Bookmarking 10 - Dolphins

One of my oldest bookmarks, this was purchased for the two leaping dolphins. This bookmark has not had an easy lifetime. Purchased 10 years ago, it has since lost the lacquered nut that hung from the top, much of the wood's shine, and the bottom part of the bookmark has broken off (the jagged edge at the bottom of the photo used to lead to a complete circle around the dolphins). Though slightly impractical (it is fairly thick), this is perhaps one of my favorite bookmarks. No other, I don't think, has quite as good a smell.

Original intentions

In order to fully understand the results of the book blogger survey, one must know the original intentions. See, this project did not begin as a survey but rather as a series of generalizations and assumptions. It began with the simple question: are there more female book bloggers than male ones? This slowly developed into stereotypes and guesses, saying things like, "Well, female bloggers are more likely to..." or "Male bloggers don't really do..." and so on. In general, assumptions are bad. Therein lies the birth of the book blogger survey.

That was the first question: the male/female breakdown. This lead to the first stage of the survey - compiling a list of book blogs and defining them as male written, female, both, or unknown. After collecting several hundred blog titles (in what I suspect is one of the largest book blogger databases in existence, though it is currently closed to the public), I managed to find a rough indicator of male/female percentages. The split came out around 60:20 female to male (with the remaining 20% accounting for unknowns and blogs with multiple writers). This, however, was not enough. It was, as I already pointed out, merely an indicator, seeing as it was entirely unscientific and also not at all concrete - I was guessing genders based on names, hints and personal stories.

It was while collecting book blogs for this database that I realized what's needed is a comprehensive survey. Who are book bloggers on the whole, what do their blogs look like, how do they view themselves? I discovered that there were no such answers online - I found reference to a book blogger survey from almost a year ago, but was unable to find results. It seemed like a suitable project to learn more about the book blogging world and the people behind these excellent blogs.

And so the survey was born. Tune in later this week for the first round of results!

Survey status

It's been several months since the book blogger survey opened. What was meant to last a month ended up getting delayed due to several technical difficulties and a few personal complications. However, in this time just under 300 book bloggers kindly filled out this little form. To all participants - thank you.

But all good things must end (especially ones that were meant to go a long time ago). As of today, the book blogger survey has closed. And, if I may say so myself, it was an astounding success. Obviously we'll know more once the actual numbers are in, but so far I can say that we're going to learn some interesting things about this book-obsessed world of ours.

There are many (many) ways to look at these numbers and I hope to analyze them from every possible direction. So I apologize for what's about to happen, because it's going to take some more time. However, this time I will post results along the way - first, the dry numbers, then delving deeper into the stats (though, again, I know very little of actual statistics). With time, I hope a fascinating tapestry of the book blogging world will emerge.

These statistics are for the book blogging community as a whole and therefore passing the message and statistics along is very much encouraged. Feel free to contact me (the name of this blog at gmail) with any questions, comments, complaints, etc. Once again, a most sincere thank you to all participants. This would have been impossible without all of you.

Now the fun part begins.

Do Not Reshelve!

Note: Bookmarking will return next week after this delay due to the failure of several USB devices and wires (and a volcano eruption). Thank you, technology. Thank you.

Via Combreviations, a photo-list of funny signs found in and around libraries. Most revolve around eating and computers (and eating around computers), but are quite entertaining - from the slightly depressing (yelling children) to the hilarious (below).

Bookmarking 9 - Tassels

Sometimes I find myself wondering at how almost all my bookmarks seem to be strips of paper (and, most often, boarding passes). Then I go online and find these elegant, stylish bookmarks to make me even more jealous about not having them in my collection.

Nice designs and a tassel? I should splurge more often. Very nice indeed.

There are a lot of cool bookmarks out there.

Holocaust Memorial Day

It's been 65 years since the end of World War II and the Holocaust. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel and in certain communities around the world. Of the various memorial days for Holocaust victims, this is probably the best known besides the "official" International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which typically passes with little fanfare.

I've already written much about Primo Levi's well-known works, about Holocaust memoirs, and other topics, but there is much to be said about the wide and varied "Holocaust lit" genre. And I do mean "lit" - literature in the sense of novels and stories as opposed to memoirs or personal accounts.

World War II is one of the most common story settings. The Holocaust similarly so. These are books across the board when it comes to style, intended audience and genre: popular fiction, romance, teen, heavier "literary" fiction... even sci-fi (though this is probably the rarest of the lot). All of these books take the same larger setting, so you'd think all would also sound alike and lack originality (more so than most literature, that is).

What warrants our attention? As I once mentioned in passing, there are too many poorly written Holocaust and World War II books out there that make it big and are even used for teaching. For many years, I avoided "the Holocaust novel" like I might a romance novel or a thriller simply because I was, for lack of a better phrase, sick of it. The last couple of years, I've tentatively begun to return to the field. I've realized that most of the books are still bad (because most books are just bad), but there are a couple of gems. And then the question: do these books even count?

What I mean is this. A book like "The Family Moskat" doesn't seem like a Holocaust book at all. It takes place between the world wars, just ending as tanks roll into Warsaw (spoiler alert?). Even though it seems far from the war, it actually embodies it throughout the work in the subtle references, the exploration of anti-Semitism among Poles and a display of the Polish-Jewish dynamic. Or what of "Brodeck", which neglects to title the fairly obvious war and focuses on the aftermath? Though never named, the Holocaust (imagined or not) is clearly felt throughout the novel.

Definitions aside, all of these books remind us of a world that should not be forgotten. Whether these books are based on real lives or are reality mixed with pure fiction, each story (or even fragment, thread or mention) keeps us one step further from forgetting the horrors that occurred far too recently.

Lesezeichen 8 - Rhineland

Maybe six months after traveling Poland with a group, I found myself in a similar (but slightly cheerier) situation with Germany, going along the Rhine.



Friday, on our way to Köln, past the Loreley, the group was given free time to walk around the tourist town of Rüdesheim. Free time to get lunch, enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful day, and spend some money. The small tourist shops displayed many t-shirts, beer mugs, and other novelty souvenirs. "I'll get this as a gift for a friend," I told my travel companions, spotting a display of surprisingly tall, stiff ruffle-edged bookmarks. They laughed. "Yeah right."

Good intentions always go afoul. At least it's a great addition to my collection.

Wor(l)d borders

This interesting video has been going around a bit (hat tip, RobAroundBooks), and while I support its underlying message, I find myself a bit at odds with the method used to drive that message home.



You see, I really like Words Without Borders. I get their message. I understand what the point of this gently mocking video is. And as horrifying as it is to see someone butcher my two main interests (music and books) by confusing Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy, I know the questions are kind of "leading the witness" style. For instance, the fact that someone doesn't read contemporary literature doesn't mean they aren't "well read" (whatever that means). The man who says he reads "foreign" British lit... yes, that says something about the status of world literature in American culture (remember this?). While people say embarrassing things, I can't help but feel that the questioners were being a little too manipulative.

Still, the video's overall point (and the gentler second half) is well taken. A few months ago, I went into an independent bookstore, hoping to find the recently released "The Wall in My Head" and was instead told that "Oh yeah, Words Without Borders published something, like, five years ago, but we don't have that." Oh, thanks. Words Without Borders do good work in raising awareness and, more importantly, in actively helping. Do I blame the readers who in the first half of the video seem so ignorant? Not quite. People have the right to read what they want. Do I hope that someday international literature will be commonplace enough that people won't have to scratch their head to remember the name of a contemporary Russian author or will pick up a Peruvian novel because it looks good and is prominently displayed in bookstore? Yeah, I do. Which is why I'll continue to follow Words Without Borders and will pass their message along.

Bookmarking 7 - Knopf

Have an opinion on this ARC? Probably, and if the book you're reading is a Knopf edition, you might have even encountered this bookmark before, tucked in an ARC of some kind. There's some logic in this kind of advertising, though. It's just one more way Knopf can remind you that they understand books and readers (by offering them the one thing bound to come in handy), that they care what the reviewers' thoughts are, and that they're totally awesome. Right? I have to wonder why other publishers don't follow their lead...

Title madness (or blandness)

I would just like to direct everyone to this excellent Guardian post on book titles. Darragh McManus vents a little on the way books are titled these days, rightly pointing out that for every genre there's the dull, depressingly predictable template. McManus focuses on literary fiction as a new victim of this disease.

This was once limited to what used to be – and probably still is – called genre fiction: Chick Lit, Mum Lit, Bloke Lit, Chicks With Dicks Lit, Blokes With No Dicks Lit, Zombie Novels, Zombie Crossover Novels, Zombies With Dicks Lit, the Tom Clancy oeuvre, and so on. Now, though, what still is – and will continue to be – called literary fiction has also caught the "samey title" virus. At times I suspect there's a computer somewhere that spews out clichéd names for such works, depending on how badly the publishers want it to be Taken Very Seriously Indeed.

McManus has nailed it. See, that point that non-industry booklovers often like to ignore (or, at least, I like to ignore) is that publishing books is a business. Like all businesses, it's kind of ugly. Book titles are like covers - you judge based on them. Personally, titles can sell me onto a book without any knowledge of what the book is about. Don't believe me? I bought "The Periodic Table" because I had a chemistry exam coming up. Titles matter.

And publishers have realized this. "Literary fiction" (and what, exactly, is literary fiction? More on that later...) got a template of bland vagueness. McManus' examples of "The Inheritance of Loss", "The Unnamed", "The Surrendered", "The Girl with Glass Feet", etc., show this precisely. Can you figure out anything about the tone, the style, the depth or the story from these titles? I'll even give you the answer: no. These titles have no spark, nothing to distinguish them. Which is, it seems, exactly the point. Literary fiction, it seems, is defined by its lack of individuality. It's someone's wife, or daughter, or shadow, or... To sum up, this comes from commenter harley26:

one final point - everyone always blames the publishers for this kind of bland marketing but I think it's time to have a go at the readers. If it weren't for us lot lapping up this s**t, they wouldn't bother to sell it so.

Well said.

Bookmarking 6 - Finally!

In honor of the big day, a local chain decided to give their customers a little treat. "This is a fat book," they told us. "While you're probably not going to want to stop very frequently, at least you'll have a matching bookmark for bedtime."

Who can argue with that?

Whole wide world

A few years ago while browsing on Amazon, I found myself annoyed at how their subjects were arranged. Almost every genre I went to, the same top books popped up. "I want diversity!" I told the computer. Well, Amazon has finally heard my plea. They recently (probably a few months ago) added a "World Literature" genre.

Excited, I clicked on the link, eager to see translator names everywhere. Then my eyebrows rose. Then they rose even higher. You see, I'm looking at this list and the first title is the incredibly popular "The Help". Except "The Help" takes place in the U.S., right? I continued scrolling. Nicholas Sparks, pretty much the entire Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (props for Amazon for including kids' books, though), and Jane Austen. The next page continues the Western world streak, but tosses in a bit of popular Americanized world literature - books that could legitimately belong on such a list were it a legitimate list.

In the sidebar, there's the country breakdown. Want to laugh? The U.S. counts for 177,397 books. Britain is another 118,982, Canada, Australia and New Zealand offer about 17,000 more titles. Oh, and another 57,000 "mythology" titles, which is just a fancy way of saying "Kids books" and other random classics.

There's something kind of disappointing here. Yes, I know the U.S. is part of the world and can thus qualify (like any other book) as "World Literature", but the point of the definition (from an American standpoint, anyways) is to make it possible for us to categorize those other foreign finds we typically ignore. I had always hoped to see various different titles showcased, good books that aren't necessarily popular. Instead, it's just another mishmash bestseller list, comprising of mostly popular (American) books and a couple of random unrelated titles (like classics or kids books). I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised though. Why help consumers when you can just sell them what they've already bought from you?

B (5) O2 K (19) ... Mg (12) Ar (18) K (19) In (49) 5 - Science

Sadly, this isn't one of mine. It is, however, a bookmark I found rather randomly on the internet thanks to boredom (Google: bookmark chemistry).

The cool thing about Mr "I Love Science" (other than everything) is that I often like to match bookmarks with the content of the book I'm reading. For instance, I might have a bookmark from a certain country live in a book that takes place in said country. I often plan months in advance what bookmark will go where.

Too bad I couldn't have had this one when I read "The Periodic Table"...

Side-by-side

“Tablets currently focus on the web-surfing experience,”

This is a key sentence in the great Wired article about Tablets versus eReaders, which suggests that the two can (and perhaps should) coexist. It points out that Tablets are great for textbooks and magazines but not so much for fiction (it also puts non-fiction with that group but I'm not certain I agree - more on that later). The article rightly explains that eReaders are great because of their battery life and screen quality, while Tablets are awesome because of everything else.

E Ink screens aren’t particularly good at anything other than books, leaving newspapers and magazines out in the cold. That’s where tablets could step in, says James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. [...] But it will be a battle that could take a toll on e-paper based displays, he says.

“For people who read more of those media than they do books, tablets will be an ideal device and can easily take some wind out of E Ink sales, once we get beyond the fourth of the population that really enjoys reading books,” says McQuivey.

Still, tablets won’t immediately supplant lower-priced electronic paper-based e-readers, he notes. “The first thing you need to consider is whether tablets will actually be as good for book reading as the E Ink readers are,” says McQuivey. “Having a two-week battery life and a device that’s comfortable to stare at for hours at a stretch without strain (as with e-paper based e-readers) is hard to beat.”

Indeed. There's the price issue too and with this Tablet vs. eReader split, eReaders will probably need to become cheaper. It's an interesting article, raising several ideas I'd never thought of before (and am still not certain I agree with). It's one of the better roundups I've encountered on the matter - those curious about the impact Tablets might have on the eReader market should certainly read it.

Bookmarking 4 - Egypt

In sixth grade, my homeroom teacher was also my English and history teacher. At the start of the year, she presented every student in the class with a bookmark. On one side, she had printed our names in fancy calligraphy. On the other was a stamped illustration - mine happened to be of a pile of books. Attached at the top was a small carved scarab beetle. A student asked, curious, "Mrs R, what's this?"

She smiled. "Wait until we start studying about Egypt."

Calibre convert

I'm not very good at technology. If programs get to be too complicated, I raise my arms in defeat and forget about it. I like simplicity in the use of technology, complexity in its quality. I am that spawn of the internet age - at once lazy and inquisitive.

On the one hand, this trait made me fairly pleased with Sony's Reader Library when I first started using it. Moving files to my PRS-600 was so simple, downloading and viewing files even more so, and arranging them in bookshelves proved to be surprisingly convenient once I started amassing books. And taking notes on my computer? A cinch. But it's an annoying, frustrating program too. The inability to adjust metadata means that many of the files I've acquired have bizarre/inaccurate titles and authors, making it incredibly difficult to keep track of where my books are at, once on the Reader. I started searching for ways to change the settings, certain there must be some simple solution. Instead, I kept coming across the name Calibre again and again. I finally downloaded it, after using a computer for a couple of weeks that seemed unable to use Sony's program (it turned out the problem was that the Reader Library had been installed on an external drive to the computer that was no longer there...). The results? Calm, blissful, and altogether impressive. I am now a Calibre convert. Sort of.

Calibre doesn't resemble Sony's iTunes-esque library at all. On the one hand, it's simpler, with large, easily recognizable buttons along the top displaying the many available options. On the other hand, it's more complex, because -- it has buttons along the top displaying the many available options. I don't mean the option of "change author", "change title", etc. No, it's "edit metadata" and "convert format", both of which lead to new and seemingly complicated screens. Except there's really nothing to it. Within seconds, I'd managed to figure out how to maneuver Calibre's basic options, even picking up the quick keyboard commands (they're entirely intuitive - v for view, e for edit, c for convert, etc.).

There are two main features that make Calibre worth your while, no matter what eReader program you use otherwise. The first is the ability to convert files. Almost every format can be converted to something else (I think .doc is the exception), so if you've found a great book in PDF but don't like how it looks, hit a couple of keys and bam--ePub it is. I'm not sure if it works for .azw (Kindle) files, but the open screen indicates that it's a Kindle compatible program too (through .mobi, I think). For the rest of us, though, it works like a charm, even if converting PDFs reveals funny glitches like page numbers in the middle of the screen.

The second interesting feature is "Fetch news". Upon command, Calibre connects to the internet and downloads the most recent newspaper or magazine from a multitude of sources (in a multitude of languages), making it possible to read The New England Journal of Medicine and then getting updated with The Chicago Tribune. For those with Kindles who pay for some papers, this feature may seem silly (particularly since one needs to connect the machine and the fact that often the papers are incomplete without a subscription...) but in all honesty it's great for me. I recently took a flight across the Atlantic and instead of buying my typical Economist magazine, I downloaded the free (and mostly complete) version to my Sony and enjoyed it on the flight for no extra charge. Calibre automatically downloads the papers into the suitable format for your device (specified upon installation), complete with internal links to specific articles, to menus and the black-and-white pictures.

It's not a perfect program. Far from it. It's slow, somewhat unorganized at times, and cannot actually be used alongside Sony's Reader Library. Technically. In reality, it's possible to use both by taking advantage of Calibre's useful features and avoiding letting it come into contact with the actual eReader. Still, it's an added step and an added hassle. But for the ability to fix those pesky PDF files that come with crazy metadata (by converting them to ePub with the proper info, or self converting to PDF, as strange as it sounds), for the newspaper feature, and for the ease with which I figured out theoretically complex stuff, I give Calibre my stamp of approval.

Bookmarkeng 3 - Kindergarten

Many might remember those times in kindergarten where the teachers assign "art projects". For my young cousin, one such art project was to make a bookmark, and then to laminate it. On one side, he drew the charming above display. On the other, he drew several colored boxes and attempted to write the name of this humble correspondent. He did not succeed entirely.

Paying it off

When I got my Sony Reader PRS-600, I knew I wasn't going to be spending money on eBooks. The device was to be used exclusively for free reading material. Meant to reduce the costs of my reading habits, it was hoped that the device would "pay itself off" within a reasonable lifespan.

Assume all books cost $12. They don't, but go with it. The device costs $300 (it seemed so much cheaper back in October, but now Sony is much more expensive than competitors... that should change). 300 divided by 12 equals 25. Now look at books costing $15 (close to reality). Now the number is 20. Basically, somewhere between 20-25 free books read on the device "pays it off". And so my silver Sony has given me my money back. Cool.

Zakładka w książce 2 - Zakopane

This week's addition to the Bookmarking series comes from the lovely town of Zakopane, Poland. Even in early autumn, the mountains were snow-capped and the atmosphere quaint. While visiting Poland with a group, it was decided everybody would, in addition to buying gifts for family and friends, get a small trinket for themselves. With ten minutes to go before rendezvous, I found myself darting in and out of the shops, trying to find the one "self gift". About 2 minutes before needing to board the buses, I saw a small display at the front of one of the stores with a series of bookmarks sticking out.

"A message from above," joked one of my fellow travelers, knowing my, ahem, fondness for reading. "1 złoty," the woman behind the counter said. I paid hurriedly and grabbed the first one I saw, a soft, dark green bookmark adorned with flowers and the name of the town: Zakopane. Once aboard the bus, a fellow traveler asked, "So what did you buy yourself?" "A bookmark," I answered plainly.

The fellow traveler raised one eyebrow. "How am I not surprised?"

Br. writes, Bi. types

In response to the "Not the TV Book Group"'s reading of Philippe Claudel's "Brodeck's Report" ("Brodeck" in the U.S.), I wanted to share my thoughts. Verbivore recommended the book, and I was pleased to see it getting more exposure. Realizing, though, that I'd missed the official date (blast!), I thought back to the things I wrote about this novel in June. Among my papers, I also found a typewritten sheet where I'd quoted from the English translation (which is not the one I originally read) and discussed the book at length (but with numerous spoilers). At dovegreyreader scribbles, several commenters discussed the typewritten aspects of the book, suggesting that the occasional blips might be meant to parallel the story itself. The entire discussion is fascinating, and as a hat tip to the interesting points raised, I offer one of my favorite passages from the book (I don't think it's much of a spoiler but I suggest caution anyways), childishly and amateurishly typewritten from a few months ago:

Click to enlarge