Tuesday News: the popularity of “Shelf-Help” books, Amazon delivery services, gifting the Kindle Fire, revisiting The Wind in the Willows, and an addictive geography game

JanetPublishing NewsAmazon / childrens-books / geography / Kindle Fire / self-help4 Comments

‘Shelf-help’ books set to fill publishers’ coffers in 2014 – So what’s the winning literary trend for 2014? According to this article by Vanessa Thorpe, it’s “shelf-help” books, which seem to be a clever repackaging of self-help books, but perhaps with a more philosophical bent. Thorpe points to the success of psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz’s The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves, which was even chosen to be a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. It’s Grosz’s publisher (Vintage) that seems to have coined the new phrase, even releasing a series called “Shelf Help,” which includes books by Andrew Solomon, Julian Barnes, and others.

“There is a complementary trend too: for self-help in fiction. The Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud prescribes Ernest Hemingway for a headache and Daphne du Maurier for low self-esteem. This guide grew out of the London-based School of Life’s bibliotherapy course, a session with a cross between a librarian and a therapist who compiles ‘an inspirational reading prescription that’s tailor-made for you.’ Berthoud and Elderkin describe fiction as ‘the purest and best form of bibliotherapy’.” The Guardian

Christmas Delivery Fiasco Shows Why Amazon Wants Its Own UPS – This makes perfect sense, especially when you consider that Prime membership is such a great deal in terms of winning customer loyalty. If Amazon had its own shipping arm, well, those conspiracy theories about world domination may just get some traction. *cue bad pun about timely delivery of the apocalypse*

“Jeff Bezos’s wild plan to deliver packages using drones has been way overhyped. But grocery delivery service Amazon Fresh is very real. Amazon isn’t depending on UPS or any other delivery service to get heads of lettuce and bundles of carrots to your door. It’s using its own trucks, driven by its own employees (or contractors). “ Wired

More Proof That The Kindle Fire Is The Fruitcake Of Tablets – Although I bought a first generation Fire myself (precisely because I could not afford an iPad at the time), I can’t rebut the idea that Fire is still kind of a second-choice tablet. Which is too bad, because the new ones look pretty snazzy and are substantially less expensive than the iPad. But I did, in fact, encourage a friend to buy one for her niece this Christmas. Heh.

“Flurry, which measures mobile application analytics, says the Kindle Fire activations were up 24X on Christmas day versus a normal December day. (This is actually down compared to years past.)”Business Insider

As Winter Rolls In, One Critic Recalls ‘The Wind In The Willows’ – Here’s a blast from the literary past: New York Times Books Review editor Parul Sehgal writes eloquently about Kenneth Grahame’s early 20th century masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows. I dare you to read this post and not immediately indulge in a re-read.

“That brings me to the book’s most enchanting paradox. Winter finds us slumberous, cumbrous and bundled up, but we lean hardest on our books and friends in this season. We return, like Mole, to the essence of things.” NPR

How well do you know the world? Play Geoguessr to find out! – This might be as addictive as they spelling rice game everyone was playing a few years back. Whether geography is a strength or a weakness, this is just plain fun. BBC News

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

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