The Publishing Insider

  • Books, music, movies, the big picture, and absurd rants. I will be writing about all that here. More here.

Subscribe

Email Address

  • carl AT harpercollins DOT com

HarperCollins Newsletters

  • Hot@Harper



    Reading Group Books

....................

  • Need help subscribing to this blog? Simply right click on the "Subscribe to this blog's feed" link above, select "Copy shortcut," then paste the shortcut into the "Add a feed" field in your feed Reader. You need a Reader in order to subscribe.

Harper author sites

Check It Out

  • literary trees!
    http://literaryseeds.typepad.com/

Recent Posts

Archives

« September 2008 | Main | November 2008 »

interview with history book editors

Here's the link: more tk!

October 28, 2008 in Big picture | | Comments (0)

books and brew

Shelf Awareness spotted this article about matching books and booze.

October 21, 2008 in Big picture | | Comments (0)

one of the great soul classics of all time

CBS radio here in NY played Nothin' But a Heartache by the Flirtations the other eve during our car ride back to the city, and I went nuts. Hadn't heard this song in 20+ years, and it's a classic. See the video and read the comments.

October 21, 2008 in Apropos nothing | | Comments (1)

take the Wicked personality test!

To celebrate the publication of the wonderful Gregory Maguire's new book, Lion Among Men, we have a quiz up at Facebook.

October 15, 2008 in Hot Books | | Comments (0)

Medieval help desk

I think this one's been around for a bit but it still holds up!!

October 14, 2008 | | Comments (0)

Malcolm Gladwell

I had a chance to hear Malcolm speak at Amex offices in NY last Friday....and it was extraordinary. His wit and enthusiasm had the audience rapt for almost 2 hours. He spoke for an hour and took questions for another, and we could've stayed for more.

I had talked to Malcolm on the phone back when, as he was writing Tipping Point. He wanted to know more about word-of-mouth and how it happens, and he went on to write about Mary Gay Shipley, the amazing bookseller. But I had not heard him speak in public before, and my head was spinning, in a good way, afterwards.

The gist of his talk, and of his new book, Outliers, is about success...and that it takes 10,000 hours of doing anything to do it well. This is a common thread with everyone he's studied, from chess masters to musicians, to, yes, editors, authors, booksellers and marketing folk. I have to go through my many notes soon, and will write about this again. All I'll add for now? Study Fleetwood Mac.

October 10, 2008 in Big picture | | Comments (0)

sad songs

Books are still selling and I'll have news on that front in a bit, but today, XM is playing some sad songs. Beautiful, beautiful songs: Nature's Way by Spirit, and Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues, by Danny O'Keefe. Sigh.

October 10, 2008 in Big picture | | Comments (0)

book sculpture

This is a little disconcerting at first, the notiong of cutting up books, but there is beauty here for old books and keeping them alive in a new fashion.

October 01, 2008 in Big picture | | Comments (4)