Tag: books

Huckleberry Finn has long been the first book that Easton Press sells at a heavy discount to its Book-of-the-Month buyers. But given how Easton is mostly run by young women who have recently graduated from Ivy League universities, I expect it won’t be long before they stop publishing it at all in light of the bad odor in which Mark Twain is now held by the universities:

St. John’s University joins a list of woke universities, schools, and programs willing to reshape its curriculum to coddle students who feel challenged on a mental or emotional level.

During a reading of Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, Professor Hannah Berliner Fischthal became another casualty in the way of a race-based movement that cost her a profession and livelihood – one built on years of garnering her students’ trust through thoughtful and open conversation.

During a read-through that prompted Berliner Fischthal to use the N-word directly from the text, one student exited the online session and sent an email detailing the emotional distress this cause.

The student’s email stated that the professor’s use of the term was “unnecessary and very painful to hear.” The message became a public ordeal and prompted the university to investigate the action, leading to the professor’s dismissal from St. John’s University.

This is just another reason why it’s not only desirable, but vital, to subscribe to Castalia Library. Regarding which, I have a few things to mention.

First, the first three leatherbound Junior Classics have been sent to the printer. We’ll order the leather this week, so the production is in process. We don’t know how long it will take, as that depends upon the bindery’s schedule. Below is the front endpapers, which will feature the appropriate names and sections of the specific volume. We’re also close to getting the regular volumes 4, 5, and 6 out the door.

Second, we’ll stop taking orders for the leatherbound Junior Classics on Monday at noon, since we have to finalize the number. We’re going to print a few extra interiors since it’s economical for us to do so, so there will probably be an opportunity to acquire a leather set at some point in the future, but this will be your last opportunity for some time.

Third, as I’ve already announced, the Castalia Library and Libraria Castalia editions of Summa Elvetica will NOT be signed. There have already been sufficient delays that Heidi will be shipped first, and it’s just going to take too long to print the special pages, ship them to Europe, ship them back, and have them tipped-in. It was a stupid notion and I’m sorry we won’t be able to deliver on the signed editions. Obviously, if anyone who bought the one-off on that notion wants a refund, we will certainly provide it. And for those who don’t care about the signature, the book is nearly sold out already so you might want to consider grabbing one while you can.

Speaking of sell-outs, beginning with Rhetoric, we’re increasing the number of Library editions to 850. This is because the books are nearly sold out on the basis of the subscriptions alone now. Libraria editions will remain at 100. The current subscription book is Discourses on Livy by Machiavelli.

We are aware that some people received doubles of Plutarch, and others still haven’t received their Divine Comedy – me included. Let us know at library -at- castaliahouse -dot- com in either case; the bindery is actively resolving each case one at a time. They have a new system in place which should prevent these problems in the future and we’ve reserved enough books to make certain that everyone who paid for one will receive one. In the meantime, don’t bother letting me know, as I can’t do anything about it and don’t even have my copy of Dante or Plutarch. 

And finally, the rear endpapers for the leather editions, which will be the same for every volume.

The publishing world is under ever-tightening control. An agent explains why this is going to make things worse for authors and readers alike.

By 2022, we will be down to The Big 4 – Penguin Simon & Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Harper Collins Houghton Mifflin Harcourt  – plus a smattering of some mid-size but growing independents. And that’s it.This contraction significantly impacts writers an authors, and here’s why:

• Merging companies always declare that the houses will be run separately. This was certainly the case when Random House bought Penguin more than five years ago. Now these “separate publishers” exist under the same roof, use the same publishing contract, and operate under merged accounting and royalty systems. It is, in essence, almost like one house even though agents can still submit separately.
• When publishers merge, there are often new mandates regarding how those houses will participate in auctions and submit bids. Some houses stipulate that imprints can no longer bid against each other. So if several imprints are interested in acquiring a project, they communicate and form a “house bid” (which is where all imprints propose one bid to submit in the auction, and if it is the winning bid, then the author can choose which editor/imprint to work with). This removes competition from the auction and lowers advances, which translates to less money for the author.
• The merging of publishers results in the must-acquire-blockbusters-only mentality. Tighter budgets means fewer books will be acquired, which makes editors less likely to take chances on unique, creative voices—authors with talent who might not break out until their fourth or fifth novel. In other words, there is less focus on building an author and more focus on acquiring the obvious “big” book—which limits the diversity of unique stories in the world.
• Contraction squeezes out the mid-list author—the author who’s not a blockbuster but whose sales might be humming along nicely. How? Because it makes the publisher less likely to pick up their option material. This precludes the possibility that a mid-list author’s third or fourth book might have been the one to break out. Not to mention, if the agent must shop the author anew, the current house (and all those imprints) are off the submit list. That equals fewer outlets where an agent can place that author and relaunch that author’s career.
• Contraction eliminates editorial positions. Smaller staff equals fewer editors equals less diversity and narrower taste in what gets acquired. Also, smaller staff equals fewer editors equals those editors getting way more submissions from agents. Editors are already strapped for reading time and inundated with submitted manuscripts. The sheer volume makes it hard for any debut project to stand out in the crush—reducing a new writer’s chances of getting a foot in the door.
• Contraction equals less-author-friendly publishing contracts. Fewer houses at which to place a client means publishers have the upper hand when it comes to dictating the terms, and agents have less negotiation leverage. 

Fortunately, I left that world once and for all back in 2014. So as long as there are people interested in buying books from Castalia and Arkhaven, there will be options to the increasingly converged mainstream offerings.

And speaking of Castalia, we’ll be announcing a few things tomorrow. Nothing terribly crazy, just getting caught up on the regular business now that Arktoons has successfully launched and we can start keeping reasonably normal hours again.

Speaking as an author of a long-awaited epic fantasy novel that is years behind schedule and has yet to be finished, I think I am one of the few people on Earth who can speak with authority on the matter of George RR Martin and the likelihood that he will ever finish A Song of Ice and Fire.

I’ve said since the 7th season of Game of Thrones that George RR Martin would fail to finish his book series, A Song of Ice and Fire. There are now concerns that Martin won’t even finish The Winds of Winter, the planned penultimate novel of the series. Martin revealed this week on his blog that he has, again, fallen “hugely behind” on a project, which we assume means The Winds of Winter.

“When a lot of stuff happens very fast, I fall further and further behind. I am hugely behind right now, and the prospect of trying to catch up is feeling increasingly oppressive,” Martin writes.

That doesn’t sound good.

It has been 10 years since the last book of the series, A Dance with Dragons, was released. If Martin can’t finish Winds in a decade, how long will A Dream of Spring, the final and longest novel of the series, take?

Perhaps, there is not enough time in life to close every Martin-formed storyline. Maybe this book series grew too large, too deep, too in-depth for a conclusion. That TV ending may be all we get. 

The Outkick writer is right. Martin won’t finish the series. He almost certainly won’t even finish The Winds of Winter. He’s not only lost his fastball, he’s lost his ability to pitch.

I, however, have not. I will finish A Sea of Skulls and continue with The Arts of Dark and Light. In fact, if fans of the epic fantasy series here are genuinely interested, I can even post a chapter or two of new material here at some point, although I will certainly understand if you would prefer that I reserve all of the new content for the completed book.

This is just a reminder that this is the last day for new Library subscribers to subscribe to Castalia Library without making a catchup payment. So, if you’ve been planning to do it, this is a good day to do so.

The current March-April subscription book is RHETORIC by Aristotle.

UPDATE: It’s now April in Europe. New subscriptions will require a catchup payment. Thanks to everyone who got their new subscriptions in under the wire!

If you still don’t understand the importance of Castalia Library and the Castalia Junior Classics, this announcement of converged fairy tales should help you grasp the concept:

Thor: Love And Thunder actor Natalie Portman recently revealed that she’s taken it upon herself to rewrite classic fairytales because they mainly feature male protagonists; publishing a book that features gender-neutral characters instead.

According to Hello! magazine, as reported by Breitbart, Portman decided to rewrite some of these classic fairytales because they “did not reflect the world” in her book titled Natalie Portman’s Fables.

Portman explained, “I found myself changing the pronouns in many of their books because so many of them had overwhelmingly male characters, disproportionate to reality.”

“Boys need to see that women have a multitude of opportunities open to them, to consider what they think and feel, and how they experience the world,” the Star Wars actor continued.

James Halliwell-Phillips’ “The Three Little Pigs,” as well as Aesop’s “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” are the classic fairytales that Natalie Portman deemed necessary to give a breath of fresh 21st century air.

Knowledge converged is knowledge destroyed. What they’re doing is actually worse than merely burning the books. They are seeking to replace them with subversive versions so that no one will even know that they’ve been destroyed. 

People have been asking when the second volume of Plutarch would be available as a one-off for non-subscribers. Both Library and Libraria editions are now available. Pictured below is the stunning Libraria edition.

A Library subscriber mentioned yesterday that he thought the Library editions were every bit as beautiful as the Libraria editions, so I thought it was only fair to give them their moment in the sun. This was our first attempt to utilize red cowhide in the vein of the Franklin Library Shakespeare collection, and although it took a little more tweaking than usual, the end result was very satisfactory. The endpapers, in particular, are fantastic.

The front covers, which feature the hoplite and legionary helmets, are also very striking, and the detail on the two soldiers on the spines turned out better than we were expecting.

I ordered another 630 square feet of Italian goatskin today, which is the largest order we’ve placed to date. The Libraria editions of Arts of Dark and Light, which includes Summa Elvetica, will be dark green. The Libraria edition of Heidi will be the bright red of the Swiss flag. Both colors should look spectacular with the 22k gold.

Both volumes of Plutarch, in both editions, are now available at Arkhaven for non-subscribers. The Libraria edition of Summa Elvetica is also available, but there are only 49 left in stock.

Is worth doing for its own sake. Given the expense of producing and shipping these, it would make no sense from a capitalistic perspective to produce monstrous books like these massive goatskin-leatherbound editions of both volumes of PLUTARCH’S LIVES. But if you appreciate books, how could you possibly doubt for one second that it was a thing worth doing?

We’re currently behind schedule on SUMMA ELVETICA for various reasons that mostly relate to trying to get the AODAL series look right, but we expect to get back on track with HEIDI and the current Library subscription book, RHETORIC by Aristotle, featuring a Forward by yours truly. The new system at the bindery permits much better tracking that will go out automatically via email to subscribers when the books are shipped, so we’re anticipating improvement in that regard.

Both volumes of PLUTARCH’S LIVES, Library and Libraria can now be purchased individually until the stock runs out. Please note that the Libraria edition of AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND now joins both editions of THE MISSIONARIES, and MEDITATIONS as being officially sold out.

Volumes I through III of the Junior Classics are now available from the Castalia Direct store. They should soon be available through Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores in the next week. These are the larger Royal Octavo editions. The Demy editions were ordered for backers last week, though the printer is still catching up to its post-Christmas printings so no one will have received them yet.

If you are a backer who a) hasn’t received your books yet or b) received the wrong number of books or a damaged or misprinted book, we’re going to be addressing those in the next two weeks. You will get them, but please understand that we do not ship them ourselves so emailing us and asking for shipping information or tracking numbers is totally useless. We are putting together a comprehensive report of the various issues for the printer and they will take care of everyone as they have reliably done for the last five years.

Everything is fake, including the supposed knowledge of the politicians and famous public intellectuals:

In a place like Washington—small, interconnected, erudite, gossipy—being well-read can create certain advantages. So, too, can seeming well-read. The “Washington bookshelf” is almost a phenomenon in itself, whether in a hotel library, at a think tank office or on the walls behind the cocktail bar at a Georgetown house.

And, as with nearly any other demand of busy people and organizations, it can be conjured up wholesale, for a fee.

Books by the Foot, a service run by the Maryland-based bookseller Wonder Book, has become a go-to curator of Washington bookshelves, offering precisely what its name sounds like it does. As retro as a shelf of books might seem in an era of flat-panel screens, Books by the Foot has thrived through Democratic and Republican administrations, including that of the book-averse Donald Trump. And this year, the company has seen a twist: When the coronavirus pandemic arrived, Books by the Foot had to adapt to a downturn in office- and hotel-decor business—and an uptick in home-office Zoom backdrops for the talking-head class.

The Wonder Book staff doesn’t pry too much into which objective a particular client is after. If an order were to come in for, say, 12 feet of books about politics, specifically with a progressive or liberal tilt—as one did in August—Wonder Book’s manager, Jessica Bowman, would simply send one of her more politics-savvy staffers to the enormous box labeled “Politically Incorrect” (the name of Books by the Foot’s politics package) to select about 120 books by authors like Hillary Clinton, Bill Maher, Al Franken and Bob Woodward. The books would then be “staged,” or arranged with the same care a florist might extend to a bouquet of flowers, on a library cart; double-checked by a second staffer; and then shipped off to the residence or commercial space where they would eventually be shelved and displayed (or shelved and taken down to read).

Only sometimes do Bowman and Wonder Book President Chuck Roberts know the real identity of the person whose home or project they’ve outfitted: “When we work with certain designers, I pretty much already know it’s going to be either an A-list movie or an A-list client. They always order under some code name,” Bowman says. “They’re very secretive.”

I think people have a basic understanding that there is an element of falsehood to many, if not most displayed libraries, given the reaction that more than a view Darkstream viewers have had to my videos. I’ve even been accused of using a greenscreen with a backdrop of a picture of a library. This is why it gives me great pleasure to be able to answer those who ask “have you read all those books” with “actually, I’ve published quite a few of them.”

And even more pleasure to inform the more dedicated doubters that I wrote more than a dozen of them. The Castalia-only portion of the library already fills more than three double shelves and I haven’t even received my copy of the first three Junior Classics yet.

My office library is larger than it appears on screen, as there are seven horizontal rows and six columns in an L-shape to my left and behind my gaming table. There are about 600 books and 50 boxed wargames in it (not counting comics), but my office library is only a small portion of the house library which is scattered throughout shelves in various rooms and hallways on all three floors of the house. Forget books, I don’t even know how many bookshelves we have.

But it is intriguing, and informative, to have the shallowness and lack of knowledge that we have observed on the part of the ruling class confirmed by their need to buy the appearance of erudition in addition to their worthless university degrees.