Blogroll

World War II almost killed Animal Farm

Find a list of the best 20th-century novels, and you’re likely to find both George Orwell’s 1984 and his Animal Farm. The former, published in 1949, is such a classic of dystopian literature that it’s hit the top of Amazon’s bestseller lists twice in the last four years. Yet his first tale of dictatorships, Animal […]

The book that didn’t exist — until hundreds asked for it

Trump supporters on Reddit last week tried, but failed, to keep Hillary Clinton’s new book from reaching No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller lists. It wasn’t the first time an effort by a group of people affected the book industry. Perhaps the most interesting one, though, involved demand for a book that didn’t exist.

Jean Shepherd […]

The start of the paperback revolution

Paperback books helped create my lifelong reading addiction, in large part because they were affordable. I have fond memories of a small bookstore in an alley behind the Post Office in my hometown. Although the location might suggest a bawdy stock, it was actually akin to the small bookstores we would later see in shopping […]

Popularity causes welcome problem for Historical Society Press

Around 1930, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote an autobiography about her and her family’s pioneer experience. No one would publish it. Wilder ended up using it as a source for her wildly successful Little House series. Turn the clock ahead 80 some years and things have changed dramatically. The autobiography was finally published late last year […]

A reader’s-eye view of gender in publishing decisions

There’s been quite a bit in the book blogosphere last month about statistics showing a low percentage of women being published in major literary magazines and books by women being reviewed less frequently than men. I have no reason to doubt or dispute the statistics but at the same time wonder how much of this […]