Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
What a fantastic interview! Also something I never thought I would see was Chris Trotter coming out in defence of women’s studies.
*sigh* Well, it's all the fault of the evil right-wing cabal innit? Somehow, I find it rather implausible that the groves of academe were wilted by the winds of Clark-o-phobia. Once more, a significantly more interesting (and complex) reality-based tale cannot be allowed to get in the way of Comrade Trotter's very special world view.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
The Tech Books store on Broadway in Newmarket is a good 'indie' store that's entirely focussed on technical books.
So here's a question for my tasty Brains Trust - is there a future for the general bookseller (a bit of everything and pulling digit from rectum when it comes to ordering stuff in) or is 'narrowcasting' -- because there's been a run of venerable specialist mystery/SF/GLBT indie closures in the US and UK over the last five years or so
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Emily Perkins,
No, thank you (and Islander) for contributing - in all the commentary and media coverage, writers have been marginalized. Very easy to forget you guys are affected every bit as much as publishers and the book retailing sector.
And seriously, folks, thanks for all your wonderfully thoughtful contributions. The nice but scary thing about Public Address is that there's a lot of smart and passionate people around here; as often as not, I've felt like my real function is to lay some fuse wire, light it up and get the hell out of the way.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Is this another case of a successfully trading company being wrecked by debt loaded in by private equity owners?
Bloody good question. I'm certainly hoping a solid business journalist - either here or in Oz - is going to get under the "evil interwebz broke our business" meme which seems to have dominated the media narrative so far. Still not buying it.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Gabor Toth,
This kind of corporate inflexibility did them no favours.
Certainly – small indie book stores, which seems to be thriving as much as anyone in the retail sector can at the moment, don’t have that luxury. You’ve got to go that bit further, be innovative and flexible in your customer service, build and maintain strong relationships with suppliers, realise that your biggest asset is good will, because you can’t afford "big box" retail complacency.
I personally know of a similar case relating to a popular Wellington local history book.
I know of more than one, but good luck getting any local publisher to tell their Whitcoulls horror-stories on the record. If REDgroup Retail does seriously intend to trade its way out of administration, I hope its going to be a wake-up call that Whitcoulls (and A&R in Australia) must build a more responsive, flexible and generally respectful relationship with local publishers.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I wonder what the total exposure on vouchers is. Saying “we can’t redeem vouchers until things are sorted out” would have been better than trying to force people to spend cash on top to redeem them.
Indeed - and while it would still piss me off if I was trying to redeem my Christmas book tokens it would be less of a #epicPRFUBAR that what seems to be going down. FFS, if they were trying to destroy public good-will wouldn't it have been more efficient to just punch in the face everyone who comes through the door?
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Shit, just heard on Nat Radio that various Borders + Whitcoulls stores are refusing to honour their vouchers/ gift tokens. Hey, guy, pissing on people whose good will and support you desperately need right about now is beyond stupid.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Fergus Barrowman,
+ 1, Fergus. As I said, whatever I think of Whitcoulls as a bookseller I'd rather not see anyone put out of work. And I know you might not feel comfortable talking about it, but I can't imagine any Anzac publisher would look at the prospect of two major chains going down the crapper without deep unease.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to James Butler,
Too late :-) I thought it was pretty good
I thought The Sparrow and Children of God are both excellent books, but (avoiding spoilers) I now recommend them with the caveat that they may be extremely triggering for survivors of rape/sexual abuse and domestic violence. after unwittingly loaning my copy to a friend whose abuse I was not aware of.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Oh, fucking hell Tracy
Actually, the more I look at it the more I wonder if anyone’s told Tracey Barnett that Darth George is trolling with her by-line.
Sure, it’s a laugh, if real life gave us the flipside. If every time you see an image of a woman in a dress tight enough that her bought breasts slap against her chin (just count them at the Oscars), men felt comfortable having their gonads trussed up, surgically enlarged, with two-thirds of them shelved outside their tux trousers. It doesn’t exist in mainstream public life for men. The difference is, women accept it, men will not.
Well, Trace, I know one or two women who’d bitch-slap you upside the head for the clot of astoundingly offensive assumptions there. Starting with a radical feminist self-analysis of where her assumption that a certain type of women with generously proportioned breasts must have “brought” them. Body image fascist, much?
Oh, and perhaps we watch very different Oscar red carpet coverage, but way to go with the false equivalence there. I don't notice many women getting around with two-third of their vaginas "shelved outside" their gowns. However, I do notice plenty of men wearing tuxes that are cut to show off their ass..ets.
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