Book Expo America 2009: Tomorrow’s Remainders Today
Hugging Kittens
Tomorrow\’s Remainders Today, Retail Hell etc
Wondering what treasures the Book Publishing Industry has in store for your delectation next year? The above links give an indication of what the cream of US Book Publishing thinks you’ll be reading this time next year.
This is but a random sample, but one can see that the vast yoga book market has now reached the point where it gets into specialization. No longer does the great reading public need just an introduction to yoga. We’ve moved on and next year we will have on offer Yiddish Yoga and Yoga for Boomers. But, isn’t Yiddish a language? Some grammatical leeway perhaps to allow alliteration in the title? I was intrigued too by A Guide for the Advanced Soul, intrigued that it by the question why an advanced soul might require a guide?
Try as I may, it is hard to see Retail Hell on everyone’s list of ‘must have’s’ for 2010 but hey, these publishing guys are the experts, aren’t they? They’ve schmoozed and consulted with the greatest brains of the retail book business, the people who’ve taken Borders, soon to be followed by Barnes and Noble to the edge of Chapter 11, they’re the guys who’ve gone through their lists of forthcoming books and decided that these are the ones to get behind, and so they’ve laid down their own good money to bring these authors to New York so they can schmooze with the booksellers of our nation. So let’s see.
When she watched this stuff, my wise Russian wife asked, “Do you think our universe will survive?”
Wondering why I began this blog with the hugging kittens? I asked myself the same question – maybe I needed cheering up….
A final question. What sort of book industry publishes stuff like this and, as yet, nothing by the greatest spiritual master of our time, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi?
These kittens are happily staring at the green, soft grass because they are wise. They know that green, soft grass is much better on the eyes and mind than 95 per cent of the published books of this year.