Welcome to another edition of "Reading about the reading life" here at The
Itinerant Librarian. This is where I collect stories about reading and
the reading life. Basically, these are items related to reading, maybe
writing and literacy, that I find interesting and think my four readers
might find interesting as well with a little commentary. As with other
features I do on this blog, I do it when I have time or feel like it.
Comments are always welcome (within reason).
- Starting this month with a story in the bad economy. Constance Grady writing for Vox reports on the trash e-books on Amazon. It is perfect storm of problems featuring A.I. generated books, get rich quick scams, and Amazon not giving a shit since they can make money on it from their marks (oops, customers). As the article describes it, it is "a vast, hidden ecosystem centered on the production and distribution of
very cheap, low-quality ebooks about increasingly esoteric subjects.
Many of them gleefully share misinformation or repackage basic facts
from WikiHow behind a title that’s been search-engine-optimized to hell
and back again." This kind of development is not exactly helpful to the self-publishing cause by the way.
- At Lit Hub, Maris Kreizman argues that publishers need to focus more on quality of the books they publish rather than the quantity. As a reader, like others out there I am sure, I have more than enough choices for what to read next. Finding the quality stuff is difficult enough without adding things like scam books written by A.I. (see story above) or just books that are not that good because some marketing guru who probably does not read figured a topic might stick, except the book will end up remaindered. Personally, I put a lot of effort on the sources I follow and read to decide what books I am going to read, plus as a librarian I do have access to various professional vetting options. Not everyone can say that, but I will say if you are a reader and need a bit of help figuring out what to read next you can always visit your local library, especially public libraries that tend to have librarians specializing in reader's advisory. On a small disclosure note, I do specialize in reader's advisory, but I don't get to use those skills as often in the academic setting, but that is another story.
- Ariel Dorfman, writing for Lit Hub, wrote this interesting piece on "What Latin American Literature Can Teach The Current Leaders of Latin America." Dorfman offers some regional recommendations, a bit of reader's advisory, for Latin American autocrats and hombres fuertes. A few of these books would make good selections for any reader to expand their reading repertoire and learn a bit more about Latin America in the process. One of the bonuses of being educated as a youth in Puerto Rico is that I had to read a good number of Latin American authors, including some listed in the article. As an English major later on, studying literature, I did manage to sneak in a few Latin American selections into my electives when I could. Hey, it was literature, even if I had to read some in translation, but I digress. Some of the authors mentioned in the article I have read are Roque Dalton and Mario Vargas Llosa. I need to pick up the pace and read some more.
- Nicolás Medina Mora, writing for Lit Hub, explores "Why are so many Mexican novels set in cantinas?" I admit this is not something I thought about until now, so it was worth reading.
- Keith Roysdon, writing for CrimeReads, looks at "The Heyday of Pulp Fiction." This is a brief but nice overview of the genre from the 20s to the 50s or so. The emphasis is on some lesser known pulp fiction works. After all, even today many folks know characters such as The Shadow and Doc Strange, but there are many other characters to discover.
- Public Domain Review looks at false translations and literary rip offs in "Pseudo-Boccaccio, Yiddish Pulp Fiction, and the Man Who Ripped Off Joyce." I found it interesting just for the fake Boccaccio stuff, but stay for the rest of the tale.
- In Spanish, Lecturalia has a small article on the advantages and disadvantages of buying second hand books. In my case, I am more than happy to buy books second hand books. I am also happy to buy cartomancy decks used.
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