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Tony Miksak

WORDS ON BOOKS by Tony Miksak for KZYX&Z-FM, 90.7 Philo CA
Airs Sunday, November 25, 2007 at 10:55 am & Wednesday, Nov 28 at 1 pm

(copyright 2007 Tony Miksak)

Title: While You Were Away

WORDS ON BOOKS by Tony Miksak for KZYX&Z-FM, 90.7 Philo CA

(MUSIC UP) This is Tony Miksak with a few Words on Books.

For my holiday reading this Thanksgiving weekend I took along the new Michael Chabon – he's a brand name now, if you hadn't heard. "Gentlemen of the Road" is an adventure set about a thousand years ago in the Caucasus Mountains. I haven't finished it, so no review here yet, but so far it's a heck of a lot of fun.

While you were away enjoying the somewhat ironic Festival of Thanks for surviving on a continent we didn't own at the time and don't exactly have title to now, the world spun and produced some interesting news:

The chaps who run Borders and Waldenbooks have a new pitch: Books are safer for children than lead painted toys.

Borders Books & Music has been bleeding money this year. Borders is the sprawling chain of supersized bookstores that competes for readers with the sprawling chain of supersized bookstores Barnes & Noble, and with Amazon, Target and Costco. Borders' stock is down almost 50 per cent, and analysts are worried.

In response, executives got out the markers and made signs. Borders Group CEO George Jones said, "This safety factor is a big deal with parents. Books are safe."

Meanwhile, online merchant Amazon presented to a yawning market the Kindle, another electronic book reader. Its type looks good, you can wirelessly download things to read, and the Kindle costs $400.

David Pogue in the New York Times reviewed it favorably, saying it's really neat to download something and read it in the coffee shop or on the subway. Amazon and Sprint give you bandwidth for free; the 20,000 titles at places like Gutenberg.org don't cost anything to purchase, and newer downloaded books cost about half as much as traditionally printed ones.

The point, for me, is not the old tired fable about the End of the Book as We Know It. The Kindle and its inevitable upgrades are simply one more way to deliver intellectual content. Authors must still write, and books must still be worth your valuable time. If you prefer to read books electronically, more power to you, so to speak. I still like ink on paper, no batteries, no signal interference, no commercial interruptions.

Next: It appears that about a quarter million library books have gone missing from the London borough of Waltham Forest. News reports say up to 60% of the county's books may have been pulped or burned.

"I know for a fact lots of them were taken to the tip," one library worker reported, "at least two van loads. There were all sorts, but I know there were brand new books." Concerned library patrons believe the books were dumped to make space in the refurbished Walthamstow Central Library and, by the time work was finished, there was not enough paid staff to sort, give them away or sell them.

Library officials admit that the missing books were discarded. Their own figures show that "nearly 75,000 books vanished in January and February alone." The next Walthamstow Community Council Meeting is going to be very interesting.

And in planetary book news, a project to translate world-renowned books into Arabic was launched in Abu Dhabi this week.

The effort to translate major works into Arabic may end up being much more important, and way more effective, than other attempts to bludgeon Arab-speakers into support for United States goals and Western culture.

News reports speak of "a daring, long-term project to bring landmark foreign works to Arabic-speaking readers" and point out that "the number of books translated into Arabic in the past 1,000 years is the same as that now translated into Spanish in one year."

The Kalima Project ("kalima" meaning "word" in Arabic) aims to "revive the art of translation across the Arab world and reverse the long decline in Arabic readers' access to major works of global literature, philosophy, science and history."

(MUSIC UP) Among the first titles to be translated: "The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer."

(MUSIC) Transcripts of Words on Books temporarily are not available through the KZYX web site. To be on the WOB emailing list, please send a note to amiksak@mcn.org. You can view all past WOB scripts here: www.gallerybooks.com/bkm/index.html

NOTES:

"Gentlemen of the Road" by Michael Chabon. Ballantine Books hardcover $21.95. ISBN 9780345501745.
About the very long www addresses below: If you can't cram these successfully into your browser (try highlighting the entire address, then Ctrl-C to copy and Ctrl-V to paste into the address line of your browser), try shortening the address, and then searching on the subject when you get to the source. For example, simply www.freep.com will get you close.

The Detroit Free Press on Borders and their signs: www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071122/BUSINESS06/711220341

David Pogue on the Kindle: www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/technology/personaltech/

Saul Hansell (hand sell?) of the NY Times on the Kindle: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/in-defense-of-the-kindle/

The Guardian comes to Waltham Wood: www.wansteadandwoodfordguardian.co.uk/

The Independent on the Arab translation project: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3182335.ece

Tony Miksak
Words on Books: http://www.gallerybooks.com/bkm/index.html
personal home page: http://amiksak.googlepages.com/home
dalle stelle alle stalle, o dalle stalle alle stelle?

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