Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Banned Books Week (September 18 – 24, 2022) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. For an example: What Is the Most Banned Book in America? For all time, the most frequently banned book is 1984 by George Orwell
According to The Authors Guild, print book sales were up 9.1 percent last year. Booksellers sold 825.7 million books in 2021, up from 757.9 million in 2020. An increase in the number fiction books that were sold led the way, with young adult fiction sales jumping 30.7 percent, adult fiction up 25.5 percent, and children’s fiction up 9.6 percent, respectively. All told, print book sales have risen more than 18 percent since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
A Center Research Center poll showed that seven percent of Americans only read digital books. According to Statista.com, trade e-book revenue amounted to 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. E-book sales revenue fell by 4.7 percent between 2020 and 2021, but reported $1.1 billion for both years. E-book revenues were down 5.4 percent for the month of December 2021 compared to December 2020. Me? I’ve tried reading e-books on my iPad, but since I like to read in bed each night before dozing off, the iPad proved to be too heavy and awkward for me to use. I’m told Kindles are better in this and other respects but I just don’t need another electronic device in my life and prefer to buy new or used hardback or trade paperbacks as well as get them from my local library.
You can help keep this blog afloat, including our Book Club, Movie Club and Joe’s Film Box by purchasing one of my books from Amazon, which pays a tiny commission on each sale. But it helps keep this little site afloat. My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography with new copies from Amazon selling for $34.95 and used copies starting at the bargain price around nine bucks. Kindle copies are available for $19.99 for those photographers who preferring a digital format.
My Current Books, some thoughts…
The last book I read was Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. It’s an historical novel that’s based on the real people who signed the death warrant for King Charles I. When the monarchy was reinstated, the fifty-nine men who signed the warrant and participated in his execution were found guilty of high treason in absentia. Almost all of were executed by being drawn and quartered and if you’ve ever wondered what that execution style was like, the author provides the harrowing details. The book begins in 1660, when Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in law Colonel William Goffe—two of the warrant signers—escape to America and thus begin a manhunt led by a Inspector Javert-like pursuer. This is an amazing true story of that search and while the ending may (or may not) be fiction, it is nevertheless satisfying. If you like history, you will love this book for the quality of the writing and the rich detail of the period. The book will also leave you wondering why Charles III chose that name because a monarch’s name isn’t automatically their first name.
The 49th book for me this year is First Kill the Lawyers by one of my favorite Davids, David Housewright, the other being David Handler. This is the fifth and sadly last (2019) book in Housewright’s Holland Taylor series of mystery novels. In it Taylor is hired to recover stolen files before they are leaked onto the Internet, ruining more than just the careers of the five local lawyers ho hires him and his partner Freddy. Each of these five lawyers were involved in some shady, unethical dealings that saved some guilty people off from being punished for their misdeeds and the details of each case is about to be revealed by a hacker. I’m not far along in the book past the early part of the story where each of the lawyers and their slimy practices are revealed to Taylor but if other books in the series are any indication things are going to get more serious and darker as the book races to a conclusion. I am trying to re-read all of the five books in the series, with two more to go, so this is bittersweet for me because I will miss Holland Taylor. Pick up any book in this series and you will love this guy and his pet rabbit Ogilvy.
Standing ready as book number fifty is Robert B. Parker’s Fallout (A Jesse Stone Novel) by Mike Lupica. After Mr. Parker’s passing, Michael Brandman who was a producers on the wonderful Jesse Stone TV movies starring Tom Selleck, picked up writing the series and did a fabulous job bridging the televised Stone with the literary one. Then the publisher (?) decided to replace Brandman with Reed Farrel Coleman. I bought the first book in the series that he wrote, Blind Spot, and hated it. The publisher allowed Coleman to write five more books before replacing him with Mike Lupica, who I believe, was a personal friend of the late Mr. Parker. I read his first book in the series, Fool’s Paradise, and really enjoyed my library copy. Mary ordered me Fallout from Barnes & Noble and I’m looking for ward to reading it next.
If you would like to send me any books to review or any other stuff that could be used for these posts and my videos you can mail it to: Joe Farace, PO BOX 2081, PARKER, CO 80134.