The Book Depository blog

I like the title of this book, Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind, almost as much as any of the ones chosen for the British Diagram Prize! And great to see it getting reviewed -- by none other than Russian chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov, don't you know! -- in the New York Review of Books:

In 1985, in Hamburg, I played against thirty-two different chess computers at the same time in what is known as a simultaneous exhibition. I walked from one machine to the next, making my moves over a period of more than five hours. The four leading chess computer manufacturers had sent their top models, including eight named after me from the electronics firm Saitek.

It illustrates the state of computer chess at the time that it didn't come as much of a surprise when I achieved a perfect 32-0 score, winning every game, although there was an uncomfortable moment. At one point I realized that I was drifting into trouble in a game against one of the "Kasparov" brand models. If this machine scored a win or even a draw, people would be quick to say that I had thrown the game to get PR for the company, so I had to intensify my efforts. Eventually I found a way to trick the machine with a sacrifice it should have refused. From the human perspective, or at least from my perspective, those were the good old days of man vs. machine chess.

Eleven years later I narrowly defeated the supercomputer Deep Blue in a match. Then, in 1997, IBM redoubled its efforts -- and doubled Deep Blue's processing power -- and I lost the rematch in an event that made headlines around the world. The result was met with astonishment and grief by those who took it as a symbol of mankind's submission before the almighty computer. ("The Brain's Last Stand" read the Newsweek headline.) Others shrugged their shoulders, surprised that humans could still compete at all against the enormous calculating power that, by 1997, sat on just about every desk in the first world (more...)

Each Monday, here on Editor's Corner, I'm going to take a look at some of the news that has been dominating the book industry in the preceding week.

The news, as usual, is mostly gathered thanks to the excellent resources that are the Publishers Weekly website and the GalleyCat blog.

• Google settlement news: "Before he began his remarks, Authors Guild attorney Michael Boni, being from Philadelphia, said he felt a little like local hero Rocky "being beaten about the head and face for 15 rounds." But like Rocky, he added, he hoped to come back. It was indeed a long day for the plaintiffs as they sat through an undercard of some 21 objectors who assailed the deal over the course of the daylong hearing. The main event, however, was the squaring off of two heavyweights: the parties, including Google, the Authors Guild, and the AAP, vs. the U.S. Department of Justice, which argued forcefully for the deal to be rejected. In an hourlong session before Judge Denny Chin, the two sides traded blows as the Google settlement, after more than 14 months of wrangling, finally got its day in court..."
• Despite the combination of a fragile economy and a roiling publishing industry, "people continue to launch presses, although some are doing so by creating innovative business models to minimize their financial risk. Five Stones Press, a press headquartered in Atlanta, jumpstarted operations this past fall by adopting a business model that's already been used in the music and movie industries to finance projects: mystery writer David Fulmer and two business-savvy partners, communications professional Tara Coyt and finance expert Anna Foote, sold 100 shares to 32 of the author's friends and fans in the press's debut publication, The Fall, by Fulmer. The Fall is scheduled for release March 15, 2010..."
• In its latest effort to creatively combine print and digital editions in one project, "First Second, the graphic novel imprint of Macmillan Publishing, is launching Zahra's Paradise, an unusual project that combines a real-time nonfiction narrative in a fictional setting. Zahra's Paradise is a graphic novel about the current political and social situation in Iran, written by Amir, a human rights activist, and illustrated by Khalil, an artist who works in a variety of media. It will be serialized as a Web comic at www.zahrasparadise.com beginning February 19 and will be published as a book collection by First Second in 2011..."
• A team of investors have decided to support a new publishing venture: "the multimedia eBook company Vook just landed $2.5 million in seed funding. According to the release, investors include investor Ron Conway, Huffington Post chairman Kenneth Lerer, Maples Investments, Baseline Ventures and Founder Collective..."
• Herbert Simon "the owner of the Indiana Pacers and "chairman emeritus" of the Simon Property Group" has purchased Kirkus Reviews--rescuing the beloved book review...

The always-informative Moby Lives blog has an excellent article on the (still) ongoing Google Book Search farrago:

As Michael Cader aptly put it in his Publisher's Lunch newsletter yesterday, "in the publishing world, this is the closet thing we will have to the Olympics," coming after "years of training, preparation, and negotiation": the final installment in the Google Books Settlement case. According to a CNet News report by Greg Sandoval, the hearing cranked up again yesterday with Judge Denny Chin declaring, "I'm going to say right off, I'm not going to rule today. I'm going to listen to opinions carefully and I'm going to ask a few questions."

He spent the afternoon listening to testimony from some of the 30 or so parties scheduled to testify, including Microsoft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amazon, the National Federation of the Blind, and the Center for Democracy and Technology. Cader's report added: "the only flag flying in the courtroom is America's, but the teams came from all over -- France, Germany, Japan and Connecticut; the National Federation for the Blind, who brought such a large contingent that Judge Chin quipped "many of whom are here this morning apparently" (to which their president replied, "It's very important to us your honor."); the corporate nation states of Sony, Amazon, Microsoft, AT&T; and more." And an Associated Press wire story says there was even "a lawyer for folk singer Arlo Guthrie and Pay it Forward writer Catherine Ryan Hyde," who "claimed the [Google] library would exploit his clients" and that the settlement offers "woefully inadequate compensation" for "unknown and undisclosed uses." (More...)

Now then! I like the sound of this: "Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Elif Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence -- including her own."

That blurb (above) was from the publisher, this quote below, which only whets my appetite further, is from the New York Times:

Early in Elif Batuman's funny and melancholy first book, The Possessed, she describes her disillusionment, as a would-be novelist, with "the transcendentalist New England culture of 'creative writing.'" The problem with creative writing programs, she says, is their obsession with craft.

"What did craft ever try to say about the world, the human condition, or the search for meaning?" Ms. Batuman asks. "All it had were its negative dictates: 'Show, don't tell'; 'Murder your darlings'; 'Omit needless words.' As if writing were a matter of overcoming bad habits -- of omitting needless words."

Ms. Batuman's search for something more from literature than "brisk verbs and vivid nouns" led her, swooning but alert, into the arms of the great Russian writers: Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Babel.

And it led her to write this odd and oddly profound little book, one that's ostensibly about her favorite Russians but is actually about a million other things: grad school, literary theory, translation, biography, love affairs, the making of "King Kong," working for the Let's Go travel guidebook series, songs by the Smiths, even how to choose a nice watermelon in Uzbekistan. Crucially and fundamentally, it is also an examination of this question: How do we bring our lives closer to our favorite books? (More...)

Each Monday, here on Editor's Corner, I'm going to take a look at some of the news that has been dominating the book industry in the preceding week.

The news, as usual, is mostly gathered thanks to the excellent resources that are the Publishers Weekly website and the GalleyCat blog.

• Google settlement news: "in what some media outlets have termed a 'strong defense', Google responded to its recent critics, including the Department of Justice, in a court filing Thursday that urged the court to approve the settlement, claiming the deal's objectors 'have failed to articulate a meaningful principle' on which the Court could reject the agreement..."
• Simon & Schuster "has debuted a new Web site specifically for its partners -- authors, distributors, agents, booksellers, marketing clients and other vendors -- as part of a company-wide online initiative that began in January 2009 with the relaunch of its main site. The new b-to-b site can be found at www.simonandschuster.biz"
• Bookstore sales "finished 2009 on a weak, and disappointing, note falling 0.6% in December, to $2.03 billion, according to preliminary estimates released this morning by the U.S. Census Bureau. In contrast, the entire retail market had easily its best month of 2009 in December, with sales up 5.7%. For the full year, bookstore sales fell 0.8%, to $16.60 billion; compared to 2007, when bookstore sales were just under $17 billion, sales in 2009 were off 2.2%. Sales for the entire retail market were down 6.2% in 2008..."
• Google "has deleted a number of popular music blogs -- erasing years worth of writing and music criticism -- over copyright violations. The event has been dubbed Musicblogocide. (More...)
• Deadline Hollywood reports that the last book of the bestselling Twilight saga will be adapted into two films: "Filming on the back-to-back movies would begin in mid-October, and Summit Entertainment is looking at 'high end' directors. Breaking Dawn is the longest in Stephenie Meyer's 4-book series lengthwise and it's the most graphic -- presenting birth, attempted murder, death, and of course vampire bites."