intelligent, non challenging fiction

Na comédia de costumes, férias de verão no contrário de leituras leves descartáveis? Puff piece de hoje,

A broader trend in our book-buying habits: a surge in the popularity of intelligent, challenging nonfiction, often books that are several years old - more serious, thoughtful, quiet books - often works on politics, economics, history.
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

Apesar de constactar que "the publishing landscape has changed over the past few years",

Books retain a special place in our culture, an aura that means we look to them first when searching for deep truths about the world
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

Auras que obviamente não estão muito longe do respeitinho à autoridade e autenticidade:

It appears that we are looking to books to deliver us these opinions, nonfiction written from a position of authentic authority.
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

Mesmo se encontram espaço para os escritos furiosos de novas gerações. De nuances:

A host of younger polemical authors are writing for their peers about issues that seemed to have taken a back seat.

It may be, though, that the picture is more nuanced than merely a desperate yearning for voices of authority at a time of crisis: (...) you have a new generation of activist-writers who are telling stories of gender, politics or race and doing it on their own terms, very much going against what went before. These are bold books, quite radical, really exciting and tend to be younger writers writing for younger readers - teens and younger students, people who feel a real urgency for change.
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

Mas a nuance que nos toca escapa à declarada na peça. Se esta trata de seriedades redescobertas, parece-nos que trata o same ol’ same ol’: $$$. Rapidamente nos desocupa o que ocupa o leitor, e tropeçamos no que mexe a máquina. Aquela nova geração atrás? "Spoke to a whole new market of readers. It’s a younger generation."

E de máquina em máquina, o sistema.

One of the things driving the resurgent popularity of nonfiction is Amazon’s recommendation system, which tends to direct readers towards books of a similar type. So the breakout success of [um livro qq: sem pub aqui sff] has brought with it other, like-minded books identified by Amazon’s computers
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

E antes dos nay-sayers indie lovers atirarem as suas pedras, uma para o brick and mortar como gatekeepers do que ler:

The work of [a] bookseller to champion nonfiction was most often mentioned by the publishing insiders we spoke to as the major force behind this latest trend. They know their customers, and they know they can make books happen. And once they get behind a book, other booksellers will often follow.
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

Mas não terminemos em negativismos e tendências conspirativas, alguma luz se escapa entre mais do mesmo – precisamente onde escapa a mais do mesmo.

One of the key changes made to the chain is that, unlike [outros seus] peers, publishers can no longer buy their books a place in its promotions. Now, freed from these shackles,  it liberated [uma certa chain de stores: no pub please] to follow our bookselling instincts.
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

E aí, o nosso kudos-tha-you. E o fuck off de despedida à peça:

At a time when politics is more furious and fragmented than ever, when technology is colonising our everyday existence, when medicine is reshaping our lives, we still look to books to make sense of things, to feel ourselves part of a great communal effort to understand our age. These are serious times and they demand serious, intelligent and challenging books.
in "How the ‘brainy’ book became a publishing phenomenon" ^{29 jul 2018}

Estes são tempos sérios, e requerem serious, intelligent and challenging readings, qualquer que seja o seu formato. Não sejam fetichistas materiais, senhores, se ainda procuras em livros como fazer sentido do mundo, este pode estar-te a passar ao lado.

Post-scriptum

Porque "post-scriptum" em posts web valem pontos a dobrar.

Bookshops have begun to fill up with books with covers of jewel-like beauty, often with gorgeously textured pages - the greyness and the blandness of Kindle can’t compete with a book you can touch and hold.
in "How real books have trumped ebooks" ^{14 maio 2017}

De outra puff piece pelo mesmo autor em maio do ano passado, ainda a promover a mesma cadeia de lojas, ainda disfarçado de outra qualquer intenção mais nobre, um longo cite a reter. Entre o longo descritivo-fetiche ao livro, compara-se:

The current state of publishing to the situation at the end of the 15th century, when the printing press arrived and changed the world of books forever. "The manuscript makers suddenly felt threatened by printers, they started very deliberately doing things in their manuscripts that they knew the printers couldn’t do. They started doing extraordinary trompe l’oeil illusions; they really brought colour back into their manuscripts because they knew that printers couldn’t do that. It was the world of technology and the handmade struggling against each other, each striving to do things that the other couldn’t match."
in "How real books have trumped ebooks" ^{14 maio 2017}

Terminando com um -

Today’s publishers and booksellers are optimistic that history will not repeat itself.

Um erro pensar que a história chegou ao fim, e findado o wishful thinking podemos fazer das suas, nossas conclusões.

Whether the physical book goes the way of the hand-illuminated manuscript, an object of merely historical interest for all its beauty, or this ancient piece of technology is here to stay (...) we should also recognise that the most beautiful books of the last few years have also been some of the most brilliant and inspired. The care and attention lavished on those intricately illuminated medieval volumes said something important about what was written inside them, the value of the words within, and this is no less true today.
in "How real books have trumped ebooks" ^{14 maio 2017}

O que ele disse.

la clouffe