Is This VHS vs. Betamax All Over Again?

The Independent: “Online bookseller Amazon has plans to unveil a wireless electronic book reader, a kind of literary iPod, which already has UK publishers scrambling to digitise their entire range of titles. The device, which sources claim could be launched as early as next month, would follow the recent US launch of the Sony eBook Reader, a machine the size of a hardback that stores digital copies of up to 80 books and lasts 7,500 pages on a single charge.”

So when’s JVC going to jump into the fray?

An Author’s Hubris Can Be Yours for the Low, Low Price of $1 Million!

Hari Kunzru: “Literary critics will never grow up. Luckily for me, these days, people seem to be more interested in talking about my work than about money.”

Gee, that’s odd. Adam Mars-Jones, Daniel Mendelsohn, David Kipen — to name just three critics — didn’t mention the advance at all in their reviews, although all expressed some quibbles about The Impressionist. Nithya Khrishnaswamy promised not to talk about the advance and only about the work. Could it be that the work in question isn’t nearly as spectacular as Kunzru believes it to be? Maybe it’s the author here suffering from a Peter Pan complex.

Roundup

An Open Note to Tipsters

I didn’t get this nonsense in my email (although this doesn’t necessarily mean that I didn’t get it, if you know what I mean). Out of general principle, I refuse to publicize this piece of news. I am not your puppet. I am not your tool. I am not your dancing little monkey. What Orthofer said.

If you send me a tip, I’ll be damned if I’m going to subscribe to your unilateral way of conducting journalism. (Can I keep confidential information? You bet. But that isn’t necessarily going to stop me from confirming something with another source.) I’ll report (or not) in the manner that I find appropriate. And if that means taking two hours or two months or two years to investigate or think about something (what, you didn’t actually think that I had stopped investigating subjects broached on these pages from years ago, did you?), so be it. If this isn’t the way that the New York Times does business, then it certainly isn’t the way that I conduct business.

This is what I suggest: a united stand. If you received the information, don’t report it. Let them know that bullshit embargoes are not the way to build a positive and lasting relationship.