David Maybury | Blog

How long has it been since I managed to throw some links up…? A while anyway. So here ye go folks – all that is with it on the interwebs.

Fiona Gartland reports this morning that:

ONLY 8 PER cent of Irish secondary school pupils learn two or more languages compared to a European average of more than 60 per cent, according to statistics released by the European Union. (Does Irish count??)

Think you could be the next Picasso? Monet? Jeff Kinney? Oliver Jeffers? Well you should go to Specsavers because yer blind! Okay, joking… but Sightsavers (the charity not the specs factory) are running the Junior Painter of the Year award.

Did anyone else know that Hanna Barbara master and well rounded, socially adjusted  legend John Kricfalusi was on the internets? Mr Ren and Stimpy!

Paddy Lynch features on the cover le cool. It’s well eh… cool!

Anyone else curious to see how vooks work out? (Anyone tried one yet?)

Eoin, of ideas and South Dublin fame, has lots of book newsie links of a more serious kind on his aptly named Eoin Purcell’s Blog.

And finally… the Gremlins 2/Where the Wild Things Are mashup (thanks Ned)

Folks. Just before ye all disappear for the weekend – I’ve been invited to visit a school for the very first time on Monday.

Any nuggets of wisdom? Do’s and don’ts? Topics to be avoided? Books to suggest? Cracking one-liners guaranteed to raise a giggle?

I’m not nervous. No. Not at all!

To celebrate the launch of Judi Curtin’s Alice to the Rescue, O’Brien press have launched a mini-site for everyone’s favourite duo – Alice and Megan.

The site got me thinking of other recent sites, like The Moorehawke Trilogy, Amy Green or the Demon’s Lexicon and the purpose of a mini-site.

In the wake of Paths to Publications I’ve started to think about the best ways to publicise a book on/offline.

All four of the writers mentioned have large web presences already – why not just incorporate the publicity into the author sites? (An aliceandmegan.com address with a redirect to Judi’s site for instance?) Surely readers would prefer to read the author’s blog/comments more than just the publicity for the new book?

There is plenty about all of this on the web already – Marlene Stringer for starters.

“Promotion is not only about the book, it is about the author. It is about branding.”

Or Thad McIlroy’s ‘what makes a great author wesbite?‘ Then there’s the Nick Cave’s of the world, producing iPhone app ebooks with music composed and preformed for the book by the Bad Seeds…

In coming years we may look back on Bunny Munro as the book with which digital publishing came of age. An e-book which harnesses the power of what digital books can do by combining colour, moving images, social networking and audio to make something that is, arguably, in some ways a new medium.

And there is always Bubble Cow’s outlook – that publisher’s blogs are just pants anyway.

Readers/writers don’t really want to read about the books publishers are selling. We want to read something informative/educational/amusing/controversial. We want to connect and feel part of the process.

The 12 year old plastic pre-decorated tree has been assembled, dragged into the living room and the lights flicked on. The mulled wine and mince pies are popping up at every book launch/reading and PR event. The carolers are out in force across Dublin and the charity begging letters are coming in thick and fast.

It must be getting near Christmas. In honour of the season – let’s have some virtual snow.

Darren, of darrenbyrne.com fame, has tagged me with a potential rant, I mean tag meme. So here goes:

It’s called Getting Your Goat and the rules are easy enough to follow:

1. List two things that irritate you for a reason (followed by the reason)
2. List two things that irritate you for no apparent reason whatsoever (see easy enough to do)
3. Give credit to the person who tagged you. (That’d be the afore mentioned evil blogging mastermind Darren)
4. Link your answers to the original blog, that’s here (Say hello to Keiron over at: http://www.skillett.com)
5. Tag four new people to participate (I’m going to skip this part, if you feel like ranting… rant away, that’s why you have a blog – right?)

It is to my own shame that I have let my Irish slip to nearly nothing. I don’t need other people to ashamed of me because of it. So, the first thing I’m going to rant on about are the few unhelpful/snobbish and often blatantly rude Irish language speakers out there. (Not every Irish speaker fits this description – in fact the majority are friendly, helpful and patient as I try to muddle through a chat and most people never refuse a conversation in English) That said – there are those who refuse to help or to speak English no matter how you are struggling.

While I’m on a roll here: take the recently closed Síopa Leabhar on Harcourt Street – they have always been as unhelpful as possible and have occasionally ignored me if I spoke in English at the till. How does that help encourage anyone to learn Irish or to buy books…?!?

That’s as far as I’ve gotten with my rant. I’ll come back to the rest of the tag later – but I thought I’d vent after a frustrating phone call with someone who refused to speak English!!

Are new book technology users just growing up?

A few weeks ago I put a computer illiterate five-year-old in front of a keyboard, mouse and monitor. She grasped how to use the operating system (Windows XP) the browser (Firefox) and the Internet (Google, Sesame Street, Nick Jr. and Dora The Explorer) in less than half an hour.

The experience got me thinking.

One of the largest reasons that e-books haven’t become a reality is due to our reluctance to let go of the book. Would gadget savvy young readers be more comfortable using an e-reader than the rest of us?

This isn’t as far fetched as it might sound. Disney, Fisher Price and Hasbro have all released mp3 players for children in the last year. The Fisher Price Kid-Tough FP3 Player is aimed at the youngest audience (3 – 6 year olds) and their online store sells audio books as well as music. While the Disney player is aimed at a 5 – 12 year olds but without the option to download music.

Is it such a leap to imagine a similar device with a large, colour screen* that reproduces picture books? [It could play the author reading the book at the same time through its mp3 player.]

If public libraries and schools supported ebooks then young readers would be encouraged to use them, and be more likely to using them as adults. Some, such as the New York Public Library has already begun to lend copies of ebooks – with certain copyright conditions.

Looking at the conclusions from the research in Bell State (dated 2004) Richard Bellaver concludes:

The children thoroughly enjoy playing and interacting with the eBooks. However, many of the children used the eBook for non-reading purposes because the content was not to their reading level. This was remedied by adding more content geared towards the younger reading level, but at the time of the interviews, that was not the case. The children did grasp the technology, and were able to learn the basic features of the eBook. Only one eBook of fifteen was damaged during the test.

Do you ever wish you see the future??

Sources:
> Richard Bellaver – Bell State University
> New York Public Library
> About.com
> e-book.com

*One of the most ideal distribution outlets for ebooks is the iPod Touch and the iPhone through Apple’s iTunes.
Click for a better look >>>

There isn’t a lot I can ever say about the Irish Writers Centre but their new series looks really interesting.

The ‘Hourglass Readings‘ will pit Dermot Bolger and a series of guests in front of an audience to read and discuss their work. The series begins in May with Jennifer Johnston and continues with Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, Joseph O’Connor, Claire Kilroy, Glenn Patterson and Anne Enright all confirmed.

Tickets will be available two weeks before each event and the details will be up on the IWC website soon.

Who didn’t know and love Chapters on Abbey Street? It was a powerhouse of knowledge and dust and more than the occasional spider. A children’s section at the very back of the shop that was removed from everything from the main store. A decent, archaic/chaotic secondhand basement. Cheap books and movies and music.

And on top of all this. It had an amazing building:

But the times, they are a-changin’. And Chapters has evolved alongside Dublin. It has taken up residence on Parnell Street and become an impressive book-seller while maintaining some of it’s previous charm. The building is new (and huge) and forms part of the regeneration project around Parnell/Moore/Jervis Street.

The prices are still kept considerably low in comparison to other stores and the massive floor space means that they are very likely to already have what you’re looking for. Much of the chaos is lost in the new shop – bright lighting and considerably more organised shelving makes the experience more shopper friendly. The children’s section is still at the back of the shop, more as a result of neglect than a thought-out feature though.

Chapters’ true saving grace is in it’s second floor. Nearly equaling the size of the ground floor, upstairs is dedicated to secondhand books and you can nearly always get what you’re looking for there at half the price.

Previous posts:
obsessive blogger | Books Upstairs, College Green
obsessive blogger | Hodges Figgis, Dawson St.
obsessive blogger | Reads of Nassau Street
obsessive blogger | Bookshop Map

About obsessive bloggers | Tuppenceworth.ie

The Irish Times and Amnesty International are running a series of short stories to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Published in the Weekend supplement on Saturdays the first story appeared three weeks ago by John Boyne, The Round Hall. It was followed by Colum McCann’s harrowing I just don’t like the screaming and last week saw Roddy Doyle’s Custer never had to go in front of a tribunal take the stand.

It’s a very interesting way of highlighting the anniversary and bringing the short story back into the Irish Times. Unfortunately the stories are behind the paywall on the Times’ site and Jazz Biscuit requires that any mention carries:

related links:

John Boyne | The Round Hall | Read
Colum McCann | I just don’t like the screaming | Read
Roddy Doyle| Custer never had to go in front of a tribunal | Read

Books Upstairs is celebrating it’s thirtieth year this year. Still housed on College Green in Dublin the shop has become synonymous with the humanities. Owned and run by Maurice Earls (of DRB fame) Books Upstairs holds a long running tradition of knowledgeable, loyal and long-serving (suffering?) staff.

The shop itself is a favourite to most of Dublin’s writers – poets, novelists and playwrights alike all grace the creaky boards regularly. Though not top of my list, Books Upstairs is often best for poetry and literary fiction – both Irish and international – and it remains true to it’s aim of selling good books at good prices.

If anything, I would like to see the shop invigorated with new, younger customers. Located directly opposite the front entrance to Trinity College I always expect it to be laden with undergraduates cradling copies of Milton – an expectation I have never witnessed…

Previous posts:
obsessive blogger | Hodges Figgis, Dawson St.
obsessive blogger | Reads of Nassau Street
obsessive blogger | Bookshop Map

About obsessive bloggers | Tuppenceworth.ie
Thanks Fergal for sending me a badge – one designed by himself, the other by Green Ink. Wearing both with pride.

There has been a small reshuffle in bookshops around Dublin lately. Chapters has moved from Abbey Street to their huge new premises on Parnell Street. Easons have finally, after plenty of rumours, closed their Eason-Hanna store on the corner of Dawson Street and just around the corner, Reads (bought by Easons in 2006) has opened a new, larger, dedicated bookstore.

Apart from the abysmal branding of the new Reads store – garishly red facade and chicken scrawl logo – the internal layout of the shop is horrible. With Waterstones and Hodges Figgis within a 2 minute walk, both with four stories of selling space, the new Reads needs to innovate if it is to go up against these two juggernauts. With most of my time spent in the children’s books section of any store I enjoyed the removed room that Easons-Hannas had reserved for young readers. In comparison, Reads has children’s books shelved alongside science fiction, fantasy and adult graphic novels.

Not everything about the new store is negative. Reads look to be trying maintain their edge on selling books at the best price that they can – with a large selection of bestselling and highly acclaimed books available at great prices. But at the cost of the aesthetic pleasure of feeling comfortable in the store, is it worth the saving?

Fergal over on Tuppenceworth is calling for obsessive blog posts – with the promise of a rival fluffy badge if the post is worthy. I have taken ‘obsessive blogger’ to be an open excuse to have a rant about bookstores…

So here’s my plan. I’m going to put together a map, listing all of the bookshops around Dublin initially, and posting a short review with pictures and generally anything that catches my eye.

First up on the block is the new Reads Bookstore on Nassau Street.

View Larger Map