Book sales in the United States broke records

The weekly column of “Donkey Ears” opens with a clarification: The good literature of today, contrary to popular belief, is not in television or cinema, but, well, in the good literature of today. It is true that the screen arts flourish with excellent, surprising and groundbreaking writing. But why praise them at the expense of literature? She, too, is still alive and kicking, and there is no reason to eulogize her prematurely. And those who do not have the patience to open a book and become acquainted with successful writers of today – will be kind enough to point the finger of blame only at themselves. Thanks in advance, management.

The Israeli book market suffered from the corona plague just like the rest of the cultural spheres. True, writers are accustomed to isolating themselves voluntarily, but in the absence of continuously functioning stores – and when the public is not yet fully accustomed to buying online – publishers have had to postpone books, reduce activity and send employees to the Knesset. .

According to NPD BookScan, which reports statistical trends in the industry every year, book sales in the United States have risen by about eight percent in the past year. A particularly impressive increase was recorded in e-book and audiobook sales, which broke records this year. The New York Times even quoted Madeline Macintosh, CEO of Penguin Random House in the United States, last week as saying that “at the end of the year, when we look at the overall data, it seems to have been the second best in the industry in a long time.”

By the way, like Beth Harmon, the protagonist of the book and the series, Martin also showed talent for the game of kings at an early age. In high school he served as the founder and president of the Chess Club – and even met two mates there. “But this is a story for another time,” he wrote on his blog. In previous interviews he even said that for a short time he was debating between a professional chess career and full-time writing, and we all know what he chose in the end. Leave history. And a lot of ratings. And merchandise is not lacking either.

The Guardian likes to invite writers to write lists. Sometimes they are more predictable and sometimes less so. This time they turned to Louise Kendlish, a best-selling thriller company (“Our House” was translated into Hebrew), who chose to make an unconventional rating, presenting the ten most dislikable literary figures of all time. So who screwed up the list? One of the familiar names is that of Uriah Hipp, the hypocritical activist and deceiver from “David Copperfield” (identified with the phrase “I am so humble, I am!”). “One of the few characters whose name already brings to mind some type. We’ve all met some ‘Oriya Hip’ – but hopefully, we’ve identified him or her as a psychopath,” Kendlish writes of him. Another notable name is that of Edward Casobon, the grumbling, oppressive and jealous husband from George Elliott’s Middlemartz novel. According to Kandlish, “long before I became acquainted with the idea of ​​feminist reading, I recognized it as a threat to female ambition.”

Also on the list of the most infamous were “The Other Kids” from Roald Dahl’s “Charlie in the Chocolate Kingdom”, Kenneth Widmerpool from Anthony Powell’s “Dance to the Time of Music”, Clara Stackhouse from Patricia Heismem’s The Blunderer, Lady Brenda Last from A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Wu, Mildred Rogers from the masterpiece “In Human Cables” written by Somerset Mohams – and others (full list available here). And who would you put on your list of despicable characters? Maybe you’m Voldemort? Maybe the Moby Dick, meaning the whale? Or rather Ahab? And what about one of the “fly owner” thugs? Feel free to suggest additional despicable characters in the comments.

The beauty of the jar does not indicate its contents, and in a more contemporary version of the phrase: the magnets on the refrigerator do not reveal to us whether the cottage lurking inside has already expired. Still, one does not have to be a superficial person to love beautiful covers and encourage more aesthetic, creative and meticulous design on the shelf. The image printed on the book constitutes a certain interpretation of its content, and the disregard for the design aspect is often interpreted as a disregard for the text itself. Besides, if you can take the opportunity to delight the readers in another aspect, and involve some more sense – why not? After all, these books take up a certain amount of space at home. In recent months, a variety of lists have been published in the style of “the beautiful covers of the year”. Looking at them is happy, intriguing and for moments even – not really pleasant to admit – arouses envy. Here are some selections:

You may not have felt it, but on the first day of this year, one thing fell through: Copyright on the full writings of George Orwell expired. Of course, book publishers around the world have prepared well for this moment – and in the coming months we may find a tremendous flood of a variety of editions of his letters, in various designs and formats. For example, Oxford University Press is expected to produce a new series of his writings, according to the subject line (say, “Dystopia”), and there are also those who are already talking about “1984” or “Animal Farm”-inspired films. By the way, this is true of the UK – and not of the whole world. By law, for example, spending in the United States will have to wait until at least 2030, because there the limit is fixed for 95 years after the first publication. If you do not really understand why and why – you are not alone. Not all of us have a law degree, and sometimes we just have to believe the experts.

Either way, this is a great opportunity to recall Orwell’s writings (Eric Arthur Blair, as he was called in the neighborhood), and even to mention that even before he became famous as a writer, he was a journalist. If you feel like getting your hands on his book, and have the patience to read in English, you may be interested in the interesting file Orwell on Truth, published by Penguin in 2017. The book brings together various excerpts from Orwell, which deal with a topic very relevant today: A variety of manipulations can be applied to it. Through paragraphs and quotes from stories, novels, articles, letters and diary entries by Orwell – the book gives us tools to distinguish between propaganda and the press and lies and innocent mistakes, and sheds light on phenomena such as censorship, misleading the public and Pike News (without Orwell using this term even once ).

For example, in one place Orwell writes about the Spanish Civil War (in my translation): “I have few honest findings about the atrocities committed in the Spanish Civil War. I know some of them were carried out by the Republicans and many more of them (and still count them) by the fascists. But what What impressed me then, and impresses me today, is the fact that people believe or do not believe in the existence of these atrocities solely on the basis of the existing platform of their political preferences.Everyone believes in the atrocities committed by the enemy, The evidence. “

Orwell continues: “Since 1918, not a single year has passed without atrocities, and yet there has been hardly a single case in which both the left and the right have believed the same stories at the same time. And if that is not strange enough, at any moment the situation can suddenly be reversed, and a story “The horror that was proven to be fundamental last night can instantly become a ridiculous lie, just because the political landscape has changed.”