I read this when you first posted it, but it’s stuck with me. I’m not sure what it means, exactly, for the book business or storytelling, but Tumblr—in particular—seems to have become a sort of communal memorial for this curious custom once known as reading.
You see images of children and lone, moody individuals, lost in text, and—in some extreme cases—mute volumes, there on the nightstand, evoking … something. These are photos the person you describe might enjoy, but they don’t do much for me.
It’s as if, just as an art form was about to be thoroughly democratized, people were rushing in to re-pack it in mystery and solemnity. I hate solemnity — and literature will be better off with out it.
Jim Hanas left this comment on a blog post from last month and I wanted to make sure that people read it, because I also hate solemnity. (Outside the sacred boundaries of the cheese aisle, naturally). (via bookavore)
7
The Autobiography of Mark Twain (vol 1), page 106. MARK TWAIN REALLY SAID THAT YOU GUYS (via bookavore)
This is gold. As soon as I’m done with Every Man Dies Alone, I’m getting this autobiography.
Yesterday I spent most of the day at the fourth International Quidditch World Cup. We made our own butterbeer before we went; it looked and tasted nothing like butterbeer actually does in the books, but it was delicious anyway, and highly portable, so I share it with you now.
To serve four,…
6 
I almost think that a stock checklist would be preferable to a stock rejection letter. At one internship, I sent out rejection letters that were about two inches wide: we printed two lines several times on a single sheet of A4 paper and cut it into slips. The rejections were deserved and it was an economical measure, but at that point, you might as well just use a stamp that reads “REJECTED”.
Oh lord oh lord, how badly do I want a stack of these?
The rejection slip Essanay Film Manufacturing Company (1907-1925), a motion picture studio mostly remembered today for its series of Charlie Chaplin films, sent screenwriters whose submissions were found wanting (via Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture)
from Convergences, Real and Imagined: A Conclusion by Richard Nash.
See also: “…and then it came to me—the data about the book business is poor because there is no such thing as the book business. Yup. The book business doesn’t exist. There is no book business.”
(via bookavore)
3
A free copy of this book Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari (Unbridled) was mailed to the store a month or so ago; knew I wanted to read it because I’ve heard good things; took it home. Finally made it to the top of the pile and I just opened it to this. This book better be damn good, because I’m not sure anything can top its inscription.
Marry me, bookavore!
SUBJECT OF RESOLUTION: The relative statuses of mainstream, literary, and genre fiction
SUBMITTED TO: The reading public and publishing industry
SUBMITTED BY: A reader
THIS READER,
ALARMED BY an increasingly vitriolic set of discussions regarding different types of fiction and how they are…
58 Cheap drunk that I am, I would NOT survive this game.
From Bookavore:
With sincere apologies if this has been done before, but I think this is the only way I can read another one of these. Maybe I might be cranky today!
“Will e-books wipe out/kill/decimate/pulverize/HULKSMASH/angry verb real books?” — one drink
Above question is lede — one drink
Every use of…
764 
