Bookbabble - podcast for booklovers everywhere!

What do you do when you’re up for air between continuous hours of solid work?  Why, you go to the Man Booker Prize for Fiction site and you surf up a storm, of course.  In this case, it’s finding out that the Booker Prize has had an interesting and stormy history.  Go to Hitting the Headlines, and check out the list of controversies to hit the Prize since it’s conception.

One of my favourite controversy (is there such a thing?) happened in 1993:

Anthony Cheetham, publisher of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, called the judges ‘a bunch of wankers’ for not shortlisting the book.

Well.

Just a quick note: Bookbabble is now listed in PodcastAlley.  There is at least one more place where Bookbabble is supposed to show up, and I shall give an inconspicuous little whoop once that little transaction is complete.

The author of Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon and the ginormous The Baroque Cycle books has returned with a brand new book called Anathem. Much rejoicing in the hardcore cyberspace future fans, I’m sure.

Neal Stephenson is one of three authors, in my opinion, who by and large represent sophisticated literary geekdom (the others are probably William Gibson and Bruce Sterling).

Wikipedia has the publication date at Sept 9, 2008. No way of really confirming that at this point until we’re closer to the date.

And yes, for some reason all my posts end with an exclamation mark. I suppose I must be less exclamatory.

Gem’s post actually got me thinking to perhaps write a little about how Bookbabble came to be. Thinking is very hard for me to do (listeners already have ample proof), but I shall muster up a few gray cells to write this bit.

All of us first knew each other from a book forum we used to frequent, and for the most part, have decamped after several years and moved to yet another forum to continue our hijinks. We talk books, reading, literature and everything else under the sun to this day.

The idea for the show came in early March. While it would seem like it took us about a month to get our first show up, in reality we were already recording shortly after the initial idea was pitched.

Besides the show that you all now know as Episode 1, we recorded 3 other shows earlier that never made it out (yet). The first ever Bookbabble was a trial run, which enjoyed only very limited listenership as we canvassed for initial impressions, but primarily for me to figure out how exactly things were going to be done production-wise. Two other shows followed, but technical problems plagued the recordings. The first was an unexpected glitch (overlapping dialogue from the same person, on the same track!), but the second occurence was my fault because I didn’t mitigate the problem. I’m thankful to the others during this time as they cheerfully prodded onwards and still happily continued to babble on. You guys rock!

We had very interesting discussions on the unreleased shows that you may never get to hear, but I’ll try to salvage what I can and release them.

Before I close out this post, a quick thanks to Colin, Rubes and the rest at TFS, for fostering the close-knit community that’s warm, crazy and rewarding, and for being the platform that made Bookbabble possible.

I made a huge blooper in Episode 1 – Michael Faber did not write a book called The Crimson Rose and the White. The book was in fact The Crimson Petal & the White. D’oh.

Please feel free to point out and mock our errors. The Babbler with the most bloopers each week has to face a punishment. Actually, I just made that up. Seeing as it’ll obviously be me messing up each week, I shall ensure that no such policy will ever be introduced.

I have been given carte blanche to write whatever I want. I’m thinking that it will soon be revoked once the guys see this posting, so I had better make the most of it. Should I spend this opportunity dishing dirt? Perhaps I should just write about my current reads or how I feel about Dmitri Nabokov agreeing to publish The Original of Laura?

Actually, let’s just take a peek behind the scenes;

In theory it is all very simple; one night a week Lars the beauty, Bjorn the brains, Donny the mastermind and me – the token girl, attempt to meet up online to talk about topics we have all agreed on beforehand. We record our discussions and share them with you, our friends, in the form of a podcast.

What usually happens is; Lars & I turn up too early because we’re a bit thick and have trouble working out time differences. When we record, it is very early for Donny and he’ll arrive with a sexy morning voice that turns mine and Lars’ legs into jelly. Bjorn is as cool as the Marlboro Man; he saunters in bang on time, tells us not to worry and that he’ll have an Idle Rambling by the time it is his turn.

We’ll start chatting to ‘warm up’ and pretty soon we lose sight of the time until someone points out that we had better get started.

The next part is what I call the Fumble. Everyone fumbles about; getting a drink, checking their recording software and adjusting their microphones. Everyone aside from me, I just shuffle about some papers to make it look like I’m busy getting prepared.

After we have finished recording we keep on chatting. I think one of these days I am going to have to secretly record the post show chat. It’s tremendous fun; hear us gossiping about the various forums. Listen to Lars snore while Donny & I discuss cultural events and Indian movies, listen to Lars snore some more while Bjorn & I babble about TV shows. Lars then puts things into perspective with talks about Human Rights and third world poverty.

All in all, we have a wonderful time, and at some point our camaraderie and dedication to books will result in producing a show that is informative and fun. We’ll get there.

Thank you for Listening.

Today is the clumsily named World Book and Copyright Day, as designated by UNESCO. It is supposed to to encourage collaboration between publishers and booksellers to promote the habit of reading to the people of the world. This day also marks the day Willian Shakespeare and Cervantes (among a handful of other famous authors) died, and the birth of Vladimir Nabokov.

In the midst of promoting reading, one of the more important aspects is one of copyright, and I suppose UNESCO is bringing this issue to the fore as well, what with the proliferation of digital media, this is bound to come centrestage sooner or later.

Interesting tidbit: UK and Ireland are the only two countries in the world that celebrate World Book Day on March 6, rather than today. This is to apparently to coincide with the school term. I suppose Gem will have to confirm that.

I took advantage of the sale a local bookstore chain is having as a commemoration of the event, and took home China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun and Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Then I shall look upon my shelves and ponder on which book to read next.

How are you celebrating the World Book Day?

Some links for your reading pleasure:

• Wikipedia entry
• From UNESCO
• World Book Day (UK & Ireland) site

Bookbabble Episode 2: Harry Potter News Correspondent
Recorded 20 April 2008
Babblers: Lars, Gem, Donny
Synopsis:
The significance of the Orange Prize for Fiction and Donny attempts to explain the perceived differences between male and female authors. The babblers disagree on Rowling’s decision to block the publication of a fan-created encyclopedia of Harry Potter’s universe, and attempt ponders on the absolutely, incredibly difficult question of reading vs watching TV. Also in the menu: book blogs, a turkish writer’s quest for freedom of speech, and Jose Saramago.
Show Length: 52:58 mins
Important Notes:

• A couple of words unsuitable for young listeners towards the end. I think.
• I mention running times during the show, but the times are inaccurate, as I’ve edited stuff out.
• There’s a spoiler for the Hobbit, so if you haven’t read it yet, and intend to, please plug your ears (or unplug them, if you’re using earphones) at 40:41 for 5 seconds.

Links:

• Orange Prize for Literature
• Fighting for Free Speech in Turkey (BBC)
• The Harry Potter Lexicon
• Harry Potter court case - Rowling sues fan
  
• Booklit
• Jabberwock

Download the show here.

The Orange Broadband Prize selection committee has announced its shortlist recently. The prize, which honours fiction by women authors, will decide on the winner on June 4.

The shortlisted works are:

• Nancy Huston, Fault Lines

• Sadie Jones, The Outcast

• Charlotte Mendelson, When We Were Bad

• Heather O’Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals

• Rose Tremain, The Road Home

• Patricia Wood, Lottery

I’ve setup three RSS feeds for the RSS ninjas among us. The three feeds are:

1. Posts Feed - this feed contains all the posts that gets published here in bookbabble.net website, and yes, including new shows.
2. Shows Only Feed - this feed contains only the shows.
3. Comments Feed - A list of all the comments that gets posted here.

Do check out the RSS buttons I’ve put up in the sidebar.

There’s a report in Guardian today that Random House is developing some sort of digital book browsing tool that can be customized by bloggers or fans for use in their own sites. I dropped by Random House and found nothing resembling a digital book browsing tool, but I can’t wait to see it.

Guardian intends to use this to drive traffic and to spur sales of books through digital distribution of their content. More and more publishers are discovering the value of putting their works up digitally, online and readily available, and how it could actually make them more money if done right. This may be an interesting experiment to keep tabs on.

Edit: Guess what?  A little snooping around (which I didn’t do earlier because my stomach is rumbling) reveals that they do indeed have the service!  I will spend some time checking it out, and perhaps putting it up here.  What’s a little pizazz to jazz up the place while you listen to us babbling?