“This is not the typical book that you read whilst sitting calmly and still. In order to read the multiple directions in which the text spreads out, forming different geometric shapes you need to rotate the book around again and again and unfold the pages.”
Innovative editorial design by Studio Firth, for Adam Thirlwell’s, Kapow!
http://www.studiofrith.com/
(via bibulous)
Bridging Book
A book to be read on screen and paper at the same time.
I had this little idea on Twitter today. I have lots of little ideas on Twitter. And I have no doubt that this idea has been had before, because it’s that kind of idea. But it’s also the kind of idea worth repeating.
It started like this. I made a comment along the lines of, “Okay, Publishing. I…
(via elizziebooks)
Jay Gatsby seriously needs to check his privilege.
Looking at the last couple of years of YA novels, it seems that romance has shifted from being a genre trend to a genre requirement — and the genre has suffered for it.
*marking Code Name Verity as something I need to read*
SEATTLE – Amazon announced today that it has acquired the English language and plans to fully privatize the world’s predominant mode of written communication. As of 6 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time April 1, anyone writing in Amazon’s proprietary language, now known as English™, will be obligated to pay a “licensing fee” to the Seattle-based online retailer.
The purchase of English™ for an undisclosed sum in cash and stock completes Amazon’s meteoric rise from an online bookseller to a global behemoth dominant in the spheres of online retailing, cloud computing, and digital publishing. It remains unclear who sold English™, though credible reports suggest that Apple and Google had earlier offered to buy the language, only to be outbid by Amazon at the eleventh hour.
“We are pleased to add English™ to our growing family of products,” said an exultant Amazon CEOJeff Bezos. “We just bought GoodReads last week, and we already own Audible.com along with numerous digital publishing platforms, so buying the language outright was an obvious next step. This way, we will be able to put the Amazon stamp on the creative process itself, rather than merely on the finished product.”
Plans are also in the works to acquire German, Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese, Bezos said, as well as several nonstandard forms of English™, including African-American Vernacular English, popular among the highly desirable 18-25 upscale suburban demographic. Bezos denied claims that Amazon has offered to buy the Arabic numeral system, though he said the company could not rule out the possibility of such a purchase “if the price was right.”
Responding to concerns that Amazon’s purchase of English™ could have a chilling effect on literature and indeed on free speech in the English™-speaking world, Bezos said writers and publishers have nothing to worry about. “Frankly, that’s just scare talk,” he said. “We’re not saying people can’t use the language. We’re simply saying that if you plan to write it down, you’ll have to pay us a fee.”
Oral speech will remain free, Bezos said, so long as it isn’t written down or recorded by an electronic device. Every English™-speaking person will be allowed a “fair-use” quota of 500 words per day, which he or she can use to send emails to friends, make grocery lists, comment on Facebook posts, or write self-flagellating journal entries. For those who exceed their daily quota, Amazon will offer a variety of licensing options ranging from a simple per-word fee to so-called Unlimited Scribbling™ plans for novelists, bloggers, and others who can’t stop writing even if no one is reading their work.
Under the new licensing agreement, however, any profit from an individual’s words will belong exclusively to Amazon, and in the event that any written document longer than 500 words finds interested readers, Amazon will lay claim to all earnings the document brings in. If a writer shows signs of building a steady readership, Amazon may increase a writer’s daily quota of free words in order to, as Bezos explained, foster “cultural production” and thus boost shareholder value.
He said there is no truth to
This article has been terminated as its author, Michael Bourne, has reached his daily quota of 500 words in English™. If you wish to reach him, he is at home teaching himself to write in Tagalog.
comments on The Summer Prince
First of, I would like to make it clear that I think it’s great the Alaya Dawn Johnson’s idea of writing a non-white, not heteronormative, non-patriarchal society. Kudos. And I think it’s cool that she is genuinely (or so it seems) interested in the history of africans and african decedents in Brazil, their/our culture and candomblé.
BUT she obviously doesn’t know enough about Brazil to write specifically about it. I know she did some research, but it wasn’t enough, and she ends up taking too many “poetic liberties” because of it. In the use of Portuguese, in the description of religions, in the character names… And she ends up using the “but this is a distopia, it’s not really your culture” excuse for all of this, which is a terrible cop-out.
All of those problems would not be problems if instead of saying “this is future Brazil” she said “this is some future non specific place”. It’s ok to take elements of a culture, modifying them, and building your own. As long as you don’t say your culture is the same as the original one (which she did). Your made up society CAN NOT be called Bahia, nor can it be on the same geographical place as Bahia. You CAN not say where it is in the globe. You also CAN make a name up or not even mention a name at all. It just cannot in any way be Bahia-Brazil.
If the author was Brazilian writing for Brazilians I wouldn’t be worried. We would be able to tell what is us and what is this made up future. Not to mention, a Brazilian author would know what parts of our culture are important enough to remain or be mentioned at all in a natural way. But coming from Alaya, it’s hard to tell how conscious she is about the way she piles up stereotypes and misconceptions. And from reviews I’ve seen around (I’m looking at you, PW’s “recognizably Brazilian”) it’s safe to say the readers cannot tell how wrong her portrait is.
I swear I tried to read this seriously, but I got too distracted by all the things that were wrong on screaming stereotypes (and her plot is actually good!). Her misuse of “papai” and “mamãe” makes all her characters sound like toddlers. She used foreigner/made up names as if they were traditionally Brazilian (Folade??? Seriously???). She overuses samba as if it was the only type of music Brazilians ever produced (half of the songs she mentions aren’t even sambas. Next time try adding chorinho, bossa nova, frevo, baião, marchinha or any of the other hundreds of styles we created). She changed dates, cultural manifestations, and even the way we deal with climate for no particular reason (I imagine it was only for the purpose of making it more attractive for Americans).
So, if you are going to read the book, please, do everyone a favor and just cross out every time Brazil, Bahia, or any city mentioned and pretend it’s somewhere else. Just forget this was supposed to be us. It’s not.
In conclusion: Great intention. Execution, not so much. I couldn’t focus on her awesome story because I was too distracted by her butchering our culture.
