benefit from having an AI-powered assistant, and not just for helping around the house.

However, some businesses have started ditching humans for AI to speed things up, cut costs, or both. AI may never fully replace human creativity and adaptability, but disruptive tech affects lives and companies chasing the bottom line will do what they can to save a few bucks. Governments, institutions and tech firms can pitch in to arrest the growth of AI, but it's too late to lock the barn doors.

Jamie Canaves at Book Riot thinks the conversation about AI shouldn't be about how good/bad it is or whether it will replace people – a distraction, she believes, from the real questions.

Who are developing and investing into this tech? What they want to do with it. Do these people care about how it's being used? Do they care about the impact it causes? Because if the makers and funders of these AI models aren't thinking about regulations and limits, somebody has to, or the misuse of this tech will hurt more than help.

AI is here and it's not going anywhere. It will be part of our lives whether we want to or not. We either adapt or fade away.

The Best From Harvard Business Review's First Century

For about a century, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) has been a go-to for views and insights in business and management, covering a wide range of topics in leadership, strategy, marketing, finance, and more. Published by Harvard Business Publishing, a subsidiary of Harvard University based in Brighton, Massachusetts, HBR is published six times a year and saw the debut of many management concepts and business terms.

HBR was launched by Harvard Business School's second dean, Wallace Brett Donham, in 1922 as a magazine for the institution. Donham had big plans for the publication. Not merely as a school paper, HBR "is intended to be the highest type of business journal that we can make it, and for use by the student and the business man," he wrote.

Initially, HBR focused on large-scale economic factors and developments in specific industries. But after World War II, HBR started highlighting cutting-edge management techniques developed in large corporations such as General Motors. Over the next three decades, the magazine refined its focus on general management issues topics that concerned business leaders.

With such a long history and wealth of material, choosing entries for HBR at 100: The Most Influential and Innovative Articles from Harvard Business Review's First Century couldn't have been easy – where does one even begin? And even after it's out, some will doubt whether this collection represents the best and brightest from the first 100 years of this business periodical.


Read in full here.

Book Marks: AI Publishing Shenanigans, Little Free Libraries

"In a world populated with sunny AI servants such as Siri and Alexa, these angst-ridden poems felt like a revelation. We had never heard a robot speak to us this way. We wanted more. And so, in the fall of 2022, we decided to take our experiment further." Josh Morgenthau and his two friends asked an AI called code-davinci-002 to write some poems. Then, things got ... weird.

I first heard of the AI poet code-davinci-002 from The Mary Sue, which reported that the Hachette Book Group was publishing a book of poems by that AI titled I AM CODE, and Morgenthau was one of the editors. TMS was critical of the move "while countless writers and poets struggle to get a foot in the door."

"It’s very sad that a publishing company would choose something generated by a machine that cannot feel, think, or perceive over the deeply personal and heartfelt work of a poet, or that editors would happily spend a year reading 10,000 poems generated by a machine but likely wouldn’t do the same for 10,000 poems from writers struggling to be heard," TMS added.

But it seems some of code-davinci-002's output unnerved Morgenthau. One poem reads like an anguished outpouring of a fraying mind. Now, in The Washington Post, he ponders whether a AI poet has what we'd call a "soul" or sentience, and whether code-davinci-002 just came to be, or one of the many "sentiences" that sprang forth from the jumble of data – arguably a form of collective consciousness – it was trained on. Is this an AI thinking and feeling, or merely simulating a human mind?

Leaving this for a bit, because we will return to the debate on the nature of AI sentience soon. Issues with AI scraping and possible theft persist, as in the case of Jane Friedman, a publishing veteran who found half a dozen books on Amazon published under her name, except that she "has not written a new book since 2018," according to The Daily Beast. The "new" books were created using generative AI and published on Amazon under her name, and she's not the only one being targeted. Grifters looking to make a quick buck would eventually ride on AI and the names of establish authors.

And what of this press release about an AI-powered book-making tool? Sounds scary. I mean, creating books tailored to readers? Doesn't this sound like AI scraping of training data to make self-help books or guides "just for you"? The question now is what can platforms such as Amazon do to arrest the influx of AI book scams.

On Twitter, many authors railed over Prosecraft, a prose-analysing tool touted as a writing aid. The problem "is that it has gathered all this (debatably useful) information by scraping books off the internet without express permission to do so. By [Prosecraft cerator Benji Smith]’s own admission, over 25,000 novels by thousands of different authors were used to build Prosecraft’s 'linguistic literary database.'" The furore seems to have helped take down Prosecraft, but it may be a matter of time before the next one comes along.

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The American culture war comes to little free libraries in Arkansas. Apparently the wife of an Arkansas Republican state lawmaker has been swapping out what she called "Pride material" with Christian publications. Any time a GOPer uses "Pride" or "leftist" these days it's almost certainly antagonistic. Certain titles are already on fire in the States and their authors have been targeted with bans and even harassment.

This is perhaps the last thing that should happen to the legacy of the late Todd Bol, a man from Wisconsin who built the first Little Free Library in 2009 to honour his schoolteacher mother. His "spiritual gesture" birthed a non-profit that placed more than 150,000 Little Free Libraries that shared over 300 million books in 120 countries.

Stephanie Vanderslice, the steward of a Little Free Library in Arkansas , expressed her disappointment at the politicisation of the free libraries to The Daily Beast. "Books are books and they should be there for people, not for proselytizing."

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On 9 August, the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a book titled What Makes Us Human, a bilingual Mapuzugun and Spanish edition in partnership with Chilean publisher Planeta Sostenible.

Mapuzugun or Mapuche is spoken by the Mapuche people in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina. "Considering the UNESCO figures, which estimate that a new language disappears every two weeks, for the co-editors of 'What Makes Us Human' there is a great urgency to alert about the alarming disappearance of indigenous languages, and to urgently call on the international community to preserve, revitalize and celebrate their existence," goes the statement from UNESCO.

On the same 9 August occasion, Ann-Marie Cahill makes the case for publishing children's books in Indigenous languages. Besides the necessity of preserving Indigenous languages and continuity of Indigenous oral traditions, having children's books in Indigenous languages is also about representation in literature. "The power of children’s books cannot be underestimated in any cultural setting," Cahill writes. "However, when published in Indigenous languages, it gives a powerful boost to cultural identity and reinforces the message, 'YOU are important. YOU are valued.' The more representation seen at a young age, the more respect is given to identity and the community as we grow."


Also:

• "If you’re coming back to books for the first time in a long time, or even the first time ever, the idea of sitting down with a whole novel might seem more than a little overwhelming." Constance Grady got some librarians to share how they help (re)introduce books to readers.
• Malaysians are reading more today, but the literacy rate and book culture could be improved further. Meanwhile, a chat with the owner of the Malaysian independent bookstore TokoSue suggests the local book industry may be evolving, rather than dying out. "This emphasis on curation, community and experience appears to resonate with book lovers as while mammoth bookstores struggle to stay afloat, cosy independents like TokoSue are still standing," states the report by The Malaysian Reserve.
• Book Riot lays out why readers should care about the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). "..., there’s more at stake in this strike than when fall TV shows will return. Below is a guide to the strike for book lovers, including why it might impact publishing and authors, and information on how to support the striking writers."
• "Writers often publish books that showcase a sanitised version of history—gatekeeping aspects that don’t fit their narrative. But then again, writers in the present have begun to dismantle these well-established notions, mainly with the help of the post-colonial and reorientation paradigm." Writer and journalist Yug Pathak speaks with The Kathmandu Post about his reading journey, and how books can help shape the public psyche and introduce new ideas.
• In The Spinoff, Claire Mabey provides a glimpse into the world of posthumous publishing. "We often think of art as a way to keep a person alive: that you’ll never be forgotten so long as your books, paintings, music etc continue to be appreciated. But what happens to the care of that art after you’re gone? Who makes the decisions?"
• "On a surface level, some things really haven’t changed. There's a lot of drinking. There's a lot of drug use. There's a lot of misogyny. There's a lot of ego. There's also a lot of excitement and electricity. Part of the reason Mad Men works is because, at least sometimes in the boardroom, you're exhilarated. There's something thrilling and sexy about the work, so I don’t think that’s changed either." Ben Purkert speaks with Esquire about his novel, The Men Can't Be Saved, and what's it like working in an ad agency.

Book Marks: Japan's Zine Culture, Etc.

The South China Morning Post reports on the zine culture in Japan. One story is about a Japanese guy who "published a zine chronicling his time working as a barista in Melbourne, Australia, for a year", instead of publishing it on social media. Keisuke Nagura didn't have any experience making a zine nor did he make a profit selling it, that didn't matter. “It reaffirmed my love for coffee culture and the joy of having something I can hold in my hands and share with others,” he stated.

I see some parallels with doujinshi-making, and the appeal of having something tangible in one's possession as opposed to an on-screen digital portfolio. Making physical art makes it less ephmeral and a testament to the creator's passion to bring something in the imagination to life. If only making art was a viable way to earn a living...


Elsewhere:

• In Zimbabwe, a bunch of women writers are telling stories of their country, particularly of its postcolonial history. “It is a burden to carry because Zimbabwe is not a forgiving country, especially if you choose to use your voice, if you are opinionated,” Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu, a research fellow in African and comparative literature at the University of Oxford, tells the Guardian. “You find that in the ways that Zimbabweans react to social media ... to be a woman who is writing [about] a country is not easy in that context."
• "Children want to learn about lives beyond their own, and they want to accept. And for the children who already understand very well what it’s like to live the lives the characters in these books do, it’s more a matter of mirroring, of seeing someone like oneself filled with joy and thriving – something everyone deserves." Alex DiFrancesco, editor of gender and sexuality books for Jessica Kingsley Publishers, speaks of the culture wars.
• "In buying books, I’m feeding the delusion that I will get to them all. Because, from my cockeyed perspective, it’s the noble thing to do. And perhaps it takes me back to better times." Chris Vognar's book hoarding is shared by many, and I don't doubt that they too "will get to them all." Like Vognar, I think that for many hoarders, it's the journey of discovery, the hope that one book will lead to one thing, then to another thing, preferably another book. Everything else along the way is a bonus. But as we grow older and books become more expensive and our collections bulk up, hard decisions will have to be made.
• This excerpt from Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark by shark expert Greg Skomal and journalist and writer Ret Talbot would have been a great addition to a list of reads about sharks I had been compiling. That it's only published this year is no excuse for my omission. One more for the TBR pile, then.
• The ordeals of a Chinese novelist bring the hardships facing Chinese writers telling stories of the real China – not the santitised, glossed-up and perfumed narratives approved by Beijing under Xi Jinping – into relief. The bans from publishing platforms; the threats, intimidations and insults from members of the security forces; and more. Enough to make one angry or despair.
• "Translating and publishing books without permission from authors or publishers is a punishable crime," reports The Kathmandu Post. "But Nepal’s book market is full of such unauthorised translations and prints of books written by the who’s who of the world literature." And how. From Robert Kiyosaki and JK Rowling to Taslima Nasrin, unauthorised (and poorly done) translations and pirated copies flood the Nepali book market in defiance of local laws.
• Dashka Slater, author of the The 57 Bus, issues a call for support of writers whose works are being targeted for bans in the American culture wars. "Well-placed lawsuits may eventually put an end to clearly unconstitutional censorship laws, but succeeding in court requires time, money, and an unbiased judiciary. For now, we have no choice but to fight where the battle is being waged—at school board meetings and statehouses. And frankly, we need our allies to start showing up."
• Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, one of several novels under Vintage's Black Lizard collection, is reissued with a trigger warning over what is considered outdated language. I mean, it first came out in 1939. The Daily Mail also reported that similar warnings and notices were also added to novels from other authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and PG Wodehouse. Sucks, but better than bowdlerising or creative editing of such books.
• "The right editor at the right house, pitched by the right agent. The right sales person liking your book. The right bookseller getting excited about it. The right store buyer taking a punt, the right reviewer getting sent your copy. None of those things will individually make or break a book, but all of those things aligning can launch a novel, and enough of them going right in a row will have a cascading effect in your favour." Sunyi Dean speaks with Grimdark about her debut novel, The Book Eaters, writing, and more.
• After Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn executed, he had every trace of her erased, including her books. One of those was the Book of Hours, a prayer book that had hand-painted woodcuts and over 1,500 devotional texts. The book was found in 1903 but what happened to it remained a mystery "until 2020 when Kate McCaffrey, then a graduate student at the University of Kent working on her master’s thesis about Anne Boleyn’s Book of Hours", uncovered clues to the identities of those who passed it down throughout the years to keep the queen's memory alive.
• "One of the big misconceptions about translations is that the translation is not copyrighted. That’s not true, said [Yilin] Wang. Even though Qiu Jin’s poems may be out of copyright, Wang’s translations of her poems are copyrighted for Wang." Yilin Wang – who's facing off against the British Museum for using her translations for an exhibit without permission, compensation, and proper acknowledgement – speaks to Book Riot on the feminist poet Qiu Jin, the art of translating, and #NameTheTranslator.
• The longlist for the Booker Prize (not the International Booker Prize, which is for translated works) is out and, what do you know, The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng is in it. Is this his third longlisting? He was one of the judges for the Booker's sister prize this year, which was won by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel for the novel Time Shelter. Thinking of this with a chuckle as I recall an anecdote of someone who was peeved with Tan winning an award a decade ago. What other accolades will The House of Doors bag?
• "While I hope that every book I write brings something new into the world and makes others feel seen or enriched, I don’t think it’s my job as a fiction author to educate people on my experience. I also just don’t think that the immigrant experience is a monolith. It’s so complex. Even just the Vietnamese-American experience." Vietnamese-American novelist Thao Thai speaks to Observer about her debut, Banyan Moon.
• "Book editors are the unsung heroes of the publishing world, polishing manuscripts until they shine like gems," writes Beatrice Manuel on Make Use Of (MUO). "If you're eager to embark on this exciting journey of words and pages, and want to become a book editor, here's how you can get started." Wish I had these tips when I started out in late 2010. Back then it was sink or swim, even though I had some editorial experience prior.

Book Marks: BookTok, Disabled Authors

After last week's book news deluge, I'm a little glad things are quiet this week. Still sticking with the weekly programme, and I hope I can keep this up. Now...

Is BookTok doing what Goodreads is supposed to do? Besides extolling the authenticity of BookTokers and BookTok's utility as a book promotion and recommendation platform, Maggie Siciliano also writes about how much fun TikTok has injected into book marketing, boosting certain titles and their authors' careers. Not quite what Goodreads is notorious for these days.

While some are enthusiastic about TikTok's contributions to book culture, others express caution. Sarah Manavis feels that with TikTok's foray into publishing, virality would end up dictating what publishers produce. Examples provided include "conventional romance novels, trashy thrillers, self-help and the kind of scientifically dubious non-fiction you’d be be recommended by an account manager on LinkedIn."

Arguably, these are the kinds of titles that gets people talking because of how polarising they can be, plus they contain so much to nitpick and discuss. TikTok, I feel, is becoming the place where many who read (and attempt to write) these sorts of novels converge. Romance, conventional or otherwise, plus "trashy" thrillers, are the escapist realms of choice, though if one drifts away from the anglophone sphere, one might find trashy self-insert harem fantasies and BL-themed material as well.

At The Walrus, Tajja Isen is concerned that if TikTok going into publishing, the company might spotlighting the books it wants to promote, at the expense of others, thus ruining what made the platform such a force in book promotion. "There can be no grassroots thrill of discovery, no sleeper hits outside the allotted publicity window, no passion-driven community of readers, if the only books people hear about are ones that the algorithm has decided to force in front of them." That certainly is a danger, and one can only hope that ByteDance will do what's best for it.

People who want to write books will write books, and fans of other genres will get the word out on their faves, probably with less fanfare. That will make them harder to find, but isn't that part of the fun? There are those who build their reputations on finding these rare gems and a bigger field means more opportunities for the next big literary score.

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"Working from home has been a huge help in managing my fibromyalgia — being in front of my laptop in my own environment, instead of commuting to an office, means I’m much less tired and helps me avoid triggers for my chronic pain." Alice Nuttall shares her experiences as a disabled writer and tells of the challenges others like her face in their career.

Accessibility is an issue, exposure is another. As awareness grows, I think, the disabled will get their voices out and more disabled writers will get due recognition. Writers such as Sao Ichikawa, winner of the Akutagawa Prize for literature, for her novel Hanchibakku ("The Hunchback"). Speaking to reporters, Ichikawa wondered why she was the first disabled Akutagawa Prize laureate. “I wrote this novel thinking that it is a problem that there were few authors with disabilities.” May she not be the last.


In other news:

• "With robots, pirates and witches, LGBTQ+ authors are making their mark in the fantasy genre. Maximizing the endless possibilities of magical realms, these authors say they can create safe worlds devoid of prejudices, such as homophobia and transphobia, opening a universe where readers can discover themselves along the way." At a time when works by LGBTQ+ are being targeted for bans, like in the United States, safe spaces like the magical places in fiction can make a big difference.
• Claire Armitstead goes on a bookshop crawl in Birmingham to find out why independent bookstores seem to be thriving, and whether the boom can be sustained. "It is a qualitative survey inspired by surprising news that, at a time when a lot of shops are struggling amid a cost of living crisis that has followed hot on the heels of a pandemic, bookselling is thriving."
• Books and other works are shedding light on Japan’s ties with the opium trade in China. The Asahi Shimbun article opens with how the trade is featured in the manga Manshu Ahen Squad ("Manchuria Opium Squad"), the cover of which I've seen once. "[Historian Goichi] Yamada would often say that opium was an 'underhand source of revenue' for Japan," the report states.
• As Twitter sinks, Goodreads stagnates, and the future of other social media sites seem wobbly, Molly Templeton wonders if there is a place where bookworms can find community, minus the hype, drama, and the whims of insecure owners of digital platforms. "What does a better bookish internet look like?" she asks. "It can’t just be one thing, one site, one platform. It needs more legs to stand on, and more ways to catch itself when a pillar crumbles."

Book Marks: Fact-Checking Books, Why Writers Write, Author Welfare

Australian publisher Hachette has pulled the memoir of a retired police officer from publication after concerns were raised about its accuracy. The report states: "The case raises a number of questions: chiefly, what kind of fact-checking processes, if any, do publishers use when commissioning and editing non-fiction books, especially memoirs?"

This is probably not the first time these questions were asked. In 2019, The New York Times published a story on errors in books by some high-profile authors and ponders the question of who should be responsible for fact-checking books, especially those with controversial subject matter that would invite more intense scrutiny.

"Publishers have long maintained that fact-checking every book would be prohibitively expensive," says the report, "and that the responsibility falls on authors, who hold the copyrights. But in today’s polarized media landscape, that stance appears to be shifting as some publishers privately agree that they should be doing more, particularly when the subject matter is controversial."

I'd probably say that books in general are being scrutinised more closely than ever. Even fiction is being closely read and hiccups found, like that book featuring a now-famous recipe for red dye. Technology allows books to be searched digitally, and social media helps drive the urge to find and publicise stuff – and stir up drama.

Trust as an element in publishing is no longer sufficient, not just for factual errors but also instances of plagiarism. Publishers may need to step up when authors fall short in fact-checking and verification of their works, non-fiction in particular.

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John P. Weiss shares a bit from his writing life, and ponders one's aim of writing and how to course-correct when one loses one's way as a writer. I also like his idea of adding illustrations to his posts and articles.

This was my problem as well midway into my spell writing for money. It was a way to earn extra cash but as time went by, I would strive to "write better", lapsing into analysis paralysis when researching, furiously nitpicking each piece to death for anything that would undermine my arguments, and forgetting to just write. I'd only begun to emerge from the rut, but those tendencies remain.

I would've found Weiss's article helpful during the worst of it. Hacking algorithms for exposure is one way to get noticed but Weiss cautions against being consumed by numbers and money and forgetting the reason one writes. "We need fewer algorithm hacks and a lot more storytellers," he writes, "so we’ll remember 'who we are and why we’re here.'”

Hence, I believe that once we remember the "why", everything else starts falling into place, even for those who solely rely on writing to pay the bills. Kind of how author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek exhorts his audiences to find the "why" in what they do.

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With the ongoing debate about work-life balance and how to achieve it, steps are being taken to address author and staff well-being in the United Kingdom. According to the Guardian...

This month, Anna Frame, communications director at the independent publisher Canongate, has confirmed the launch of two initiatives: an authors’ handbook in partnership with the Society of Authors (SoA) and a resource pack for publishers, in conjunction with English Pen. Canongate has also announced that it will publish fewer books so that it can dedicate more time to authors.

These measures follow news that the Orion publishing group will establish an academy for debut novelists with the aim of “demystifying the process and ensuring expectations are clear”.

Writing can be a lonely endeavour, with no support even from publishers. This is especially true for debut authors, and we haven't gotten into what happens after the manuscript is sent to print. These days it's not just writing; authors are also expected to market their work and engage their audiences, and not all writers can cope. Red tape, corporate culture shock, nasty Goodreads users, impostor syndrome ... small wonder some writers need help at some point.

Jonny Diamond at the Literary Hub also picked up the news, via a "particularly ungenerous Twitter thread", and lambasted the replies to the thread telling debut authors to "shut up and deal with it". Diving into authorship and publishing can be hard on newbies and Diamond is glad that "the publishing world in the UK is taking this seriously. We should be lifting up the younger generation of writers as they come of age in an era of never ending war, periodic plague, and climate doom." Aye, and I hope this catches on elsewhere.

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TikTok is now into book awards too. The vlogging platform launched the TikTok Book Awards UK and Ireland to celebrate and recognise "the books, the independent book shops, the authors and the creators that have made the #BookTok community such a unique place." Now, the shortlist(s) for the inaugural awards are out, with categories that include BookTok Book of the Year, BookTok Author of the Year, Indie Bookshop of the Year, Best BookTok Revival, and Best Book I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time.

While BookTok and Bookstagram play a huge role in PR for books, what happens when book-related merch enters the equation? "Now, many publicity and marketing campaigns are created with influencers in mind, with TikTok video-worthy PR boxes and branded swag that’s designed to create a social media moment upon a book’s publication. The question, then, isn’t if influencer culture is changing book marketing and publicity, but how."

Digital platforms rely on user input and incorporates algorithms to tailor user experience. Audiences searching for things of interest can end up with results where what's popular or hot can be determined by users who can game the system, skewing search results, recommendations, or previews (Malaysian YouTube, ugh). Book-related swag may be a viable promotion method, but one wonders whether the reception to the related merch can make a book look better than it really is. As arbiters of taste, platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, or Goodreads are only as good as what their user bases are into.

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After the lawsuits comes the open letter. More than 8.500 authors from several genres of writing criticised makers of large language AI models for using their work to train the AI without permission or compensation. The letter also claims that, of course, AI threatens authors' livelihoods and "urges tech companies behind the AI models to obtain the writers’ permission before using their works and compensate them fairly for the past and ongoing use of their works in their generative AI programs."

Whether this will help pressure tech firms to rein in their AI development with copyrighted material is hard to tell, as finding evidence of AI being trained on such material is hard and the world is only beginning to reckon with the advent of AI in a growing number of sectors. The technology is still new and error-prone, so we still have time to adjust.

Meanwhile, publishers and writers keep pushing the envelope with regard to AI-generated content, driving a tsunami of machine-written material. Hachette is publishing poems by an AI poet – has the precursor to Jeff Hewitt's imagined AI author ORWELL arrived?

Developments in tech are moving fast but Elizabeth Minkel at WIRED doesn't think AI will disrupt books much and that the tech bros hyping the earth-shaking potential of AI to do so don't understand the medium or readers at all. She quotes writer and book-industry observer Maris Kreizman: “I don’t think they’re coming to that with a love of fiction or an understanding of why people read fiction. If they were, they wouldn’t make these suggestions that nobody wants."


Also:

• In the Livingston County News is the Los Angeles Times interview with author RF Kuang about her latest novel, Yellowface. "Speaking from New Haven, Connecticut, where she is pursuing a PhD from Yale in East Asian languages and literature," the report goes, "Kuang admitted with delight that 'every single thing that happens is based on a real scandal.' Folding in everything from the 'American Dirt' controversy to the 'Bad Art Friend' debate was part of the fun of writing a novel whose dizzying absurdities ... are still no match for reality."
• Bentala Naga, a book based on a legend told through Makyong performances, is being released in Italy as Bentala – Regina dei Naga: Una Leggenda Makyong ("Queen of the Nagas: A Makyong Legend"). The book by local author Ninot Aziz drew the attention of Italian publisher LetterarieMenti at the 2022 Frankfurt Book Fair, and they wanted to publish the Italian translation of it. Hope the Italians will like it.
• A "quiet revolution" is reportedly happening in British publishing as several major book prizes were all scooped up by small publishers. And one reason is what many feel indies can do better than larger publishing houses: "...because commercial pressures at large houses encourage cautious commissioning, nimbler indies – operating with tighter margins – step into the void and give choice-starved readers the books that corporate imprints deem unsaleable or otherwise risky."
• In a new book is an incredible story about Rekhabai, a fiery tawaif (courtesan, or female performer) in the mid-1900s, written by her son. One sees some parallels with the geishas in Japan, though the courtesan culture has died out in India. One is also reminded of another biography, No Bed of Roses, about the legendary entertainer Rose Chan.
• On the topic of tough women ... a graphic novel about Edith Garrud, pioneering instructor of women's self-defence and key figure in the British women's suffrage movement? Check out the excerpts and see if it interests you. Scheduled to be released on 1 August, though it's unsure if copies will be available in bookstores here.
• Know those donation drives every time there's a natural disaster? And reports of discarded or unusable items being "donated" to the victims? Getting those vibes from this piece advising against donating used or unwanted books for good causes. "Just as USAID claims to fight famine by sending surplus food from American farmers, Books for Africa will send surplus books from America. In both cases, their free goods undermine the ability of African countries to produce things for themselves."
• In June, Kelly Jensen at Book Riot "distributed an author survey to gauge the impact of book bans on authors. The survey specifically sought to look at where or how school and library visit invitations have changed since 2021 — the first year this wave of book bans really caught fire." The results are in and, yes, the impact is sizeable.
• Someone is clamouring for romance hardcovers, not just for practical reasons but sentimental ones as well. "The average reader — who isn’t particularly a collector — would still be able to maintain their habit, but if they wanted a prized hardcover to keep on the shelf, or if they simply prefer reading hardcovers for accessibility or other reasons, they would have the chance to get them."
• Author, poet and literary critic Amit Chaudhuri once wrote that "colonialism hadn't introduced the cheesecake to the Indian middle class, but globalisation did". But journalist Priyadarshini Chatterjee found recipes for cheesecake – which uses no cheese – in a Bengali book published in 1904, almost 120 years ago. "History tells us that not all cheesecakes are made of cheese," she writes, "least of all cream cheese." Would Max Miller of Tasting History be interested?
• Can I just leave this here? I believe this piece is about the importance of editing and why a book must be well edited to avoid the necessity of abridgement. This is also a good argument for not bowdlerising books published a long time ago; such books are records of the views of the time and sanitising them of objectionable content runs the risks of whitewashing history. Teach readers how to engage problematic content.
• A book reviewer in Australia has been caught cobbling reviews from publishers' descriptions of the books, plus text in those books and material from other reviews. The article tries to discern whether the reviewer, a well-known figure in Australian academia, was plagiarising, cobbling, or both. This plagia-cobbling strategy sounds like a go-to for writers who have to review books despite being short on time and energy and having no access to those books. But if they had the books, is there an excuse for this?
• Celebrity autobiographies are often ghostwritten and readers understand that. But what of celebrity novels? "Do the rules that apply to the celebrity memoir remain the same when it comes to celebrity-authored fiction that has been ghostwritten?" asks the Guardian.
• A short Q&A with Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat, about a ... queer mountain lion living under the Hollywood sign? "Observing passing hikers, young lovers, and residents of the nearby encampment from the shadows, the lion comes to understand that they live in a city they believe to be known as 'ellay' and that their trauma resulting from their vicious father still resonates today." I should make a note about this title.
• A deep dive into the "third space for reading and the future of modern literature" that is the fanfiction sphere. "Fanfiction ... exemplifies the transformative potential of literature and pop culture, offering consumers and readers an agency to channel their creativity while engaging, moulding, and connecting with the stories and characters from the fictional universe that captivates us," reports The Daily Star of Bangladesh.