(no subject)

[danceboy]

So a question for those of you who have experience in publishing: is there any way that a book that amazon says was published on September 13, 2005 could possibly contain text related to hurricane Katrina (well, aside from amazon being wrong...)?


Separately, since a third person has now asked, in March I ran 117.3 miles. And saw the world's most uninspired Hare Krishnas while doing so...

ETA:
The author says that he wrote that text in the late 90s.

Comments

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

Wait... when was Hurricane Katrina? I feel like it was really recent, but was it that long ago?

If my sense of time is just seriously skewed and Hurricane Katrina did in fact occur in the August of 2005 (and not in one of the Augusts after that), then there is no way that the book could contain any useful text on the subject. The book would have been at the printer in August of 2005 in order to publish by September 13. Even if they were rushing it, they still would have had to have had the final text done by, say, June. And they never rush things that much.

Could it be that the book in question is a more recent edition of a book that originally published in 2005? If it's a new edition, it could have been edited and updated, or it could have a new introduction.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to say that your sense of time is skewed.

The book is "America's Constitution - A Biography". This appears to be a first printing. it certainly doesn't say it's a second. Its a hardcover (and I can't imagine a book on the constitution coming out in hardcover twice), and its copyright notice is 2005.

The reason that I ask is that he has a section on impeachment, with a subsection on presidential impeachment. On page 200, it includes the text "A president who ran off on a frolic in the middle of a national crisis demanding his urgent attention might break no criminal law, yet such gross dereliction of duty might well rise to the level disqualifying misconduct."

At first I thought that he was making a case against Bush. Then I checked when it was published. Then I thought not, but I wanted to check.

Oh, and there's a bit about "Madison contended that if a president abused his removal powers by 'wanton removal of meritorious officers' he would be 'impeachable. . . for such an act of maladministration'". The US attorney firings definitely hadn't happened yet.

It sounds like you're saying that, unless Mr. Amar was watching the news, said to himself "Aha! I must revise the section on impeachment! Oh, and late next year he'll probably fire some perfectly good attorneys.", typed furiously, and sent it to his publisher who put a rush order on it, getting it done in late December, he is not making a case against Bush.

Thank you for the info.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. In my experience, it has to publish by December 15 to make the year, so it's not likely he is writing specifically about Bush.

But you're right, it really really does sound like that. Um, maybe it could be that he introduced the change in a later printing? It is possible to make small insertions, changes, or corrections in later printings of the book. If you look at the back of the copyright page at the front of the book, there should be a string of numbers near the bottom of the page, spaced out like "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1". The highest number shows which reprint they're on. If it's the first print run (ie, the earliest), there won't be any numbers.

::edit:: By "a later printing", I don't mean a second edition. Publishers will assign a certain number of books to the first print run--say, 2000 books--and then if those do well, they'll run off another 2000 of the book. It's possible to correct errors or make slight changes at the reprints stage, but otherwise it's exactly the same book, and the little numbers on the copyright page tell you which printing your copy is from. If something is a new edition, that would generally mean a serious update of the content, or a new introduction or something, or even just a new cover--but something noticeably different from the original.

But yeah, probably not about Bush.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

Hmm, on the bottom of that page there is
"6 8 9 7"

Is there some reason that they'd be out of order (and not include 1-5)?

So it sounds like it could contain some text regarding Katrina.

Just by looking at it, I'd guess that this copy of the book is at least a year old, so it's also barely possible, that he heard about the first bunch of US attorneys leaving, figured out what was going on, and added text about that...

But honestly, I'd be surprised if he would, even if he could. Any political statements would seem to me to diminish the academic standing of the book.

Well, I've just sent him email asking. We'll see what I get back.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

The author says that he wrote that text in the late 90s.