Hardcover, a Goodreads-like online social catalogue for books

Showing all posts tagged: novels

Hardcover, a Goodreads-like online social catalogue for books

11 October 2024

I’ve been trying out Hardcover, a social catalogue for book readers, founded by Adam Fortuna in April 2021. Like a few people I think, he was looking for an alternative to Goodreads (GR), which at the time was probably the big name in book social cataloguing. StoryGraph is one option, but Fortuna wanted to make something himself:

Hardcover was started in May 2021 after Goodreads announced they were discontinuing their API. At the time, I (hi 👋, I’m Adam!) was using that API to show what books I’d recently read on my blog. It would automatically update just by using GR. It worked great!

But when they announced the API was going away, that lit a fire under me to find (or make) a replacement. After some research and forming a team, we’ve been working to create an Amazon-free alternative ever since!

I’ve been a Goodreads member since June 2018, and while it’s a useful resource, I find it a bit clunky to use sometimes. If you’re a book reader, like I try to be sometimes, you can track me down at Hardcover if you wish, username the same as this website.

Independent bookshops, independent web, a tale of two cities

4 October 2024

Louis Menand, writing for The New Yorker. How familiar does this sound:

Between 1998 and 2020, more than half of the independent bookstores in the United States went out of business.

It was a similar story for personal websites and blogs, though definitely across different timeframes. Maybe from 2010 — later even — as social media began to dominate the web. Something else was dominating the book market though:

Even though books make up a relatively small fraction of Amazon’s sales, they constitute more than half of all book purchases in the United States. Amazon is responsible for more than half of all e-book sales, and it dominates self-publishing with its Kindle Direct platform.

After a time though, consumers began to yearn for the bookstore vibe again. A certain something was missing when buying literature online. Book buyers wanted a more personal experience, one that only brick and mortar bookshops could offer:

One is the obvious benefit of being able to fondle the product. Printed books have, inescapably, a tactile dimension. They want to be held. “Browsing” online is just not the same experience. For that, you need non-virtual books in a non-virtual space.

Then the movement started. Not IndieWeb though, rather IndieBookstores. The push was spearheaded by American author James Patterson:

When the pandemic started, Patterson launched a movement, #SaveIndieBookstores, to help such businesses survive. He pledged half a million dollars, and, with the support of the American Booksellers Association and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, the campaign ended up raising $1,239,595 from more than eighteen hundred donors.

Maybe that’s where I’ll leave this independent bookshops to independent web analogy/allegory, and suggest you read (or listen to the audio of) Menand’s article in full. Save for this sobering sentence:

According to Kristen McLean, an industry analyst, two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies, and less than four per cent sell more than twenty thousand.

It ain’t easy being a writer; making a living from writing. If independent bookshops can help authors realise a even few more sales of their work, then that can only be a good thing.

Juice: the new cli-fi novel by Australian author Tim Winton

2 October 2024

Juice is the latest novel by Australian author Tim Winton, which was published yesterday. From this synopsis, Juice sounds like it blends elements of the Max Mad saga, with Winton’s own environmental and climate change concerns:

Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work.

Problem is, they’re not alone.

So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.

I heard Winton speak about six-and-a-half years ago at the Sydney premiere of Breath, a film based on his 2009, Miles Franklin award winning, novel of the same name. The feature was directed by, and starred, Australian actor Simon Baker, also present that evening.

Winton was one of the screenwriters of the Breath film adaptation. That’s a smart move, get the author of the book being adapted, to co-write the screenplay. Where possible of course. Quite a number of Winton’s books have been made into movies, so it seems like there’s a good chance Juice will follow suit.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney: early thoughts, reviews from critics

25 September 2024

I’m guessing a few people had a sleepless night on Monday/Tuesday, after getting hold of the new Sally Rooney novel, Intermezzo, at one of the midnight release events earlier this week. Book reviewers, meanwhile, were probably lucky enough to score an advanced reader copy (ARC), at some point beforehand.

Anyway, no spoilers here, just some brief excerpts from the thoughts of a few book reviewers. The consensus though, so far, being Intermezzo is different from Rooney’s previous three novels, but that’s not a bad thing.

Constance Grady writing for The Guardian:

Intermezzo is an accomplished continuation of the writing that made Rooney a global phenomenon.

Alexandra Harris writing for Vox:

I’m happy to report that Intermezzo is exquisite. While the experimental and polarizing Beautiful World stayed largely out of the minds of its characters, with occasionally chilly results, Intermezzo is all rich inner monologue, as deeply felt as Normal People.

Dwight Garner writing for The New York Times:

“Intermezzo” wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s a mature, sophisticated weeper. It makes a lot of feelings begin to slide around in you.

The crew at Melbourne based independent Australian bookshop, Readings, sound like they stayed up all night reading Intermezzo. Justin Cantrell-Harvey, a bookseller, described the novel thusly:

A slow burn that lingers with grief and ignites a longing for something just out of reach.

Laura Miller writing for Slate:

A casual reader (or dismisser) of Rooney might think all her books are the same. But her new novel is a darker, sadder departure from the formula — and it’s better for it.

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books, literature, novels, Sally Rooney

Be first in line for Intermezzo by Sally Rooney in Sydney tonight

23 September 2024

Tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September 2024, is the day Sally Rooney fans have been waiting for. That’s when the Irish author’s fourth novel, Intermezzo, is published. And from what I (and everyone else) can gather, anticipation is at fever pitch.

The good news, for some Australian fans of Rooney, is they don’t have to wait until bookshops open, as usual, on Tuesday morning. They can go along to Gleebooks, in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill, late this evening, where Intermezzo will be on the shelves, on the stroke of midnight.

We don’t see too many midnight releases of novels, so I’m hoping that says something about how good book number four is…

Update: since queuing this post late on Friday, I’m advised the Gleebooks event is fully booked. Sorry, Tuesday morning, regular bookshop opening times, it is, I’m afraid.

Update II: For those who missed out on the midnight release this evening, Dymocks George Street⁠, in Sydney CBD, will be selling Intermezzo from 8AM tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September 2024. A free coffee is on offer all day for anyone buying the novel.

I’m happy to cover for you, if you want to tell work you’re in a meeting with a content producer, for several hours while you go somewhere and read the book (thanks Sara).

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books, literature, novels, Sally Rooney

Does a court ruling mean no more Internet Archive, Way Back Machine?

11 September 2024

The Internet Archive (IA) has been fighting a number of legal proceedings recently, after making digitised copies of numerous books and novels freely available, through their website. At no point did the IA seek permission from any of the authors involved, nor did they offer them any sort of payment, for copying and distributing their work.

Last week the United States Court of Appeals ruled against the IA, who were seeking to overturn a lawsuit brought against them by a number of publishing houses. The outcome may force the not-for-profit organisation to shut down.

The IA is perhaps best known for the Way Back Machine, a repository of past and present websites. According to the IA, they have archived over eight-hundred-and-sixty billion webpages, including copies of disassociated since 1998.

But websites and books are not all that the IA has taken copies of. TV shows, software applications, and images, are also among their vast collections of digital paraphernalia, much of which is also subject to copyright, as Bryan Lunduke writes:

First and foremost: Has the Internet Archive made, and distributed, digital copies of work you own? This ruling will certainly not hurt your case should you decide to take legal action against Archive.org. And — holy smokes — the amount of copyrighted material on Archive.org is absolutely massive.

Although past versions of my website archived by the IA may constitute them distributing digital copies of my work, I’ve never viewed that negatively. In fact, I’ve always found it useful to have access to earlier instances of disassociated, especially as I didn’t backup all of my old website designs. In my case though, I don’t see the IA’s duplicates of my work as any sort of copyright violation. Rather, I think of these copies as something of a “mirror” of disassociated.

Whether people look up my website via the URL, or the Way Back Machine, doesn’t particularly matter. The content is the same. It hasn’t been altered in any way I’m aware of. Further, as far as I know, the IA isn’t charging anyone to see the archived versions of disassociated, and therefore making money by way of my efforts.

But the Way Back Machine isn’t just there for me to go looking up old versions of my website. It’s also akin to a museum of the internet. A place where we can go and see websites that have long since gone offline, and study the history of the web. To this end, in my opinion, the Way Back Machine serves an important purpose.

The IA’s duplication of novels, and distribution through a “library”, is a different matter entirely. Although some well-known novels are now in the public domain, those published in recent decades usually are not. Copyright laws prevent novels from being duplicated and distributed by unauthorised means. And that’s the way it should be. Consider that many Australian authors earn less than thirty-thousand (Australian) dollars a year. Poets usually make well below ten-thousand dollars. Both these figures are far less than the minimum wage in Australia.

Depriving writers of income by freely copying and distributing their work is plain wrong. I’m really at a loss to understand why the IA pushed ahead with such a program. Equally, I find it hard to believe they thought they were doing the right thing. But what’s truly unfortunate is how the judicial findings against the IA could bring about their end, and that of the Way Back Machine.

Wanting to read more novels, versus trying to do everything else

21 August 2024

About six years ago I decided I wasn’t reading enough novels. Books sat on the side table untouched, gathering dust, and inducing a pang of guilt whenever I took notice of them. I wondered what I could do to get more into reading. One thing I am good at is meeting deadlines, and doing things I put on my to-do lists. If I could regard the period of a library book loan — being three weeks at my local library — as a deadline, maybe I could increase my reading rate that way?

So I took out a library membership, and began to borrow books. I had three weeks to finish a novel. Books could no longer sit on the side table indefinitely. They had to be back at the library after twenty-one days, or else I risked paying a late-return fee. But then I noticed the library offered a one-week loan for recently acquired titles. This so as many people as possible could read new books. And for a while, this is what I did. Read books in a week or less.

Sometimes it was a strain. But if I didn’t finish the book before it was due back, no problem: I’d make a note of the page/chapter I was up to on my online task list. I could then re-borrow the book later, and pick up where I left off. It was a plan, and it was working. I’d gone from reading no books, to sometimes, one a week. At that point I wasn’t really discriminating. I’d go over to the one-week loan shelf, and select any title I felt I could read in seven days.

But I knew it was too good to last. The first thing to come along and burst the read-one-book-a-week bubble, was the pandemic. The library shut its doors when the lockdowns commenced. Automatic three week loan extensions were granted indefinitely to anyone who’d borrowed a book prior. I think I ended up holding my then latest loan for about three-months, before pandemic restrictions eased sufficiently, so I could return it. But the pandemic wasn’t a problem of itself.

I could still borrow books through any number of library-book apps. By this stage, I’d been away from disassociated for three years (so much for the envisaged break of a few months…), and was looking at a return. But I wanted to try experimenting with the blogging format on social media. Instagram (IG) specifically. Blogging on IG was a terrible idea, and I knew it. The inability to embed links into posts being the primary drawback.

Since I’d been reading a lot, I started (a long since gone) IG page, dedicated to Australian novels. In the time the page was online, it garnered several hundred followers, and a surprisingly high degree of engagement. A little too high maybe. People sure wanted to talk about local books. Before long, I was spending most my time conversing with a regular group of followers about books, and everything else, leaving little time to read. A book was now taking several weeks, longer, to read.

I was beginning to run out of material I could write about. And not being able embed links into posts (link in bio, anyone?) was really beginning to annoy me. By this time, it was the fourth quarter of 2021. I quietly resumed writing at a temporary domain, while creating a new WordPress theme for disassociated. By late summer of 2022, I’d closed the IG page, and told followers where they could find me. But blogging, while working, while reading, does not a good blend make.

My book reading rate has slowed right down. The desire to write is in constant conflict with the desire to read, and it looks like the blog is winning. Yet, I see plenty of prolific book bloggers out there. People reading a lot, and writing a lot about that. Good for them is all I can really say. The battle for balance is without end, even if I get a chapter or two in each day. But I’m not the only one who struggles to read, as I discovered from this post at 82MHz.

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books, novels, reading, writing

The Ledge, a new thriller/whodunit by Christian White

8 August 2024

The Ledge is the fourth novel by Victoria based Australian writer, and master of twists that will leave you breathless and dumbfounded: Christian White.

When human remains are discovered in a forest, police are baffled, the locals are shocked and one group of old friends starts to panic. Their long-held secret is about to be uncovered.

It all began in 1999 when sixteen-year-old Aaron ran away from home, drawing his friends into an unforeseeable chain of events that no one escaped from unscathed.

White’s novels are chock full of the things readers of thrillers and suspense love: red herrings, blind alleys, smoke and mirrors, lies, deception, characters with multiple aliases, the list goes on. So far I’ve read The Nowhere Child, White’s 2019 debut, and The Wife and the Widow, which possibly has of one the most mind-blowing twists in the genre.

Wild Place, meanwhile, published in 2021, remains on my TBR list, where it will be joined by The Ledge, when it is published on Tuesday, 24 September 2024.

The Echoes, a new novel by Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock

5 August 2024

Cover image of The Echoes, a new novel by Evie Wyld.

London based Anglo-Australian author Evie Wyld’s 2021 novel, The Bass Rock, which won the Stellar Prize literary award in the same year, was a riveting read. Her new book, The Echoes, looks like it will follow suit, given it incorporates elements of The Bass Rock, including settings across several locations and time, and a dollop of the supernatural thrown in for good measure:

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, he watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him.

In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden. It finds expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, the details of their lives she never knew and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.

Both a celebration and an autopsy of a relationship, spanning multiple generations and set between rural Australia and London, The Echoes is a novel about love and grief, stories and who has the right to tell them. It asks what of our past we can shrug off and what is fixed forever, echoing down through the years.

That time Douglas Adams unofficially signed copies of his books in Sydney, Australia

22 July 2024

If you enjoyed the novels of late British author Douglas Adams, you may enjoy this in-depth article about his later life, by Jimmy Maher.

Adams, it seems, did not restrict his particular brand of humour to the written word. A regular customer at a coffee shop I used to go to, told me about an encounter (of a sort) with Adams, in Sydney, Australia, sometime in the late 1990’s. My friend at the coffee shop once worked at a large bookshop in Sydney’s CBD.

He told of the day that Adams — who was presumably in Australia promoting his latest work — arrived at the shop unannounced, and made his way to the sci-fi section. Apparently, his most recent book, plus a selection of others, were on display in a promotional cardboard gondola, similar to what you see on this webpage.

Adams, without saying a word to anyone, pulled a pen from his pocket, and proceeded to sign random copies of his books. Before turning to leave, he scrawled his name across the top of the gondola, and walked out of the shop, again, without saying a word to anyone.

My friend told me how a huddle of bewildered bookshop staff quickly gathered at the gondola, trying to make sense of what had just happened. “Was that him?” was a phrase uttered numerous times apparently. Signed copies of Adams’ novels must have been a windfall for those who bought them…

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