Messing about in books

 

My experience as an NBA judge has been interesting and somewhat onerous (I am told it will get worse for the next weeks as the deadline for publishers to submit appears -- June 30 -- and then when books arrive at my place.

Of course I am under a vow of omerta in regard to my opinion, even a hint of it, but I have gleaned a couple of things of interest about 2011's book s and maybe more.

It seems t me that publishing is in good shape, really.  Along with the dozens of novels sent in by major publishers, I have got even more dozens of books from small-to-micro presses.  And I'm not talking about what used to be called vanity presses or about self-publishing -- though it may be that a publisher has only one book, still it's a publisher and not a self.  (The NBA  rules declare self-published books ineligible.) Cover art continues to be spectacular.  Beautiful and witty designs on books from small presses and a profusion of full-color (or artfully suggested full-color jackets.  I have never got my publisher to spring for full-color though the jackets of my books have been fairly handsome (sigh). Epigraphs abound.  Two or three to a book, often.  One book in galleys has a (maybe standard-format) page that says "Epigraph" on it, though the author has apparently not yet chosen one.  Epigraphs are of two kinds, in my mind:  ones that draw out the point of the book, its moral in the largest sense; these tend to be drawn from great poets or philosophers or religious texts.  And there are oddities, an indirect glint off the book or a secret hook.  Each is I guess okay in its way -- what's your favorite epigraph, there's a good game  -- but in my mind they cancel each other out.  I prefer the second type, if I can find a good one; but none if I can't. Acknowledgements and thanks have now grown nearly universal, either at the beginning or the end. To friends and family, the literary grantgivers without whom this book, etc., the agent and the publisher.   The first novels seem to have more of these than the novels of older writers.  On the other hadn I see fewer straight dedications than in other times (I think.) Anyway, back to work...