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A Book-Lover's View of Magazines

June 1996

The June 3, 1996 issue of THE NATION on "The National Entertainment State" was a bit disappointing from a book-lover's point of view. It turns out the corporations included in the much bally-hooed "octopus map" were selected on the basis of ... gurk ... owning the four major television networks. Not quite the decision rule that we book-lovers would prefer; the map omits many of the cable, telecommunications, and publishing giants. What's really needed is a much more comprehensive (and continually updated) Web site on the same theme.

There's a decent article on "The Corporatization of Publishing" by Andre Schiffrin, former managing director of the respected Pantheon imprint at Random House, but it doesn't really break new ground in revealing that most publishing houses are owned by large corporations.

May 1996

The May 13 issue of THE NEW YORKER has two excellent articles of interest to book-lovers. Novelist and smoker Jonathan Franzen (who was, BTW, a year ahead of me at Swarthmore) is kind enough to spare me the overwhelming task of reviewing Richard Kluger's forest-felling new history of the cigarette industry, ASHES TO ASHES. And Ken Auletta provides some fascinating background on Michael Kinsley's experience preparing to start up the new Microsoft on-line magazine, Slate. Must reading for anyone who is fascinated with the subtle challenges of on-line publishing.

April 1996

Good news for book-lovers: according to an April 29 WEB WEEK article on Web search engines, "Arts & Entertainment" is the single most common topic searched on the net, encompassing 18% of all searches. The bad news for book-lovers: the top 10 most common names searched are "Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith, Jenny McCarthy, Cindy Crawford, Brad Pitt, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Jennifer Aniston, Teri Hatcher, Alyssa Milano". Not a novelist among them (and I must say that's a relief).

An interesting article on the future of THE NEW YORK TIMES in the world of the Net by Max Frankel, a distinguished Times editor, appears in the April 21, 1996 issue of THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE. Frankel comes to the sensible conclusion that "value added--a brilliant start alertly responsive to a knowing audience"--will be "the popcorn that keeps our show alive." That's what we're trying to do here.


Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996

In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life and thinking.

  • When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on the classic. What a great movie it would make!
  • The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy. I've read a number of translations over the years, but my favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO; PURGATORY; PARADISE). The notes are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
  • I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY, which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
  • Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent acquisition, the very handsome NIV STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black and brown are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding Scripture.

IBIC now provides seamless links to the on-line ordering system at Amazon.com Books. To order a book, just click on an underlined title. As a default, we link to paperback rather than hardcover editions of a particular title (although we may modify this rule if a hardcover edition looks to be a particularly good deal). Our editorial philosophy is to put your interests first.

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