About a year ago, Scott Beck got an email that cost him $75,000. It wasn’t from a Nigerian claiming to be the administrator of a millionaire’s estate, but from a company in New York called On Demand Books. In the email was a picture of something that looked like an office copy machine, but could take a digital file and turn it into a library-quality paperback book in a matter of minutes.... Read more

Back in 1997, novelist David Foster Wallace reviewed John Updike’s latest for the New York Observer under a headline that asked, “Is This Finally the End for Magnificent Narcissists?” In his review — later republished as an essay — Wallace coined the term Great Male Narcissist (G.M.N.) for writers such as Updike and Philip Roth, explaining,... Read more

What with the media blitz around Hardwick, the Northeast Kingdom has made a name for itself in recent years as a foodie haven. The logical next development: a homegrown publication to cover the bounty. With the debut of North Country Cooking, editor Denise Brown has produced just that.... Read more

Last January in this space, we reported on Cambridge resident Christine Sullivan’s self-published book 44 Days Out of Kandahar, which told the story of her desperate search for a puppy lost halfway around the world. Sullivan’s Navy reservist brother, Mark Feffer, had befriended the flop-eared red mutt named Cinnamon in Afghanistan, but circumstances derailed his plan to bring her back to his Annapolis home.... Read more

In some places, parents who don’t like the looks of the local public schools send their kids to established, private ones, or they homeschool. In Vermont, a third option is surprisingly popular: Starting your own.... Read more

Sometimes those who own the most cookbooks use them the least — because they’re daunted by all those pages of possibilities. It was a problem part-time Wilmington resident Jane Kelly faced every time she wanted to whip up a stew or bake a cake. “I’ve got a lot of cookbooks, about 700, and lots of other food reference books as well,” she says. “I never had the time to look through and find recipes.”... Read more

You’d never know from looking at the pretty pages of Vermont Life magazine that some ugly accusations were leveled at the state-owned publication last week. The group of citizens charged by the legislature with guiding and protecting the quarterly magazine presented a letter to the state agency that oversees it, listing a number of concerns they believe threaten Vermont Life’s existence. Their worries range from inadequate financial oversight to a new editorial vision they say could alienate the core base of subscribers.... Read more

At last Friday’s opening reception for the Burlington Book Festival, two young authors — poet Christopher Lawless and playwright and humorist Alison Wisch — signed copies of their first published books.... Read more

When season brochures and newsletters arrive from our favorite arts organizations, most of us look at the pictures and read what interests us, but we don’t necessarily think: Wow, what a beautiful brochure! Nope, we pretty much take these printed pieces for granted. And that must be a source of chagrin to the graphic designers who apply talent and many hours to make them attractive, readable, easy to navigate and typo-free.... Read more

Don Bredes didn’t set out to write mysteries. But one fall day in 1984, a mystery found him. On the tennis court, a friend told the Wheelock writer that a couple from Canada, mutual acquaintances of theirs, had been slain in their Jay ski chalet. Bredes’ tennis partner had, in fact, discovered the bodies. But what he saw so disturbed him that he waited a day to report it, casting potential suspicion on himself.... Read more