Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Top 100 Most Searched-For Books of 2014

http://www.abebooks.com/books/features/100-most-searched-out-of-print-books.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-C150127-h00-bookfiAM-121214TG-_-01cta&abersp=1

By Beth Carswell
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman F. Dixon
On the Psychology of Military 
Incompetenceby Norman F. Dixon
Easily one of my favorite moments of the literary year is the unveiling of BookFinder.com's list of the top 100 most searched for out-of-print books, and the list is in for 2014.
The biggest news of the year is the ousting of Madonna's Sex, which has enjoyed lounging lasciviously around in the #1 spot since 2010, enjoying the view. But no matter how much Madonna might like to be on top, the winds of change blew Sex down to #3 this year. So what two titles were bold and daring enough to take down the queen?
Interestingly, the #1 spot on this year's list went to On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman F. Dixon. The book examines in deep detail the power dynamics and reasoning behind blunders in military leadership and strategy from The Boer War, WWI, The Crimean War and more. From a perspective of analyzing personalities and intellectual abilities behind positions of power, even considering factors such as character traits prized and abhorred in the military, On the Psychology of Military Incompetence asks very tough questions and even offers some answers. No doubt the book has ruffled its share of feathers since its original publication in 1975 by Jonathan Cape. The book's overlying, scathing assertion is that by its very own structure, the military is assuring its own continued failure by the types of people it attracts, promotes and makes leaders: 

"Such personality traits - fear of failure, need for approval, orderliness, excessive obedience and underlying hostility etc. - fit in so well with the requirements of military organizations, that a proportion of these people may rise to high rank. At the top, however, those features of their psychological make-up which assured their ascent may prove sadly incapacitating. Over-control, rigidity, having a 'closed-mind', do not lend themselves to the task of fathoming, let alone dealing with, the great uncertainities of war."
The book made its first appearance last year at #11, after never having appeared in the top 100 previously. While I'm not sure I want to live in a world where military incompetence trumps sex, it says something about the current state of things when that's the the most frequently searched-for out-of-print book.
The #2 spot goes to The Lovely Reed: An Enthusiast's Guide to Building Bamboo Fly Rods by Jack Howell, which wasn't even on the list last year. How wholesome. A bit of snooping around the net reveals that in October 2013, the Sioux City Journal featured an interview with a man named Jeff Hatton, whose collection of over 115 fishing rods (called "The Gnome's Traveling Rod Show") lovingly details the history of rods, dating back to the 1700s. In the interview, Hatton mentioned having taught himself to build fishing rods using a book - "The Lovely Reed". Could this be the cause of the book's seemingly sudden demand? Or is it merely a renewed interest in bamboo fly rod fishing? Do we have hipsters to thank? I would feel more confident making that assertion if it was a book about vinyl record collection, or making one's own kombucha, but the possibility remains.
It's always fascinating to see the fluctuations in the list. For those not in the know, when demand wanes for a book, a publisher can decide to give it the axe and not print any more copies. In the case of a resurgence of interest, the demand can soar again, making for some highly sought-after books indeed. These days, with the speed of communication and ease of printing, publishers are quick and eager to jump on a reprinting if the demand exists, so these lists become narrower. However, there is still a fascinating, eclectic gap between supply and demand, and this glorious literary grey area is where we find ourselves today. Some of the books on this list are extremely unlikely to ever be reprinted, such as #14 - Promise Me Tomorrow by Nora Roberts is widely acknowledged, even by the author and her most loyal devotees, to be entirely godawful ("She had never wanted a man so much. He had sworn no woman would ever possess him."). True fans insist on owning the whole Roberts bibliography, while Roberts herself would seemingly rather be drawn and quartered than put more copies of the book into circulation. Hence its scarcity: there are fewer than 20 copies currently for sale on AbeBooks.
What can cause renewed interest in an OOP title? Well, it's almost always media or celebrity-based. It's interesting to see the social and economic impact that comes of a nod from a wealthy, successful community figure. In July 2014, Bill Gates wrote that his favorite business book was Business Adventures by John Brooks (first recommended and lent to him by Warren Buffett - I find it gratifying to know the unimaginably wealthy people of Earth still lend one another books, rather than just having a small plane skywrite the entire text over Manhattan). This time last year it was an out-of-print title that didn't crack the top 100 spot. One year later, and Gates' recommendation not only sent searches for the book skyrocketing, but it has also been brought back, both as an e-book, and into print, which means, of course, it won't be on this year's list either, but eager would-be businessmen can easily find copies now.
My personal pet book on the list has to be #23, Cards as Weapons by Ricky Jay. The cover alone is enough to make me swoon. There's so much going on! The pyramids! The charging bull! The giant squid! What's happening in that saloon? Oh, how can I resist?! Well, the price tag helps me resist. It's a popular collectible book, and copies on AbeBooks start over $100. It's sorely tempting, though. Even the description of Ricky Jay is full of allure: "The author of the critically acclaimed Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, a nationally known sleight-of-hand expert, movie actor and magician extraordinaire..."
Masterful. If sleight-of-deadly-hand isn't your cup of tea, rest assured, this list is as eclectic as they come, and has something for everyone, even (especially) if you're weird.

The List:

3. Sex by Madonna
4. The Body by Stephen King
5. Rage by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
6. The Colorado Kid by Stephen King
7. The Road We Are Traveling by Stuart Chase
8. On the Nature and Existence of God by Richard M. Gale
9. 365 Bedtime Stories by Nan Gilbert
11. Dark Carnival by Ray Bradbury
12. The Harvard Classics (51 volumes) edited by Charles W. Eliot
13. A Treasury of Great Recipes by Vincent & Mary Price
14. Promise Me Tomorrow by Nora Roberts
15. The Jerusalem Bible by Salvador Dali
17. Fast Times at Ridgemont High by Cameron Crowe
19. The Thwarting of Laplace's Demon: Arguments Against the Mechanistic World-View by Richard Green
20. Arithmetic Progress Papers by H. Henry Thomas
21. Racing Toward Judgment by David R Wilkerson
22. My Pretty Pony by Stephen King
23. Cards As Weapons by Ricky Jay
24. History of Art by H.W. Janson
25. The Angelique Series by Sergeanne (Anne) Golon
26. Murmurs of Earth by Carl Sagan
27. Ilsa by Madeleine L'Engle
28. The Modern Gunsmith by James Virgil Howe
29. Mandingo by Kyle Onstott
30. The Afronauts by Cristina de Middel
31. Airport by Arthur Hailey
33. 102 Favorite Paintings by Norman Rockwell
34. The Pink Dress by Anne Alexander
36. Sisters
37. Unintended Consequences by John Ross
39. Pookie by Ivy Wallace
41. Analysis of Beam Grids and Orthotropic Plates by the Guyon-Massonet-Bares Method by Richard Bares; Charles Ernest Massonet
42. Cyborg by Martin Caidin
43. Golden Book of the Civil War by Charles Flato
44. I Go Pogo by Walt Kelly
45. Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth by David Wilkerson
46. A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt
47. Hell, I Was There by Elmer Keith
48. A Pattern Book of Tatting by Mary Konior
49. The Book of Indians by Holling C. Holling
50. Phoebe and the Hot Water Bottles by Linda Dawson & Terry Furchgott
51. Women Are Beautiful by Garry Winogrand
53. In A Dark Place by Ray Garton
54. A Complete Guide to Learning and Understanding Chi Mind Control by Mike Dayton
57. The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler
59. The King Ranch by Tom Lea
61. Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman
62. The Holy Bible by Rev. Alfred Nevin
63. The Big Country by Donald Hamilton
64. Open Water Swimming by Penny Lee Dean
70. Turkish Delight by Jan Wolkers
72. To Drop A Dime by Paul Hoffman
73. Anybody Can Do Anything by Betty MacDonald
74. Kalinda by Evan Green
77. Sam's Sandwich by David Pelham
78. The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes by Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor
79. Kelso's Shrug Book by Paul Kelso
80. The Negro motorist green book: an international travel guide by Victor H Green
81. We by Charles Lindbergh
82. The Story of Civilization by Will Durant
83. The Barrakee Mystery by Arthur W. Upfield
84. The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy
86. Precious Souls: A Culture Unraveling by Nazareth V. Asorian
87. Impact Dynamics by Jonas A. Zukas
88. The Theory of Isotope Separation as Applied to the Large Scale Production of U235 by Karl P Cohen
89. This World and That: The Autobiography of a Diver by Thomas Ferris Milne
91. The Erotic Art of Edgar Britton by Jane Hilberry
92. Halloween by Curtis Richards
93. A Different Kind of Life by Virginia Williams
94. The Innovators The New Holland Story Hardcover by Homer K. Luttringer
96. The Airgun from Trigger to Target Paperback by Gerard Michael Cardew and G.V. Cardew
98. Birds of Britain by John D. Green
99. Permaculture: A Designers' Manual by Bill Mollison
100. Beyond the Plough by Janet Woods

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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Paper is back: Why ‘real’ books are on the rebound

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/paper-back-real-books-rebound/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geekwire+%28GeekWire%29

BY  on 
Image via Shutterstock
Image via Shutterstock
All hail paper, the book reading technology resurgent. Eight years after the first Amazon Kindle and five years since the first Apple iPad, lowly pressed wood pulp is on the rebound.
The consequence looks more like co-existence than conquest. For now.
kindlesmallThe latest numbers for 2014 book sales tell a surprising tale. Nielsen BookScan, which tracks what readers are buying, found the number of paper books sold went up 2.4% last year, including at Amazon and all types of bookstores.
As Publishers Weekly puts it, “the 2014 figures are further evidence that print books are selling better than they have since sales of eBooks exploded in 2010.” The paper tome apparently hit rock bottom in 2012, but has since rallied in categories from children’s books to adult non-fiction, and formats from trade paperback to hardcover.
Students, too, are rediscovering paper. Several studies – including one by tech-centric Hewlett-Packard – find a strong preference for printed textbooks, notably among those in college who have tried both types. In the HP survey, 57% preferred print; only 21% preferred an eTextbook.
At the same time, eBooks have hit a plateau of sorts. Growth in revenues, according to the Association of American Publishers, was a mere 3.8% in 2013 compared to “unprecedented” growth in 2012. The first three quarters of 2014showed another nice, modest uptick of 5.6%.WonderworldScienceinside
Depending on whose stats you believe, eBooks that people actually pay for have settled in to represent slightly more than a quarter (27%) of all U.S. book sales, and perhaps up to a third (self-published author direct sales are harder to measure, and freebies are, well, not paid).
Why the pushback against pixels? It may be a combination of how we’re wired, and where eBooks and their devices still fail to connect with readers.

Comprehension

Multiple studies find that we pitiful humans seem to read differently when given the same text on a screen instead of on a page – and are distracted more easily – so less of what we read sticks. Researchers at James Madison University, for one, suspect that readers skim eBook pages quickly and repeatedly, while eye-tracking software shows paper books are read line-for-line. The result is that grokking the content of eBooks “takes longer and requires more effort to reach the same level of understanding.”
Then add distractions. Lots of eBooks aimed at kids are chock full of animations, games and other digital delights. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop found young kids recall a lot less of the eBook narrative than kids who read print versions of the same story. Another study found young readers frequently skip eBook text, period, and move to the “fun” stuff.
For those of us who are older, there is the Facebook Factor. I know I’m not the only one who discovered that the downside of moving from a dedicated Kindle eReader to a Kindle Fire tablet is I now can be constantly tempted, and pulled away from losing myself in the book, by notifications of incoming email, status updates, direct messages and Words With Friends moves.

Non-intuitive tools

If I were to ask how you’d remember a page or a passage in a paper book, you’d look at me as though I were an idiot. You’d grab a pen or highlighter – two familiar tools that are used for more than reading – and mark the words or scribble in the margins. Or just dog-ear the page, a simple, quick physical motion.
By DBGthekafu [GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)], via Wikimedia CommonsFor eBooks, you actually have to figure out under which menu the right tool is, how to use it, what its limits are (can I export? save across devices?) and then finally apply it. And, unlike a real thumb or ink pen, how that tool works can vary by platform.
Take the faux sticky note. One study from Ryerson University noted that readers felt they had to “remember to purposely search for the electronic sticky note, in contrast to the easily observable paper sticky note.”
Yes, eBook tools are better than they used to be. But my pen remains mightier than your silicon.

Human factors

I’m not going to soft-pedal this: Some people still like the feel of a book, the heft of a book, even the smell of a book. It has a UI and UX with centuries of refinement. For some types of reading, the physical act of opening a thick cover and listening to the whispered crackle of spine and pages is part of the enjoyment.
There is also brilliant, large cover art and the ever-present reminder that youown a book, not because it shows up in a text list or thumbnail art when you log in to your Kindle inventory, but because it’s in your face, on a shelf, where you and others nearby can bask in it.
Oh. About ownership. Recall Amazon’s ability to modify or remove an eBookwithout a buyer’s permission? The Ryerson study concluded that readers perceived digital content as less permanent. Physical books were under their, not “publishers or IT developers,” control.
Plus, the whole how-backlit-screens-can-interfere-with-sleep thing.
This isn’t to say all is rosy for paper books. The biggest damage in 2014 was the continued slide in mass market paperback sales, down 10.3% during a time period when every other format was going up.
Those palm-sized softcover books are traditionally the domain of adult genre fiction, like romance, fantasy and mystery. Narratives, read front-to-back (and I doubt there’s ever need for a comprehension test afterward). Self-published eBook authors have latched onto genre categories bigtime, too, likely diverting what would have been physical book sales. For that kind of fiction, the years-long paper massacre hasn’t ended.
But as Mark Twain might opine, reports of paper books’ death have been greatly exaggerated. The near-term future won’t be paper-or, but paper-and, pixel. Until the two are indistinguishable in terms of features, factors and feel.
Frank Catalano (@FrankCatalano) is an independent consultant to firms in education and consumer technology, a veteran industry analyst, and a professional speaker and author. His regular GeekWire columns take a practical nerd’s approach to tech.
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32 Books That Will Actually Change Your Life... And all you have to do is read them!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/books-that-will-actually-change-your-life#.ipK4d7R29
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Monday, January 19, 2015

A book is a gift you can open again and again. --Garrison Keillor


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Friday, January 16, 2015

This Day in Book History - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much


1991 --  US: BiblioKleptoManiac Stephen Blumberg goes on trial

for stealing $20 million worth of rare books & manuscripts, Iowa.
____________________________________________

from Wikipedia:
Stephen Carrie Blumberg (born St. Paul, Minnesota) is best known as a bibliomane who lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. After being arrested for stealing more than 23,600 books worth USD $5.3 million in 1990, he became known as the Book Bandit and was recognized as the most successful book thief in the history of the United States.[1]

Early life[edit]

Blumberg lived on a $72,000 annual family trust fund. His compulsion to collect books developed in childhood when he became interested in many of the beautiful, but run-down Victorian homes in St. Paul he walked past on his way to school. Blumberg began removing doorknobs and stained glass windows from the old houses that were slated for destruction as part of a revitalization project in St. Paul. Blumberg amassed hundreds of these items during the course of his collecting years in addition to the books. His initial interest in Victorian architecture brought him into the rare-books stacks at the University of Minnesota. Blumberg initially took items as a way to create a reference collection for his own use.[1][2]

Arrest and trial[edit]

At 2:00 a.m. on March 20, 1990 Stephen Blumberg was arrested for stealing more than 23,600 rare, valuable and assorted other books from 268 or more universities and museums in 45 states, 2 Canadian provinces along with Washington, D.C. Their value was placed at about $20 million, but was later changed to $5.3 million, the largest book theft in US history. In 1991, Blumberg was found guilty and sentenced to 71 months in prison with a $200,000 fine. On December 29, 1995, he was released from prison. The collection has been referred to as the "Blumberg Collection." The Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the Association of College and Research Libraries as well as Library Security expert William Andrew Moffett helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation to capture and convict Stephen Blumberg and identify the rare items he had stolen.[1][2][3]
Blumberg's arrest came as a result of his "friend" Kenneth J. Rhodes turning him in for a $56,000 bounty he negotiated with the Justice Department. Rhodes and Blumberg had known each other since the mid-1970s. A known criminal, Rhodes accompanied Blumberg on several of his "road trip" collecting sprees.[1][2]
During Blumberg's 1991 trial, Dr. William S. Logan, director of the Law and Psychiatry Department at the Menninger Clinic and a nationally recognized authority on forensic psychiatry, revealed that Stephen had undergone psychiatric treatment for schizophrenic delusions and tendencies. He was hospitalized numerous times during his adolescence where twelve psychiatrists diagnosed him variously as schizophrenic, delusional, paranoid, or compulsive. Dr. Logan also revealed that a history of psychiatric illness was in Blumberg’s family.
Dr. Logan reported during the trial that Blumberg’s thought was to preserve or rescue the materials he stole from what he believed was destruction. Blumberg believed that the government was plotting to keep the ordinary person from having access to rare books and unique materials, and so sought to liberate and release them in an attempt to thwart the government plot. Blumberg admitted that he saw himself as a custodian of the things he took.[1] He said he would never sell them because he thought that would be dishonest. He envisioned the items would be returned to the rightful owners after his death, or at least to another repository that could care for them. Despite these findings, Blumberg was convicted in 1991 as guilty, without reason of insanity. After serving a 4½-year sentence, Blumberg was released and continued his collecting and stealing habits.[1][2]
Upon meeting Blumberg in the FBI's stacks after his arrest, John L. Sharpe III from Duke University's library commented about his brief conversation with Blumberg that,
"What I felt...was that we in libraries have to operate on a trust system every time we bring a book to someone's table. This is what I think is so sinister about the whole thing. This man chose to debase that, to debase that commodity that is so essential in gathering information in an open institution. And I think he betrayed everything that we try to represent in making information available as freely and as uninhibitedly as possible. And I think that’s what really just enraged me, to think that this man took advantage of that kind of access."[1](511)
In 1997, Blumberg was convicted again of burglary of antiques. He was again arrested in July 2003 for burglary of a house in Keokuk, Iowa. He was subsequently convicted in early 2004. He was again arrested in June 2004 for burglary in Knoxville, Illinois. This violated his probation for the 2004 conviction in Keokuk, Iowa for which he was again arrested.

Collection[edit]

Some of the more precious objects Blumberg stole include a first edition copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; A Confession of Faith, the first published book in Connecticut in 1710; 25 boxes of rare materials outlining the early history of Oregon including the Webfoot Diary; and the Bishops' Bible, a 16th-century volume. Blumberg claimed he put together 100 incunabula in three years, including the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle bound in ivory calfskin. He also collected the Zamorano 80, a list of rare books established in 1945 by a group of prominent book collectors in a Los Angeles book club named after Don Augustin Zamorano, California's first printer.[1]
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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

11 Great Bookstore Names And How They Got Them

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevinsmokler/great-bookstore-names#.naqMO3pp1
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Friday, December 12, 2014

Amazon threatens US government over drone testing

E-commerce giant Amazon tells Federal Aviation Administration it will move drone testing abroad if it is banned from flying outdoors


Amazon wants to hire a Flight Operations Engineer, a Project Manager, a Site Leader and a Software Develoment Engineer in the UK Photo: AFP
12:17AM GMT 09 Dec 2014
Comments20 Comments
Amazon has warned America's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that it will move its drone research programme outside the US if the company is stopped from testing its unmanned aircraft.
The e-commerce giant is currently trying out its dones in the UK, and recently placed job adverts for pilots, as the company steps up plans to deliver products using aerial machines.
Seattle-based Amazon recently wrote a letter to the FAA stating that it would like to perform more tests in the US but would move these abroad if it is not allowed to do so outdoors.
"Without the ability to test outdoors in the United States soon, we will have no choice but to divert even more of our [drone] research and development resources abroad," Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice-president of global public policy, said in a letter to the FAA seen by The Wall Street Journal.
Amazon has urged the FAA on numerous occasions to let it step up its drone testing, without success.
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