Uncle Hugo’s is back!
Several posts on this blog have covered the burning of Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore and its progress toward reopening, and the news is now good: It’s open again!
books
Another reason to buy from independent bookstores
Depending on which reports you read, Amazon handles a quarter to a half of all book sales in the US. It’s convenient and allows one-stop shopping. But when we become heavily dependent on one source, it’s bad for an open market. There’s less of a market share for independent dealers, which makes sellers more dependent on one business’s whims.
Amazon has exercised various whims over the years. In 2009, it removed a significant number of LGBT books from its sales ranking on the grounds that they were “adult” books. (Strange terminology; I didn’t think of Amazon as primarily a kids’ book dealer.) It blamed The Algorithm and reversed its decision under public pressure.
The same year, Amazon pulled its most ham-handed book removal, deleting 1984 from customers’ devices after they had bought it and refunding their money. It served as a reminder that what you “buy” on the Kindle remains under Big Brother’s, I mean Amazon’s, control.
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Smashwords summer sale: 50% off my books
The Magic Battery and Spells of War are available at half price as part of Smashwords’ site-wide July promotion. No coupon code is necessary; just go to the book’s page. These prices are good through the end of July 2022.
Amazon employees demand book banning
Some employees of a huge corporation demanded it should decide which books are acceptable for customers. They engaged in what’s called a “die-in,” which consists of lying on the ground while issuing demands. They demanded that Amazon decide which books it approves of and not make others available to customers.
This is small stuff, but it’s weird that anyone would demand that a mega-corporation which is the world’s largest bookseller should have an Index of Prohibited Books that it won’t sell. The protesters fantasize that they’ll get to call the shots. They imagine that they’ll decide what’s on the Index; probably they all think they’ll be promoted to the new position that compiles the Index.
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Book discussion: To Kill a Mockingbird 1
I thought I had read To Kill a Mockingbird before, but I must have been mistaken. I couldn’t have forgotten so much of so powerful a book.
It must have been the movie that confused my memory. It’s an excellent adaptation of the book, but it focuses more on the Tom Robinson trial. The trial is an important part of Harper Lee’s novel, but the canvas is broader.
The novel presents the experiences of a girl growing up in a small Alabama town in the 1930s. Her father is Atticus Finch, an attorney of impeccable integrity. It presents what seems to me like an honest picture of people’s attitudes in that place and time.
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