Q & A with Amber Dermont

Author Amber Dermont, a professor of English at Agnes Scott College, will be giving a reading at Eagle Eye Book Shop (2076 N. Decatur Rd.) this Saturday, March 31st, at 1 p.m.

The Starboard Sea was published a few weeks ago to critical acclaim in the Little Blog of Stories, received not one, but two rave reviews in The New York Times, a Washington Post review comparing it favorably to The Great Gatsby, and to The Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace by the Winnipeg Free Press.  It quickly found a place on the New York Times Best Sellers list.  This is a stunning achievement for a debut novel.  We’re incredibly fortunate to have such an amazing new talent right here in Decatur.

The Atlantic Ocean plays a major — and mostly dark — role in The Starboard Sea.  I understand that you grew up on Cape Cod, but was curious as to your relationship with the ocean?

Read the rest of this entry »

Come one, come all! Enjoy yon book festival and then come here and tell your tales of greatness and woe. Ate too much funnel cake? Attacked by Bookzilla? (or Daren Wang?) This open thread is yours to share your experiences with other literati!

Also, if anyone wants to write a book/event review, email it to me and I’ll post ’em. We’ve had some good ones in the past followed by most some interesting discussions. Let hear it!

Photo above courtesy of DTR

Let me just start out by saying, I can certainly be accused of jumping the gun with a post like this.

E-books are still in their infancy and present one giant hurdle for an entire industry; they will never be able to compete with hardbacks in terms of pure profit.  Of course, the same story is being written in the arenas of music and news.  Smaller to non-existent profit margins for delivering the same product will inevitably shake up an industry.  It’s really as simple as that.

But with so much general negativity surrounding the dying tactile publishing industry, a counterargument can be interesting if just simply in its rarity.

How can the book industry adapt to smaller profit margins?  Simple: they must downsize and/or sell more books.  The former is undeniably ugly for those involved.  But perhaps we can find hope in the latter.

Early indicators have shown that e-book readers consume more long-form writing than in their earlier, analog lives.  The accessibility of e-book readers may even help the industry cut into things like the time people spend watching TV, as was recently mentioned in a New York Times article about tweens e-book adoption habits.  That’s good news.

And not only that, but such accessibility might even help the industry help monetize the library and person-to-person borrowing that currently doesn’t make the publishing industry a single cent.

That means there might just be a light at the end of the tunnel that reveals a world where everyone reads more.  For all of its benefits, perhaps the physical book had just become an unworthy competitor in a world with so many more immediate forms of media.  And maybe amidst days of biting our nails at the transition, we should take a moment to rejoice that increased consumption can be achieved without dumbing down the medium.  The stories and ideas and pictures are evergreen, as we all knew they were.  We just needed to speed up the delivery method.

P.S. Of course, this counter-positive outlook for the industry doesn’t take into account the fate of the countless indispensable local bookstores out there, which act as a meeting place for entire communities of book and idea lovers.  Their future won’t be easy.  But I believe the best will survive.  The shops that give their customers an unique and satisfying experience with each purchase will carry on.  Because regardless of the industry that produces and distributes them, books are foremost a form of art.  And art has always been both a public and private pursuit.

All the talk of picture books this past week riled my curiosity about other people’s favorites.

Which are YOUR favorites and which are your KIDS’ favorites?

Could an American city embrace and support a “community bookcase”?

Apparently there are cities across Europe where bookshelves sit on sidewalks, jam-packed with novels and non-fiction, just waiting to enlighten those passing by.  Each one operates on an honor system.  You’re welcome to pick up a book or two at your leisure, just as long as you’re willing to replace it with a book of your own in the coming days.

Here in Amurica (misspelling intentional), we’ve taken to a different type of book exchange.  We’re all about the online book exchange variety, such as BookMooch.

Without the strong community oversight of many European cities – like this one in Germany – the idea of putting free books out on an American street seems absolutely ludicrous.  Erect a bookcase, stuffed with books out on a sidewalk and it’s easy to imagine that within hours all the good books would be gone (and not replaced) and the not so great ones would be defiled and strewn across the ground.  The bookcase itself would then be hauled off quicker than most residential curbside items.

Too bad.  Because ultimately, it’s sort of a huge waste of energy to ship a book across the country for a trade you could have made with a neighbor down the street.

So, back to my original question.  Could a city like Decatur, or any of it’s surrounding Georgia city brethren and sistren, EVER support something such as this?  Maybe with a few tweaks? Or will we forever be regulated to online, long-distance sharing, supported by a heavily subsidized mail system?

h/t: DCPLive

Zach over at Wordsmiths’ blog gives his 2008 State of the Business a couple weeks early, ruminating over the the book store’s past year of start-up and looks to the future, promising on-site coffee and a used book section in the coming year. Both get a big thumbs up from me. [h/t: InDecatur]

But even local-loving Decaturites shouldn’t become complacent about supporting our independent book stores. They need our business. Outside (and probably inside) our little independent shop haven, writers, publishers and sellers all worry about the future of the medium.

A recent overview of the book industry in the L.A. Times (“A Dismal Year for Books“) summed up worries for the future of independent book shops nationwide and the solvency of the industry as media and publishing evolve into the digital space.

The article ultimately concludes with the uneasy feeling that many a book-lover with his/her wallet on the line must be dealing with these days.

Overall, as the publishing world looks back on 2007, it’s hard to reconcile the unease people feel about the business with the excitement they feel about the books themselves. When he goes to publishing dinners, bookseller Doug Dutton said, the conversation swings between lamenting the state of the business and exclaiming joy over a new novel or history.

“It’s about as murky a picture as I’ve seen,” said Dutton. Then he amended that slightly: “Sort of like last year and the year before.”

Buy local.

As mentioned on InDecatur a couple days ago, the city recently awarded ten Decatur residents, along with the Decatur Book Festival’s exec committee with 2007’s Hometown Hero Awards.Tom Bell over at the DBF blog thanks everyone for the award and points out that its many more people than just the exec board that makes the book festival possible.

Maybe next year instead of a plaque, the city could spring for a gold, asexual figure lifting a three-dimensional version of the “homes, schools and places of worship” logo over its head?

Now that’s something you invite the neighbors over to show off!