Ken Wohlrob's Blog
March 9, 2009
... but it's vital signs don't look so hot.I walked away from the New York City armory show thinking one thing: all process and not enough passion. The art, especially in the contemporary pier, was very lackluster. In fact, the photographic work on display was head and shoulders above the paintings, cementing a thought I've had as of late: that photography has become far more groundbreaking. But for the most part, many of the pieces seemed as if the artists we really trying to impress with the a
March 6, 2009
Now that you've jumped hip deep into the pool of iPhone enabled e-book reading, courtesy of Amazon's new Kindle app, go ahead and download a fantabulous collection of gritty, dark, and funny short stories: namely, The Love Book by yours truly. Consider it a value impulse buy. The Love Book is only $7.99 in the Kindle format, saving you $8.00 over the printed price (and it's under Amazon's recommended $9.99 e-book price).Way back in January 2008, when The Love Book was released, one of the things
March 5, 2009
1. Their music journalism is the best in America -- bar none. American music magazines are virtually unreadable. Quite god awful really. Wax Poetics is one of the few magazines that understands that music pubs should write about -- well, music. When I used to interview artists for Bully Magazine (R.I.P.)
March 3, 2009
Over at M.J. Rose's Buzz, Balls, & Hype blog, author Barry Eisler has been making the case that e-books will soon replace paper ones in a series of posts titled "Dead Trees is a Dead Model." While I agree with some of the things Barry says (especially the need for authors, agents, and publishers to finally view e-books as important), I don't believe the printed book will go away, in spite of my embracing of all things digital when it comes to publishing. Barry's first post sparked a healthy roun
March 2, 2009
Recently, old friend John Hood sent me a link to this book review in a recent issue of Esquire. The review was for David Lozell Martin's Losing Everything and was written by a guy who calls himself St. James Harris Wood. According to Esquire, Wood is currently serving time in a California coastal penal colony.Convict book reviewer. Brilliant idea! Except, wait a minute, I've heard this idea somewhere before. Where?
Oh yeah, John Hood came up with it. Way back in 2003 and 2004, I published book re
February 25, 2009
February 23, 2009
Good friend and fellow Blacksmith for Literary Progress Tim Hall made an appearance last week on Chicago Public Radio for a segment titled, "I've Only Had To Call The Police On A Family Member Once." The title says it all. Needless to say it's an eerie tale, but Tim does a great job telling it.Grab the audio here, courtesy of CPR's Vocalo site.
And do check out Tim's latest book, Full of It: The Birth, Death, and Life of an Underground Newspaper.
February 20, 2009
After a good year or so of using the book sharing sites Shelfari, Library Thing, and WeRead, I'm calling off the whole experiment.
That's not to say I'm done with book sharing sites. Simple fact is I've found GoodReads to be the best of the four (RedRoom isn't even worth mentioning). The interface is cleaner, the author tools are much better, and the people on GoodReads actually engage in discussing books (which is the whole bloody point). I've actually learned more about certain books from reading the reviews on GoodReads and going back and forth with other users about my own reviews.
Shelfari has always been a clunky mess. The pseudo flash bookshelf design is on par with Hallmark e-cards. In spite of them now being owned by Amazon, they have never really done anything to improve the site, including the search engine which made it impossible to actually find a book without having to resort to an advanced search. It could possibly be the worst book social network, if it weren't for WeRead.
As for WeRead, if they didn't have a Facebook app, it's doubtful they would have any users. That app, which started out as Books iRead, was a joke. Half the time, the reviews you posted didn't actually log in the system. The search engine was actually worse than Shelfari's. And the design looks more like they stole it from someone who used to own the site and stopped paying for the URL back in '99.
Library Thing, in spite of Tim Spalding's earnestness, has always been more of a cataloging site than an actual social network. Quite frankly, it seems to be for the lonely and isolated who enjoy logging their entire book collection. The entire site is designed to be more like a Wikipedia for books rather than a community. Endless text links. Endless. No really go look. Endless. And while that makes the site play well with Google, it doesn't necessarily make for a great user experience. If you are a completist (i.e. Librarian or employee of the Library of Congress), it is the place for you. The final straw was LT's free membership capping the number of books you can list at 200. Any more than that and you have to purchase a premium membership. Even though the annual fee was a measly $10, I actually thought, "Nah, isn't worth it." Especially when GoodReads is much better.
And so, I bid thee farewell my friends. In the future, you can find me here.
After a good year or so of using the book sharing sites Shelfari, Library Thing, and WeRead, I'm calling off the whole experiment.That's not to say I'm done with book sharing sites. Simple fact is I've found GoodReads to be the best of the four (RedRoom isn't even worth mentioning). The interface is cleaner, the author tools are much better, and the people on GoodReads actually engage in discussing books (which is the whole bloody point). I've actually learned more about certain books from readi
February 11, 2009
It was great to learn this week that good friend and fellow Blacksmith for Literary Progress Karen Lillis has given birth to a poetic little novel titled The Second Elizabeth. Karen has a great adeptness with language -- being a poet helps -- so the novel has a rhythm and flow all its own. It is filled with punchy little paragraphs that tell micro prose-poems about the characters, while still fitting into the greater story of the novel.Knowing that Karen's been hard at work on the novel (and get
