Grant Barrett’s buzzwords for 2009 include:

aporkalypse

Undue worry in response to swine flu. Includes unnecessary acts like removing non-essential kisses from Mexican telenovelas and the mass slaughter of pigs in Egypt.

athey

An atheist. Usually derogatory.

birther

A person who believes that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore can’t be president. More here

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Most collectible books of the decade

"With the opening decade of the Millennium coming to an end, AbeBooks has compiled a list of the most collectible books published between 2000 and 2009. Classify these books as hyper modern first editions. It usually takes a long time, sometimes decades, for a book’s value to be determined but these treasures became collectible in a hurry.

Some became desirable on a wave of popularity (Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code), others were propelled toward greatness after winning awards (Life of Pi, The Gathering), some were acclaimed by literary critics (Human Stain, Gilead), others were initially self-published (Eragon, Highfield Mole) and several emerged from the rough and tumble of politics (My Life, Audacity of Hope). Step back and enjoy the most collectible books of the decade.

Please note: Prices are approximate to within a small margin, as currencies fluctuate. Quantity on rare books extremely limited; copies on display may sell quickly". List here

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Former Booker prize winner comments on Ireland recession in the December 23 issue of the London Review of Books

"Last year, the Society of St Vincent de Paul spent €6.1 million giving people in Ireland food. This year, it says that requests for food are up 50 per cent, that calls in general are up 35 per cent and in Dublin 50 per cent, and that 25 per cent of callers are new clients, many of whom were contributors to the charity at the church gates last year. These new clients are people who, ‘like the rest of us’, as one of their volunteers, John Monaghan, says, ‘we’re living on 110 per cent of their salaries’; this year, something in the working situation has changed, and they cannot manage their usual debts, mortgage, car, credit card. Monaghan is also worried about the effect of the recent budget on welfare recipients who, he says, will lose between 22 and 43 euros per week. Many of the cuts are aimed at the young, at carers, and at the parents of young children. Families have already lost 2 per cent of their benefits with the loss of their Christmas bonus and this means that people are not able to meet increased winter costs for heat, lighting and clothes.

This time last year the sky was falling, and then it didn’t. You wake up after the credit crisis and pat yourself down, and find everything the same, more or less, as it was before. Twelve months later, you look back to see that the sky did not fall so much as sink by inches.

I don’t know if Ireland does recession differently from other countries. We have a long and proud history of poverty, I don’t know if that helps. When I was growing up, you never asked another Irish person what they did for a living, and you never turned a beggar from the door. These are lyrical and dangerous clichés, of course (though incidentally true)

More here

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MediaBistro Summit paints picture of ebook future

Barbara A. Genco in the US Library Journal comments

"After a decade dedicated to a trade ebook “proof of concept”, the trade ebook may have finally come of age. That was the news from a recent two-day eBook Summit, held at New World Stages and convened by marketing-savvy media company MediaBistro, partnering with LJ’s sister publication Publishers Weekly.

Today, with the proliferation of new dedicated ebook devices (Kindle, Sony Reader, B&N's Nook, etc.), an explosion in smartphones and apps, and the proliferation of new platforms, ebooks have advanced significantly. And America’s public libraries, introduced to ebooks via NetLibrary in 1999 (now owned by OCLC) and increasingly embracing additional vendors like OverDrive, have to be ready for the next stage in which they may have to play a more curatorial role as content proliferates.

Summit highlights

The summit involved more than 35 industry speakers, including authors, journalists, agents, scholars, consultants, geeks, publishers, and librarians, with hundreds more in the audience. (Review the conversation using the hashtag #ebooksummit on Twitter.)

Open Road Integrated Media, led by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, has introduced a new multi-layered platform designed to develop and market book content, all of which will be device-agnostic. While Open Road will focus on the backlist of big name trade book authors to start, it expects to release 20 original titles in 2010 and scale up 100 titles yearly.

Print on Demand (POD) will continue to play a strong role in backlist, long tail, and independent publishing of print books, whether at the warehouse or via Espresso Book Machine in bookstores and libraries.

As Nieman Journalism Lab’s Joshua Benton noted, a Publisher’s Lunch study indicates that the Kindle Reader demographic skews upwards, with 70 per cent of users 40 or older. Younger readers prefer smartphones, so the future of the ebook will be “a common standard” not a “common device”.

More here.

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Bookstore night in Buenos Aires encourages reading - whither Manuka?

In Argentina recently, Buenos Aires held its annual Noche de las Librerias Bookstore Night, reports NPR radio. The city closes a main avenue, and places sofas and chairs where cars and trucks normally idle. People with books from the many bookstores lining the avenue, lounge in the seating and a festival atmosphere replaces traffic. This is the Noche de Librerias, Bookstore Night, a chance for Buenos Aires' many bibliophiles to peruse the millions of titles in stock at the dozens of bookstores that sit under the neon glow on raucous Corrientes Avenue.

Buenos Aires is the undisputed literary capital of South America, home to legends like Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar. The city has 350 bookstores. That's one for every 6000 residents. In October, Argentina will be the country of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest. City Culture Minister Hernan Lombardi stresses the importance literature has had here since military rule ended". More here

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Books worth stealing?

With the recession, shoplifting is on the rise, according to an article in The New York Times. At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., the rate of theft has increased to approximately one book per hour. I asked Steve Bercu, BookPeople’s owner, what the most frequently stolen title was.“The Bible,” he said, without pausing.

Apparently the thieves have not yet read the “Thou shalt not steal” part — or maybe they believe that Bibles don’t need to be paid for. “Some people think the word of God should be free,” Bercu said. As it turns out, Bibles are snatched even at the Parable Christian Store in Springfield, Ore., the manager told me, despite the fact that if a person asks for a Bible, they’ll be given a copy without charge.

But this holiday season, the Good Book is hardly the only title in danger of being filched. At independent bookstores, thieves are as likely to be taking orders from Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book” as from Exodus.

Fiction is the most commonly poached genre at St. Mark’s Bookshop in the East Village of Manhattan; the titles that continually disappear are moved to the X-Case, safely ensconced behind the counter. This library of temptation includes books by Martin Amis, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo and Jack Kerouac, among others. Sometimes the staff isn’t sure whether an author is still popular to swipe until they return their books to the main floor. “Amis went out and came right back,” Michael Russo, the manager, told me.

At BookPeople in Austin, titles displayed with staff recommendation cards are a darling among thieves. “It’s so bad lately that I feel like our staff recommendation cards should read: ‘BookPeople Bookseller recommends that you steal ________.’ Apparently the criminal element in Austin shares our literary tastes, or are very prone to suggestion,” Elizabeth Jordan, the head book buyer, wrote in an email message. As it turns out, the list of most-purloined fiction authors at many stores resembles the contents of the X-Case; it’s a list that is predominantly — and often exclusively — male. Why are thieves shunning the distaff? “It’s mostly younger men stealing the books,” Zack Zook, the general manager of BookCourt in Brooklyn, suggested. “They think it’s an existential rite of passage to steal their homeboy.” ” More here.

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What’s a short story worth

A NY Times article ponders …

That question was prompted by the news last week that The Atlantic will start publishing monthly fiction again, which sounds like a heartening development until you read the details: instead of running in the print magazine, the new Atlantic stories will be available exclusively on Amazon, for digital download to the Kindle. Their cost, whether you subscribe to the magazine or not, will be $3.99 each.

That’s an interesting prospect because it turns individual stories into commodities, the same way that iTunes (and, before that, 45-rpm singles) turned pop songs into commodities. But songs on iTunes generally cost only 99 cents. Is a short satire by Christopher Buckley really worth four times as much as Yo-Yo Ma’s recording of Bach’s Suite for Solo Cello No. 1? More here

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Odd book title

Erections on Allotments. George W. Giles and Fred M. Osborn. Central Allotments Committee. No date.

Not in Australia but Libraries Australia reveals the full title and date at here