May 26, 2006
BEA #2 - John Updike Speech
Due to the keen interest in John Updike’s speech at the Saturday Book & Author Breakfast, we are releasing it as a separate podcast. Mr. Updike abandoned a speech about his new book, Terrorist, in favor of a passionate discussion of books and booksellers — whom he called “the citadels of light.” We will podcast the Book & Author Breakfast in its entirety including Barack Obama, Amy Sedaris and Marie Arana later on.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Thanks for making this available!
May 26th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Updike’s speech…
Sid Steward, a Rough Type reader, alerted me to the fact that BookExpo America has just released an audio recording of John Updike’s speech from last weekend, in which he responds to Kevin Kelly’s New York Times article “Scan This Book!” (I discuss…
May 30th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
John Updike doesn’t want to be involved in orgies. I don’t think it was Kelly’s suggestion that he would.
Kelly was answering an unasked question, one he knew would be asked by some of his readers, as it is asked time and time again: won’t anybody think of the poor starving author? I think it was a weak bid of Kelly to try and answer the question, but wholly understandable that he did. The rethoric employed by the pro-copyright lobby is cheap and flawed, but effective.
Updike doesn’t have to engage in orgies, and he will not be forced to. As long as he doesn’t try and stop the dissemination of these “snippets” of “his” books.
Anyway, he got a couple of laughs out of playing with that particular part of Kelly’s essay, which in my mind adequately shows how much he trusted his main argument. Which is a pity, because although I disagree with it, I thought his main argument was worth listening to.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:29 pm
[...] Who’d a thunkit? The BEA is officially making podcasts of its sessions publicly available - under creative commons! They’ll be waiving copyright next. Don’t anybody tell John Updike. Or Nigel Newton. [...]
May 31st, 2006 at 6:55 pm
[...] Chip McGrath talks with John Updike. While the results are certainly better than, say, a sycophantic and humorless conversation with Sam Tanenhaus, one reads this Updike interview wondering whether McGrath was operating on auto pilot. After all, how many times does one get to talk with Updike at length? Okay, so he’s no fan of the Internet, but shouldn’t you give the man some space to ramble at length? [...]
May 31st, 2006 at 9:56 pm
For clarification, we have asked for and received permission from every publisher, speaker and author — including Mr. Updike and his publishing company — whom we are podcasting. Anyone who did not give us permission will not be podcast.
- Rob Simon, Editor, BookExpoCast.com
June 5th, 2006 at 10:42 am
[...] John Updike, making the rounds promoting his new novel, Terrorist, raised eyebrows with his passionate warnings at BEA about digital publishing. That much-discussed speech, by the way, is available as a podcast here. [...]
June 7th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
E-Books and Physical Education…
I thought I’d send my ping into the echo chamber amplifying recent pronouncements regarding electronic books. Today a posting at the Future of the Book links to some of the resonances, and just yesterday a message come across two e-mail……
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
[...] John Updike [...]