‘The Last Bookaneer,’ by Matthew Pearl; New York Times Sunday Book Review, 5/29/15

John Vernon, New York Times Sunday Book Review; ‘The Last Bookaneer,’ by Matthew Pearl:

"The novelistic conceit of “The Last Bookaneer” is based on the historical fact that until the passage of the International Copyright Act of 1891, the pirating of books, especially books by British authors, was common in America. Set at the time of the act’s passage, Pearl’s novel tells a one-last-heist story of two rival pirates, Penrose Davenport and a mysterious malefactor called Belial, who separately leave for Samoa, where Robert Louis Stevenson is finishing what promises to be his final novel. (Stevenson and his family did indeed spend his last years in Samoa.) Each bookaneer hopes to steal Stevenson’s manuscript and sell it to a New York publisher before the law goes into effect on July 1, which means they’re engaged in a race against time...

In his asides, Pearl can be smart and inventive. He clearly knows the quirky history of books, especially those by the great 19th-century writers. The voice of his narrator, a bookseller by trade, is authentic and convincing, with just the right dash of stuffiness and complaint. In fact, the best thing about “The Last Bookaneer” may be the opportunity it provides for its author to comment on writers, bibliophiles and publishers, with sly allusions to today’s changing and threatened book culture. The closure of a bookshop, Fergins remarks, is a “failure of mankind — a sign . . . that bookshops will one day disappear altogether and be replaced by mail order.”"

[Book Review of ‘Culture Crash,’ by Scott Timberg], New York Times, 3/17/15

[Book Review of ‘Culture Crash,’ by Scott Timberg] Ben Yagoda, New York Times:

CULTURE CRASH

The Killing of the Creative Class

By Scott Timberg 310 pp. Yale University Press. $26

"In 1999, recordings generated $14.6 billion in revenue to the music business; by 2012, the figure was down to $5.35 billion. Of course, owing to the change in the dominant distribution model from physical CDs to (first) downloading MP3 files and (now) streaming on services like Pandora and Spotify, performing artists get a thinner slice of the smaller pie. Timberg puts a human face on the statistics with portraits, scattered throughout the book, of poets, artists, moviemakers and reporters who had been doing good work and making not great but decent livings, when all of a sudden the rug was pulled out from under them..."

As Timberg himself acknowledges elsewhere, artistic expression is essential to human existence. Its forms are rapidly changing. Its economics are, too, and at this moment artists are finding it harder and harder to make a living from their work. But it will persevere. Who knows? Maybe the commenters were right, and an old-fashioned symphony orchestra isn’t sustainable any­more. Music will survive — including, for the time being, in Louisville, where, after the bankruptcy filing, the orchestra cut back on its schedule and staffing, and suffered a musicians’ strike as a consequence, but posted a $20,000 surplus last August."

When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won, New York Times, 1/7/09

Book Review of "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age" by Steve Knopper, Via New York Times: When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won:

"Mr. Knopper, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, provides a wide-angled, morally complicated view of the current state of the music business. He doesn’t let those rippers and burners among us — that is, those who download digital songs without paying for them, and you know who you are — entirely off the hook. But he suggests that with even a little foresight, record companies could have adapted to the Internet’s brutish and quizzical new realities and thrived...

It’s too bad his interesting arguments and observations are wedged into such an uningratiating book. The prose in “Appetite for Self-Destruction” is undercooked, packed with clichés (the stakes are always high, people constantly take the fall, one-two punches are thrown) and awkward descriptions...

What’s more, Mr. Knopper apparently did not get access to many of the major players in this tale, including Mr. Jobs. His account rehashes material covered in earlier, better books, including “Hit Men” by Fredric Dannen and “The Perfect Thing” by Steven Levy."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/books/07garn.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=when%20labels%20fough%20digital&st=cse