copyfire.com Blog

Caught this completely awesome YouTube video on Alison Morris’ blog on the Publisher’s Weekly site.

So very, very enjoyable, and yet utterly wrong.

Excuse me if I’m confused, but it’s been so long since we’ve had a president who OPENLY reads (Bush seems to have looked at reading more as a competition, and less as a way of provoking thought), and who is respectful of the English language both as a written and spoken form of communication, that I’m feeling a bit verklempt. *brushing away a tear*

In today’s New York Times, Michiko Kakutani writes about how books and language in general have influenced our almost-inaugurated president-elect, Barack Obama. It seems that Mr. Obama uses books as a way to *gasp* gain information, and not necessarily to cement in his mind his own ideas and visions. As widely reported, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s excellent “Team of Rivals” is one of his biggest influences, solidifying his beliefs that differing opinions and backgrounds do not an impossible situation (or cabinet) make.

Obama counts many other books and authors as having been a direct influence on both his personal beliefs and public policy, including Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon,” Doris Lessing’s “Golden Notebook,” Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” and Shakespeare’s tragedies, among others.

In addition to his love of reading, as everyone knows by now, he’s also a best-selling author. Since “lowly” community organizers aren’t known for their outrageous salaries (much like mayors of tiny Alaskan cities), his personal fortune was only made upon publishing his two books, “Dreams from My Father,” and “The Audacity of Hope.”

My hope is that with Barack Obama in office, maybe a New Word Order is at hand. Perhaps kids and parents will look at him and begin to realize how much books have to offer, and how reading, from an early age, can actually change the hardwiring of the brain, helping with later reading comprehension, and easing the path through elementary school and beyond. While I’m probably just wishing, if his widely-publicized love of books influences even a small percentage of people, I will take it.

Farewell, Is Our Children Reading. Welcome, Ardent Love of Reading and Lifetime Lover of Books.

Today’s Los Angeles Times features an interview with Sarah Weinman, the blogger who writes their Dark Passages column. She began keeping track of every book she reads in in 2005, and in 2008, read 462 books, the longest beng about 900 pages, and the shortest being just under 100. I enjoyed this interview because it seems that I read the same way that she does, and she found a way to describe the way her brain works that makes a lot of sense to me (and apparently, it’s a shared sentiment, as some of the comments left on the Times’ website are from people who feel much the same as I do). As much as I read, and as many books as I go through in a year (not 400+, but probably 150 or so), my husband’s often said (only half-kiddingly, I beleve) he thinks I’m just pretending to read, and really just flipping pages. Untrue, but I can see how that probably looks to him.

Weinman has already read nearly 11 books already this year. So, in the spirit of her record-keeping, I’ve decided to keep track of the number of books I read this year. So far, it’s five, and will be six by the end of the day. I don’t have a goal with this, trying to speed through to hit a certain number, but I’ll be curious to see how I do by year’s end.

The coming week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review features an essay by Henry Alford about the strange and wonderful things we sometimes find in books. And I’m not talking about the stories lying in wait amongst the pages. Alford is focusing on the bizarre and wonderful items that are stored, left behind, forgotten, or hidden inside the dark recesses of books and later discovered by secondhand bookstores. Such finds have included: a Q-tip, a bullet, a baby’s tooth, porn, and 40 $1000 bills, according to information that Alford received from The Wall Street Journal and AbeBooks.com.

I’ve always known that books held the key to a world of new discoveries, but this essay covers something quite different altogether. And quite interesting as well.

According to Anivan Chatterjee, founder of Bookfinder.com, anywhere from 98-99% of all books are now out of print. While it makes sense if you think about it (can you imagine what the world would look like if all Borders stores looked like the Library of Congress??), it still feels a little heartbreaking to me. As a bibliophile, the mere thought that there are that many books out there I’m not only unaware of, but also just flat-out unable to get my hands on, gives me a serious case of heartburn.

You can read more about this in the 12/18 Christian Science Monitor, in their article covering the top 10 out-of-print books of all time.