I started reading Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence. The first part focuses so far on his early life. His love of music and mathematics. A lot of it is about his rise to prominence in the economic profession. He talks about his relationship with Ayn Rand and his objectivist ideals. It is rather interesting reading about someone with very different ideals than my own. He seems to be an odd mix of personal conservativeness and economic free market radicalism.
The writing is crisp. There is very little excess wordiness in the text. This is despite the huge size of the book. If you want a lesson in how to cut out unnecessary material, this book does a good job.
I also was reading the New York Time Book Review, the November 18, 2007 edition. I found an interesting title which I wanted to reserve, Amy Hua, Day of Empire How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance And Why They Fall. I can almost sigh sometimes; the library system where I work has not gotten it yet. Quite often bookstores get books before libraries. At least, this is what I think.
There seems to be a distribution pattern where the first copies are sent out to the bookstore, then they are sent to libraries. Many publishers will deny this. But, it makes sense to first make money selling the book to individuals, then try to sell it to institutions like universities and libraries later.
The writing is crisp. There is very little excess wordiness in the text. This is despite the huge size of the book. If you want a lesson in how to cut out unnecessary material, this book does a good job.
I also was reading the New York Time Book Review, the November 18, 2007 edition. I found an interesting title which I wanted to reserve, Amy Hua, Day of Empire How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance And Why They Fall. I can almost sigh sometimes; the library system where I work has not gotten it yet. Quite often bookstores get books before libraries. At least, this is what I think.
There seems to be a distribution pattern where the first copies are sent out to the bookstore, then they are sent to libraries. Many publishers will deny this. But, it makes sense to first make money selling the book to individuals, then try to sell it to institutions like universities and libraries later.
Getting back to the concept of review material. The most unbiased source for reviews of everyday items is supposed to be http://www.consumerreports.org/ They do not take advertising and have a strict policy of neutrality in their reviews. They produce a magazine to review products, as well as specialized books like The Best Baby Products and The Used Car Buying Guide. They also have an annual buying guide which compiles their reviews for the year.
Just as a thought exercise, if you compared the reviews on items in consumer reports and the reviews on books lets say in the New York Review of Books, you could say some interesting things.
The first thing you might notice is that The New York Review of Books has numerous advertisements for selling books and is academic in nature. The reviews are selectively biased towards literature and non- practical nonfiction. When I say non-practical, I mean things like history, philosophy, and other academic subjects. If you think about it even more, the reviewers are supposed to show their biases so they can prove that they are intellectuals and academics.
The problem I have with intellectual and academic reviewers is that they don't review the every day books which a library or bookstore needs to buy. It is very hard to find decent reviews on career books, books on plumbing, computer books. You have to go to trade magazines or web sites to find what you are looking for. Barron's or Forbes for example might have reviews on business books. Or you have to go to the recognized series like the Dummies series, or The Complete Idiot series, or the Teach Yourself Visually series. Sometimes, I think there are better ways to learn things than being a "Dummie" or an "Idiot".
The other thing which you have to do is buy the practical books from a practical manufacturer, Black and Decker publishes books on plumbing or home repair, Sunset Magazine publishes books on home design. Sometimes, it would be nice again if we could find more unique reviews of this kind of material.
Often the only way to find out about the everyday material is to go to other libraries and bookstores and see what they have on the shelf, there simply is no review material. This is why you often see librarians wandering around libraries where they don't work. The other option is to request sample items from publishers so you can figure out which practical books you might want to buy. Also publishers show up at library conventions or bookselling conventions. When I went to BookExpo America, I took the time to visit Sphinx Legal Publishing and Nolo Press to see what practical self-help books they had for law.
I think it would help reviewers sometimes if they stopped worrying so much about their intellectual credentials and reviewed more practical books.
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