As a book lover I can’t help but adore book paraphernalia.  Give me an outdated encyclopedia from the 1960s, a spiral wooden staircase adjacent to a massive bookshelf or the florescent lighting in a 6-story college library and I find myself pleased and right at home.  The beauty in these destinations resides in their coexistence with isolation and variety.  Public libraries have mastered this chaotic concept of mixing the adventure of a novel or excitement in a published study with the quiet cliché of shushing librarians and slow moving check out lines and they are finally receiving recognition from the business world.

While forgotten by some and embraced by others, public libraries were a key focus in New York City last week at The O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference.  Library Journal’s Barbara Genco argues in her keynote, Public Library Power Patrons Are Your Best Customer: Lessons from Patron Profiles, that publishers need libraries more than libraries need publishers.  Genco explains that book readers fill up public libraries and have a substantial effect on the market. These patrons who visit their local library once a week are all—yes, all, as in 100%—book buyers.  Any myth that those who check out books are interested in solely saving money are false, as half of these go on to purchase other books by authors introduced to them at the library. With buying power in the book business obviously holding a lot of weight, it is odd that this inherently free form of author/brand advertising has yet to receive credit or exploitation.

The book world has had endless conversations regarding the eBook throughout our current technological revolution and it has a place in this library conversation as well. Book publishers have been wary of incorporating the rights to their eBooks in public libraries, though there is this huge opportunity to contribute to this market of book buyers.  Genco’s study reveals that patrons read eBooks as well as those old fashion bound paper contraptions that one finds in a library and these vivacious readers want more eBooks at their disposal.  I’d argue that eBooks and public libraries hold a similar function: to make literature more accessible.  This occurs by making books free for temporary use or convenient and quick to own, but when a reader finds that striking author or simply good novel, they are more likely to purchase the physical book for their own collection.  So, if all publishers allowed their eBooks into the public realm, would there be a detrimental loss in the eBook market? Could eBooks become the convenient and free tool used to find literature worth physically buying? Possibly.

Nevertheless public libraries have influence in the book business, as they function a subtle and very effective salesman. Who knew?

J.A.J.

What’s with all these books rewriting the classics? And why do they do so well? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? It was already a NYTimes bestseller only eight days after its publication in April 2009…I can see how it could be fun to write, perhaps as an exercise for a writer seeking a little fuel for the imagination. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters followed soon after in the same year, but to somewhat less success.  I will be honest and reveal that no, I have not read these fantastical mash-ups. But one must wonder if our world is so devoid of originality as to compel folks to rely on reinventions of someone else’s story to make a buck. Sondheim certainly takes issue with it, though the situation was slightly different.

I only wonder this today as Shelf Awareness alerts me to the existence of some “Fresh Takes” on Louisa Mae Alcott’s classic Little Women. Much like the bizarre mini-series Lost in Austen, Emily March falls into the story of Little Women and becomes the “Middle March” (ha, George Eliot joke!) in Little Women and Me. She endeavors to find out why Laurie ends up with Amy instead of Jo (sorry, spoiler…) and decides she wants him for herself instead! ….Well, could be fun, I suppose…

I began research for some kind of “why” to explain how this kind of reimagining happens. Instead all I found were more and more examples, including sequels, prequels, new points of view (My procrastinating self went on Google and all I got were these lousy search results).  So, we could go with the “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them– there is no third” excuse (thank you, T.S. Eliot). Perhaps it is just some cyclic cultural phenomenon; we are stuck in a mire of retellings until a new classic emerges to then fall subject to its own various degradations.

Can some insight be gleaned from specific examples? Let me count the ways:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith

Uses 85% of the original text and intersperses Zombie scenes into the narrative. Given “A” ratings by some, called a defamation and “100% terrible” by others. A gimmicky attempt to mesh a popular modern fad (zombies) with a popular classic novel (P&P). Double the popularity=double the money?

The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall

A parody of Gone with the Wind, in which the original is retold from the perspective of a mixed-race plantation owner’s daughter, who is Scarlett O’Hara’s half-sister. The novel almost wasn’t published, due to accusations of copyright infringement. Social commentary?

Mary Riley, Valerie Martin

Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, retold from the perspective of the doctor’s maid, Mary Reilly, who falls in love with the dichotomous doctor. Julia Roberts starred in the movie. I read this in high school. No comment.

Mrs. DeWinter, Susan Hill; Pemberley, Emma Tennant

Sequels to Rebecca and Pride & Prejudice, respectively. Fan-fiction?

So, what “whys” have we? Money. Commentary. Self-indulgence. Well, the second reason seems noble and amusing enough. As for the rest…I do not really like to generalize. Some of these books, I’m sure, have their own merits. I can’t say I’ve never read one of the sort. Truth be told, I’m reading one right now (not telling). But whatever the reason for them, Kristen Bell always has a fresh perspective.

Though inconclusive, still as ever,

Your new Beau.