Eeeeeevvviiiilllll
1. “Mister? Mister, wake up!”
2. “What do you mean, “RUN!”? What kind of a doctor ARE you, anyway?”
“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
That is a truly fine book. I wrote last week about Sandy Fussell’s “Samurai Kids” series, which sparkles with wit and warmth on every page. “Pride and Prejudice” is like that – brimming with brilliant one-liners and clever observations. The only other series that I think hits the “every page” rule so well is the “Larklight” trilogy by Philip Reeve.
Discipline
It turns out Louisette is fascinated by her two-week-old cousin. Which is awesome.
Also somewhat concerning.
Given that Louisette can now happily crawl across a room, and is on the verge of being able to then pull herself into a standing position. . .
. . . we have to do two things immediately:
1. Assume that everything in the house up to a height of 150cm (almost my height) is hers to destroy (I changed the books on this shelf last Friday).
Last weekend CJ went on a shopping spree at Bunnings and we spent many hours making her room and our living area as safe as possible for a crawler (I suspect based on the way she climbs over us that she is soon going to surpass our current safety level). I used up a whole roll of gaffa tape attaching adjustable fences around heaters, cords, etc, and filled two two-hundred-DVD wallets with most of CJ’s TV and movie collection (you’ll note it suddenly belongs to CJ) so we could empty our lower shelves. And we placed a barrier on our TV equipment not a moment too soon:
2. Start the long journey of teaching her to be a good person. The words, “No!” “Ouch!” “Hot!” “Yucky!” and “Gentle!” will be sung in and endless chorus for the next few years, and I’m even more scared by that than by #1.
At least we don’t have to focus on social niceties yet – just harm to others, herself, and our stuff.
I’m scared.
The changing face of publishing
Here is quite a long and thorough article on how publishing is changing. I picked the bits I found most interesting about the present. . .
Indeed, the problem for readers is that regardless of which side you agree with in theory, in practice you probably love the idea of buying books for under $5.00 but hate the idea of having to sort through quite so much junk to find good books at that price.
. . . the pricing. . .
Books deliver three sorts of value: good writing, good stories (true or fictional) and social connection. By the last, I mean that reading is a social activity and we like to read what others are reading. So popular books are worth more to us than less popular books.
. . . and the future. . .
Publishers also need to manage their backlists more effectively. Hugh Howey points out that in fiction many of the top-sellers are not recently published novels. Publishers are used to pulling titles out of physical circulation after a few months and focusing their promotional efforts on new authors. However a rich back catalog, all made available in electronic format will allow publishers to respond more quickly to emerging market trends.
Read the article here.
So much to love
I’m reading “Pride and Prejudice”, a version which happens to have the below picture on the front cover.
The painting is “Congratulations” by George Henry Harlow. Here is my list of concerns about the painting:
1. Why are these young women clearly teething?
2. Who stretched out their necks like that?
3. Why is a man’s hand protruding from the right-hand woman’s neck?
4. Why is the left-hand woman’s head and neck not attached to the left-hand body (I don’t care how good your corset is, chests do not stick out that far)?
It seems I’m not the only person who just can’t draw hands.
“Owl Ninja” by Sandy Fussell
You know what it’s like in late Winter, when it feels like the sun will never return – and then it does? That feeling of light and warmth is exactly the feeling you get when reading a Sandy Fussell book.
The rest of this review has been moved to Comfy Chair.
The long, long road
I know better than most how long it takes for publishers to make a decision on a book that is reasonably well-written and therefore difficult to reject. Right now I have books at two of Australia’s big publishers. One has been there for almost a year; the other has been there for literally years. Even when a book is accepted for publication, there is a lot of editing, proofing, and maybe even illustrating to do.
This is an article about how long it takes to go from acceptance to publication.
Louisette is seven months old
She crawls, and she has her first tooth. The whole world of movement and (soon) chewable food is opening up. She’s like a teenager who just earned her driving license. AND she has another cousin (a girl).
All the other months have links from here.
I got got
So I was caught in a scam yesterday. A simple but brilliant*scam. My phone rang; I noticed it was a long-distance number and was instantly intrigued. All I heard when I picked up was a buzzing noise so, after a pathetically small period of wondering who had called me, I called the number back.
No-one picked up. No-one ever does – as I discovered when I googled the number to see if it belonged to a publisher or to some annoying advertiser. Calling them back cost me $1.25, apparently. So I won’t be doing that again in a hurry.
In unrelated news, Louisette is seven months old tomorrow, so I’ll be posting another months’ worth of daily photos.
*or so I like to tell myself
Felicity Banks 