Bookish thoughts 7 Sep: book voyeurs, Amazon moolah, publishers egos and more!

RIASS stuff:

Book Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides'Rating:

Book Review: Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure by Joanne Harris'Rating:

Book Review: The Scent of Lemon Leaves by Clara Sanchez'Rating:

Back to the books giveaway hop: Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles'(open to all)

Other bookish stuff:

The other day on Twitter I got to wondering whether Rapunzel and rappel had a shared etymology. My linguistics buddy Lauren promptly got on the case, learning that Rapunzel was actually named for a vegetable, and that rappel only took on its present meaning in the 1930s.

The cruel paradox of self-publishing'In acquiring Author Solutions, Penguin clearly envisions a significant new revenue stream, the possibility of identifying genre authors with major appeal, and also the means of finding out more about the reading and buying patterns of customers.

Are procrastinators merely perfectionists?'Thats my line, and Im sticking to it. Author John Perry, whos (finally) written a book called'The Art of Procrastination, explains it thus: You set the bar so high in this first rush of enthusiasm, and then you look at the bar and say, Im not going to try to jump over that. And the procrastination gives you permission to lower the bar.

Would you let readers watch as you write your book? Author Silvia Hartman is going to do just that by composing her next piece in Google Docs for all the world to see. Lets just say that if you ever read over my shoulder you would come away wondering how ever you came to mistake me for a literate individual.

JA Konrath gets in on the whole paid reviews bizzo.'Konrath asks all manner of fuzzy ethical questions relating to writing and receiving reviewsfor example, would you ever review for Kirkus, even though those reviews are paid for? Is Stephen King offered you a blurb, even though he hadnt read all of your book, would you accept? Blurbing, says Konrath, has always had an element of corruption to it, so is this whole kerfuffle really a thing of mountains and molehills?

What happens when Amazon promotes your books?'Roughly an extra $90k a month, says author Steena Holmes, who found herself in this rather pleasant situation. It also means having doors open for me that I had thought I'd never want open. It means having agents and editors come to meIt means validation that my story was/is good enough. It means choices and options

Steph Bowe on things she dislikes about ebooks'I do agree with her point about lending books, which is something I do all the timeI am a terrible book pusher. However, I love, love, love the highlighting function. Its so lovely to be able to highlight without destroying a book, or without going through a whole stack of post-it notes with each book, as I otherwise do.

This new series of revolutionary non-fiction sounds cool

An interview with Eudora Welty'[Chekov] loved the singularity in people, the individuality. He took for granted the sense of family. He had the sense of fate overtaking a way of life, and his Russian humor seems to me kin to the humor of a Southerner. It's the kind that lies mostly in character.

Tara Moss talks about her latest novel'Assassin'Violence against women is a serious issue in our society, and that is reflected in my novels and in much of the crime genre as a whole. I write about that terrible reality in my fiction, while at the same time creating strong women like Mak who are investigators and survivors. Personally, I have a very difficult time with the crime genre in general (mysteries excepted) because of that very violence towards women. Ive seen Moss talk on the issue, though, and shes tremendously inspiring. And also very tall.

Debbie Ohi on how a rejection turned into a book deal

Are publishers merely about keeping the authorial ego alive?'The author says that authors are primarily after one thing: validation. Publishers provide this, which is why even highly successful self-publishers have jumped aboard the traditional publishing ship and why Amazon has created its own traditional publishing arm. In addition to ego-stroking, he says, publishers also help authors manage all that non-writing stuff so that authors can go about their daily writing business and validation-searching unencumbered.

The number of children reading for pleasure has dropped since 2005.

Brett Easton Ellis has a go at David Foster Wallace, calling the latter the most tedious, overrated, tortured, pretentious writer of my generation. Having endured listening to an interview with Ellis, one suspects similar claims might be levelled at this man himself

The Wheeler Centre has released its new programme of events. Melb Uni alumni/present students might also want to pop along to this librarian lecture.