The Recorded Voice of Virginia Woolf, 1937

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This is an amazing audio recording of Virginia Woolf, as heard on the BBC in 1937, with her speaking about the properties and subtleties of the English language. Thanks are owed to whoever put the pictorial slides together. This was recorded two years after she and Ruth Gruber met in London; Ruth had earlier written her doctoral dissertation on Woolf, the first feminist interpretation of her work, with an essay called “Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman.” I wrote about their relationship in April, with a blog essay called Virginia Woolf and Ruth Gruber, Driven to Create as Women. H/t to Suzanne Marie Queen-komerous for sharing the audio on Facebook.

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Sunset Singing Circle in Battery Park with Terre Roche, June 8

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Last evening Kyle and Ewan and I took part in a New York summer ritual, the Sunset Singing Circle led by Terre Roche, one of the three singing Roche sisters, from longtime fave group, The Roches, whose “Hammond Song” I am listening to right now, with its lovely theremin-like sounding lead instrument, joined to the trio’s arcing harmonies. I recently read and enjoyed sister Suzzy’s splendid novel of music and redemption, Wayward Saints, and it’s been great being in touch with her and Terre on Facebook and through this blog.

The Sunset Singing Circle is held at the tip of lower Manhattan, facing New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty. It is a grand place to listen to music as evening falls. Notebooks, including lyrics to more than 100 songs, are shared among folks sitting on the grass, with guitar players and people like the three of us offering up requests from among these selections. Last night we sang “The Weight,” in honor of a memorial Ramble being held tonight in memory of Levon Helm; “Happy Trails;” “The Times They are a Changin’;” “Bird on a Wire;” “The City of New Orleans,” among many others, and following a brief but heavy downpour, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and “You Are My Sunshine.” Wet as it was for a while, everyone was stalwart, even the guitar players whose instruments were being rained upon. After the sun shower ended, a real rainbow emerged out of the eastern sky and a considerate Parks Dept. staffer offered towels for people to dry their instruments and seat cushions. It was a special New York night. Click through for all photos.

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Greeting Japanese Visitors at BEA, June 7

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A few weeks ago, publishing friend, Kay Ohara–who like me, once worked for the Japanese publisher Kodansha–emailed me with this question: “I’m playing the role of tour guide for a group of Japanese booksellers/ publishers. Their main interest is e-books . . . I was hoping you can give us a chance to ask what you’ve seen happening in the US book industry? Any time you can spare on June 7 at Javits?”

I happily agreed, made a note in my calendar, and forgot about it until yesterday when I got a text from Kay. “Are you at Javits? The delegation is having lunch right now. I wanted to know if you can meet with us in an hour or so.” Delegation–hmm? I thought. Fortunately, I wasn’t booked and we agreed to meet near the Bowker booth, at an entrance to the convention floor. I figured from there we could go find a few chairs outside in the food court, and I would try to answer their questions.

When I arrived, I saw that the group was much larger than I’d imagined, almost twenty men and women. Where was I going to take them? How would they hear me? What would I say to them? Luckily, I remembered that Kay is an excellent interpreter, so at least I had that going for me. Also lucky was the fact that next to the Bowker booth is a wide, common area, sort of a pass-through between two parts of the convention floor, with a kind of garage door and iron pillars to one side. I sized up the setting and moving with my back to this barrier, encouraged them to gather round in a semi-circle in front of me. I nodded to Kay and told her I’d offer them a quick rundown of my bookselling and publishing career, so they would understand my perspective on the business, after which I’d take their questions. I gave them my background in brief two-minute bursts, with Kay translating each segment–from Undercover Books, through the eight publishers I’ve worked for as an editor, with a special emphasis on my five years from 1992-97 with Kodansha America–when with my colleague Minato Asakawa, we created the Kodansha Globe series, devoted to cross-cultural titles, and the many Japanese and American colleagues I had then, such as Asakawa-san, Chikako Noma, daughter of the company’s president, and the late and dearly missed Leslie Pockell–on up through to my present days as curator and writer of this blog, independent editor, author representative, and consultant to such publishing enterprises as Speakerfile.

As Kay–who nowadays works as a publishing reporter for Japanese publications–had mentioned, their questions were largely about ebooks and I explained how they’ve reshaped and are continuing to reshape the U.S. book market. They asked me about author advances, and how the emergence of ebooks have affected them (on average, lowered them, I said); how print runs have been affected (ditto); and whether the majority of four-color printing for U.S. publishers is still being done in China (not sure, was my candid reply). At one point during the discussion, while Kay was interpreting something I’d said, I noticed several in the group were taking pictures of me. I took out my digital camera and began taking pictures of them, in a quick, panoramic continuum. The gallery of photos below is the spontaneous result.

Before we were finished, I distributed a handful of the 4×6 black&white postcard that Kyle and I’d had printed as a handout for BEA, and a fistful of my business cards. Soon, they were giving me their cards too, and we enjoyed a few minutes of very mannerly bowing and high-spirited exchanges of reciprocal good wishes for one another, with Kay providing introductions. The half-hour I spent with these foreign guests was a happy and diverting interlude on the final afternoon of BEA, a cross-cultural exchange I’m very glad I had the chance to be a part of, thanks to Kay Ohara, and her delightful “delegation.”
[Click through to see all photos.]

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#FridayReads, June 8–A BEA Cornucopia

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#FridayReads Some of the books I brought home from Book Expo America (BEA) and have already been browsing through:

The Devil’s Causeway: The True Story of America’s First POWs in a Foreign Land, and the Heroic Expedition Sent to their Rescue, Matthew Westfall (Lyons Press); Crossing the Continent, Michel Tremblay (Talonbooks); Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the 21st Century, Jonathan D. Moreno (Bellevue Literary Press); Leonardo and “The Last Supper”, Ross King (Walker & Company); Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Union, James Howard Kuntsler (Grove Atlantic); Poe’s Lighthouse, edited by Christopher Conlon (Wicker Park Press); For the Sender: Four Letters, Twelve Songs, One Story, Alex Woodward (Hay House); Turkana Boy, Jean-Francois Beauchemin, translated from French by Jessica Moore (Talonbooks); The Life Squad, Amir Yassai (self-published); Life Among Giants, Bill Roorbach (Algonquin Books); Wilderness, Lance Weller (Walker and Company).

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The NY Times on Bushwick Open Studios

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Following on the shared post that Kyle and I published after Bushwick Open Studios (BOS) last weekend, Holland Cotter of the New York Times has today filed a report on his foray through the Brooklyn art event. Considering there were more than 500 open studios and galleries, he got to many venues we did not (and a few we did). The article is well worth reading, for his coverage, and his perspective on the work.

Late Update: On her blog Two Coats of of Paint, Sharon Butler has kindly linked to our original BOS post, Holland Cotter’s Times article, and a number of other BOS round-ups.

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Days 2 & 3 BEA Photos

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The final two days of BEA, Wednesday and Thursday, were very productive. The whole convention turned out to be one of the most upbeat book industry gatherings in several years. After a total of four days walking the halls of Javits Convention Center–Monday was the BEA Bloggers Conference, followed by the three days of the actual convention–I am sifting through the mound of catalogs, reading copies, business cards, and promo materials that Kyle and I lugged back to our home office, and replaying in my mind all the great conversations, book ideas, and collegiality we enjoyed. Following up our first day’s photos, here are pictures from the final two days, again taken by Kyle. The photo above was taken at the booth of Zola Books, which had a great response at BEA to their new social reading platform. In it, Joe Regal (2nd from right), made a happy group with his colleagues, under their banner, “The first eBook retailer from the community–for the community.” Additional photos, including the ones we took at Neil Young’s appearance with Patti Smith, will be posted in coming days.
Update: Publishers Weekly’s Rachel Deal has published a good article about Zola. Click through to see all of this post’s 40 + photos.

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Day #1 Book Expo America Photos

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Written posts to follow later in the week, meantime here are Day #1 photos from BEA and the Javits Center, taken by Kyle Gallup, captions to follow later.Captions written and inserted. Now we’re rushing off to Day #2! Click through to see almost 50 pictures, like this one of the C-Span bus.
Click through to see our first 50 pictures.

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Working with Speakerfile at BEA, June 5-7

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June 5 Update: As you can read below, I was planning to put the Book Expo America (BEA) live stream on my site, but I found the link for it brings with it a jarring, noisy ad that disturbed and annoyed readers on my site the few hours I had it up as a preview. If you do want to view the live stream, I recommend you go to the BEA site and watch it there. Meantime, below is an updated version of my original post previewing BEA, which stands as relevant as when I first put it up last week. Now, I’m off to the first full day on the convention floor at the Javits Center!

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May 31

Next week I will be attending Book Expo America (BEA), the book industry’s annual convention which I’ve been attending regularly since 1978, when with my family I began operating the bookstore Undercover Books. In those days it was known as ABA, named for the American Booksellers Association, the trade group that then ran the show. It’s a sturdy annual rite of rededication to the creative and commercial enterprise that is book publishing where acres of forthcoming books are displayed at publishers’ exhibit stands; authors sign advance reading copies (ARCs) for booksellers and librarians; and book biz friends who haven’t seen each other for at least a year meet and re-meet and share their enthusiasms for the upcoming year’s new books.

This year I will be working BEA with a new client, a Toronto company called Speakerfile who’ve hired me as an affiliate of theirs in NYC, representing them to publishers, publicists, agents, and authors. They’re building a great platform–think eHarmony®–with conference organizers and meeting planners on one side and experts and authors on the other. If you are an author who does public speaking–or you work with authors, experts, and thought leaders who speak in public–and are eager to have more and better bookings, I suggest you visit Speakerfile’s website to get a sense of what they’re building, and ask me for more information. To make it easy if you want to learn more, I’ve placed a promo spot at the upper right corner of my site–a click on it will take you right to Speakerfile’s home page. CEO Peter Evans will be at BEA, so please ask me for an introduction or a demo of their platform. If you’re looking for us, much of the time we’ll be at Bowker’s stand.

Also, for the first time I will be at BEA as an accredited member of the press, covering the event for this blog.One perk that bloggers have been offered is the chance to live stream on our websites the BEA’s own video feed of the convention from the Javits Center. So beginning next Tuesday, June 5 through Thursday, June 7, I invite you to visit this site where you can vicariously channel the experience of BEA.(A warning: the embedded link currently begins with an e-reading ad at high volume, so you may want to mute your volume for about ten seconds.) I have no input about which events they’ll be carrying but I suggest you keep an eye out for these two possible highlights:

♦ Wednesday, June 6, at noon when Patti Smith will engage in a conversation with Neil Young, who in October will be publishing his memoir, Waging Heavy Peace. June 5 Update: I’ve been told that due to permissions and rights issues, BEA will not be able to live stream this event. To view the BEA live stream, go to the BEA’s own web site.

♦ Tuesday, June 5, 3:00 PM, when Ami Greko and Ryan Chapman host 7x20x21. In this rapid-fire program speakers have 7 minutes and 20 powerpoint slides to present their publishing   obsessions. Participants are

*Statistician Nate Silver, who writes the FiveThirtyEight politics and polling blog at the New York Times

*Shelia Heti, author of Ticknor and the upcoming How Should a Person Be?

*Robin Sloane, former Twitter employee, writer, media inventor, and creator of the much-lauded tap essay Fish.

*D. T. Max, writer of the upcoming David Foster Wallace bio, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story.

*Dan Wilbur, creator of Better Book Titles, a blog which offers this replacement title for “Much Abo about Nothing”: “An Extremely Complex Lie Will Clearly Solve Everything.”

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