I wrote yesterday about my love of books, bookstores, and the tactile experience of reading. The theme was concern with what electronic media is doing to books and bookstores, but there’re two sides to every story. This isn’t a fairytale where electronic publishing is the villain, locking books away in the tower. This is war, an epic battle traditional print media and new and upcoming authors. Unfortunately, the battle between authors and publishing big-wigs is laying to waste books, bookstores, and publishing houses at every turn — HarperStudios, a HarperCollins Imprint, is closing its doors this summer. The saddest part is, if traditional publishers could just let go their outdated superiority and lend a helping hand to new authors, if they could open themselves up to authorial success, rather than rejecting them out of turn, the casualties could be reduced.
Honestly, I don’t object entirely to electronic media. I only feel a sadness at the perceived loss of something I love, print books. The fact of the matter is, e-publishing is making it easier for new voices in the industry to bring their work to wider audiences, without running the mind-boggling, hair pulling, gauntlet of disappointment that comes with trying to navigate traditional print publishers who, set in their ways, often reject new voices out of hand. Does this mean I want to lose books? Absolutely not, but e-publishing is making short stories and poetry collections more accessible to wider audiences at reasonable prices, something I can absolutely get behind. It’s allowing new authors to take control of their careers, to sell and promote their own work, and to rise (or fall) by their own efforts. Who wouldn’t support that?
My friend, Jennifer Hudock of The Inner Bean, published a great article on traditional print media and e-publishing that you have to read. As someone who’s out there, trying to sell her work (which is excellent by the way), she’s found her way to e-publishing for e-readers through both Amazon and Smashwords. So, hop over take a peek at her perspective and while you’re there, check out her work. And when you’re done, see if you don’t agree that sometimes we have to put aside our fear of losing something we love, like I’m trying to do with print books, and embrace something new. Sometimes, e-publishing is, in fact, a good thing!
As I prepare to write my Master’s Thesis, I’ve begun to question literature in a new way. I have my BA in English, and I read a heck of a lot to get there, but this is a whole new experience for me. I’ve started to understand literature in the sense and scope of time, rather than just the intellectual understanding that classics are such because they’re old. This, of course, has me thinking about the value of classical literature to modern audiences. More specifically, do classical tragedies, allegories, parodies and the like have any substantial meaning to modern audiences?
In other words, do they translate? And, if they do, then how? If not, then how will our literature affect or translate to future generations?
Personally, I think something is lost, there’s no way we can truly put ourselves in the shoes of those who first saw the work. We can understand their societies from am intellectual distance, but there’s no way we can experience them. In that vein, though, modern readers and scholars are able to extract from classical works their larger meanings and themes and apply them to modern society in creative ways. We understand their themes and purposes, but we do so in a way that’s unique and different from audiences contemporaneous with the work. We get something completely different form it, on a personal and social level, than did the first audiences. Yet, in this way, we are able to understand literature in a way that it’s first audiences could not, we can understand the work’s affect on the ages, something contemporary audiences could never have foreseen or understood.
Through classics, modern readers are able to touch a time in history they couldn’t otherwise know. The lengths of our imaginations are extended to the written word and we are able to vicariously live through the works of Euripides or Jane Austen. Classical literature is a sort of time machine through which we are able to live the lives of Helen of Troy, Beowulf, and Don Quixote. There’s a magic in that that I hope will extend from our modern authors to future generations in a meaningful way.
So let me ask you, what do you think of classical literature? Does it have value to modern audiences?
I took a trip to California for my spring break and had a really nice time, but I didn’t manage to get a thing read. I have reading for my grad classes, and books for the two challenges I joined, but I didn’t think I could cart them to California without a hassle, let alone have time to actually read them. What I did manage to get, though, were three new books! One in California and two by mail while I was away, the best part being that I got them all for free! As a book junkie, any book I can get my paws on for free is fine by me.
My sister gave me her copy of The Spark by Chris Downie. The author is also the founder of SparkPeople, a website that’s helped millions of people around the world meet their weight loss goals in a healthy way. I love SparkPeople, though I’ve fallen off the wagon more times than I can count. Every time I do, I cancel my account with SparkPeople, and every time I decide to give it another try, I resubscribe. I’m hoping that being able to read the book will help to motivate me to change my life.
When I got home, yesterday, there was a package from the UK in the mail. I knew it was a book the second my husband pulled the envelope out of the mailbox, but I had no idea what it was. The book is Random by Craig Robertson and came by way of Royal Mail from Simon & Schuster UK, enclosed with a note that said, simply, “with compliments.” I must tell you, I am so thrilled to get this book because it’s the first ARC I’ve ever received. I got it when I signed up for the Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge at Book Chick City and plan to push it to the top of my casual reading list.
The third book came today. It’s called Plain Paradise by Beth Wiseman, about a woman who gives her child up to an Amish couple and then wants to reconnect with her after 17 years. I ordered the book from BookSneeze, but realized today that the book is Christian Romance, which isn’t something I normally read. I’m going to read it, and do the review, which is the terms by which I came by the book in the first place, but I’m also going to watch BookSneeze for anything that’s not strictly Christian, as I don’t like to delve into religion. If it turns out BookSneeze is a religious program, I’ll likely cancel, even though they give out free books.
So, there you have it. I also signed up for the Library Thing Early Reviewers program and have signed up to receive some ARCs. Crossing my fingers I’m lucky enough to win one. There are a few on the list that I’ve requested that I really would love to have. Until then, I have Broken to keep me company.
