4 May 2009
Rio de Janeiro viewed from Niterói. By Lucy (http://www.flickr.com/photos/flowsinc/).
I’m in São Paulo right now, preparing to a seminar in Rio de Janeiro next week about Brazilian Publishing History. If you want to know a little bit more, there is some information in English, but everything else is in Portuguese. I was taking a look at the programme and it’s really amazing to see how many people, from so different disciplines are researching about books and reading habits in Brazil. Most importantly, there is people not only from Rio and São Paulo, but also from almost everywhere in Brazil. I’m also looking forward to attending the lectures from the French that will happen during the Seminar and also in the Pre-Seminar. This is a good job from the organization team, lead by Aníbal Bragança (who I’m looking forward to meeting in person next week). Besides the event itselft, it will be great to visit Rio again, my carioca friends, the Brazilian National Library, the Academia Brasileira de Letras and also to cross the Guanabara bay to go to Niteroi!
Estou em São Paulo me preparando para o Lihed que acontece na semana que vem no Rio. Ontem estava olhando a programação e fiquei abismada com a quantidade de gente pesquisando livros e leitura no Brasil. O Aníbal Bragança e sua equipe só podem estar de parabéns por conseguir reunir tanta gente. Também estou animada para ver as palestras dos franceses tanto durante o Pré-Seminário e o Seminário em si. Enfim, vai ser muito bacana. Além de tudo, vou matar um pouco as saudades do Rio, dos amigos cariocas, visitar a Biblioteca Nacional, a Academia de Letras e atravessar a baía da Guanabara.
22 March 2009
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to see Richard Avedon’s exhibition at foam. (By the way, the documentary in the room upstairs is worthwhile to watch although it’s kind of long…). It’s was a very sunny and warm day, so I also walked a lot through the city without much destiny. So, just by chance I found a nice paper shop called Cortina Papier. Some nice paper for bookbinding and also all sort of notebooks. I also run into a lovely ‘buttons shop‘. Buttons have nothing to do with books, but I’m crazy about them…
15 March 2009
I’m getting very addicted in using readability to read almost everything online, for you to have an idea:
“Readability is a simple tool that makes reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter aroung what you’re reading.”
It’s really straightfoward. It’s a pitty that I don’t remember where I read about it for the first time… Anyway, apparently people are getting tired of the visual pollution on the web. I just found out that there is something similar for youtube.
3 March 2009
The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa Al Aswany
Very nice initiative of the English Pen, The English Pen Online World Atlas. At the end there is more literature in English in this world than the American and the British ones and this is also a nice way to promote translations from English literature from other countries (especially from the Middle East). Unfortunatelly, a similar website for a language like Portuguese wouldn’t have the same large audience, but I’m seriously working on an idea of how to use internet to enhance literature translation around the world, stay tuned 
27 February 2009
by John Kannenberg via Flickr.
Reading this article about
cell phone novels in Japan I remembered what I read somewhere the other day about how you can tell the age of a person by the way she or he presses the doorbell. If you press it with your index finger (as I do) you are probably over 30, if you use your thumb however than you are younger. That’s of course because of the use of cell phones. I have to admit that although I think SMSs are very useful and I do use them, I take some time to write short messages even using the dictionary to help me. Well, I’m over 30 anyway. Apparently the use of the thumb is changing the way the human brain works and next generations will be even more efficient in text messaging for instance. And then maybe the novels written in cellphones will become more complex than they are now (or people say they are, as I have never read one myself) and will really become a new genre. Actually this might not so modern, Feuilleton author’s would change their stories according the feedback of the readers, killing characters of finishing the stories earlier if they were not popular. At the end, the difference is the speed.
Filed under Japan, Japão, cultura, culture, internet, literatura, literature, mobile, phone, publishing, reading, technology
3 February 2009
Machado de Assis.
A while ago the Guardian published a list of
1000 novels everyone must read. Eduardo de Freitas from
theca libraria took the effort to make some analysis and find out that only 5 titles were written by Portuguese speaking authors (3 by Brazilians and 2 by Portuguese, none African). Morevover among the 123 titles in the cathegory ‘Love’, 48 are by British authors, 29 by American and 11 by other English speaking nationalities, that means 73% of the titles. Another 11 were written in French, 5 in German, 3 in Italian, 3 in Japonese, 3 in Russian, 2 in Czech, 2 in Spanish, 1 by an Egyptian, 1 by a Greek, 1 by a Ducth, 1 by a Polish and 1 in Portuguese (
Dom Casmurro, by the Brazilian author Machado de Assis).
Of course the list was published by a British newspaper aiming its audience, but anyway I guess it means something. I wonder how a similar list published by an Brazilian newspaper would look like…
Via Blogtailors
29 January 2009
by Moriza.
I tend to believe that the development of the new technologies of book’s printing and distribution will be very positive for authors and publishers of ‘peripheral’ languages and countries, specially for English-speaking countries that are not US and UK or any other publisher that publishes in English (either translations or original works, just because there are English readers almost everywhere). To be more specific, I mean PoD. People will be able to order a book published anywhere in the world in their favorite bookshop and have it ready in few minutes or they will order it on the internet and have it printed and shipped from somewhere close by, what’s chepear and also ecofriendly. (Will they? I think some day, I don’t know when, though). But for that to happen there will need to be changes not in the copyright laws but in the contracts. It will be end of contracts restrained to specific territories. We’re not even talking about the end of the copyright or creative commons licenses here. I think this will work specially for all the authors besides the international bestsellers. I don’t see why an author would not to want to be sold worldwide if the publisher affords to promote and deliver the book (in electronic form or as an object). But until that happens, we are still ’stucked’ with real books, that need to printed in larger scales and must be shipped sometimes far away. The Australian author Peter Carey has a good point against the end of the ‘territorial copyright’ that it’s worth to take into account, but it’s amazing how the Brazilian and the Australian publishing markets are different. Not being an English Colony allowed us (Brazilians) to develop a stronger and independent publishing market, I guess the former Spanish colonies would say the same.
Filed under Australia, English, books, bookstore, copyright, economia, economy, inglês, livraria, livrarias, livros, publishing
27 January 2009
Some people still love books.
Thanks, Lenara! 
Hug by Thomas Keeley.
