More than a decade ago, a book editor managing her own imprint at one of the big publishing houses gave me some insight into her world that I’ll never forget. “I have to publish about five diet books,” she told me, “in order to invest in one new novelist.” It’s important to understand that this is not a comment on ...
Rules are meant to be broken. It’s not a bad aphorism inasmuch as it contains the spirit of innovation that leads to things like democratic republics in favor of monarchies, cures for horrendous diseases, brilliant works of art, and…yes…iPods. Of course, as the better English teachers used to say about grammar, it’s okay and even necessary to the task of ...
“You won’t know who to trust . . .” It’s a familiar refrain in any number of thrillers in which protagonists find themselves entangled in webs of overlapping conspiracies. You think you have a position, an ideology, and allies; and it turns out you’re being played by a powerful manipulator pulling strings on both sides of the battle. The lines ...
From time to time, one encounters an editorial that so deftly weaves the offensive with the inaccurate that it leaves the reader stammering. I suppose this was the goal of the latest OpEd from digital futurist Bob Lefsetz, which appeared in Variety last week under the title “Film Biz Can Learn a Few Things From the Music Industry When It ...
Historically, one thinks of piracy and Singapore in the context of the high seas — both in legend and in reality. Geography shapes history, and the the Malacca Strait has always been a valuable sea line of communication, thus good hunting ground for centuries of armed robbers right up to the present. And although the various regimes in Singapore have ...
