Kicking Off Thanksgiving

I'm officially signing off for the rest of the week. With any luck, I'll be offline until Monday morning.

To kick off my four days of leisure, I'm off to my soccer game on its new night (on account of Thursday being a holiday). Wish the Professionals luck and be sure to check our standings* tomorrow. We're currently in third place, and we're hoping for a spot in the playoffs in a couple of weeks.

Update
The Professionals came back from a 3-7 deficit to win 8-7 (with two goals scored by yours truly). With only one regular-season game left, our 4-3 record now statistically ensures us a place in the playoffs on December 11.

* Go here and click Schedules and Standings. Select Adult Oct-Nov 2003 from the choose another session: scroll-down menu and press the go button. Then, in the MEN: scroll-down menu, select Men 25+ Div. 2 and click the view mens division [sic] button.

Periodic Pyrotechnics: The Masked & Anonymous Soundtrack

I don't know if it's hip anymore (or again, or whatever) to like Bob Dylan, but I've been an unapologetic fan for ages. I even considered taking in his latest movie after seeing his embarrassing performance in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Though the universally negative reviews kept me from seeing Masked & Anonymous in the theater, I had heard that at least the soundtrack was good (as was the soundtrack to PG&BTK), so I decided to give it a listen. Here's my review, track by track.

1. My Back Pages (performed by the Magokoro Brothers): An interesting Japanese take on a Dylan staple. At first listen, this seems like a throwaway novelty from a variety act, but after listening to it a few times I really appreciated it. It sounds great and works well. The only negative thing about this track (but it's a big negative) is the annoying and embarrassingly stilted preaching (imploring the listener to ask himself, "ARE YOU HUMBLE BEFORE GOD?") that begins the track. Every time I begin this album, I have to mute my CD player for about 20 seconds. I'll never be able to use this track on a mix disc. (Aside: it's amazing how many syllables it takes, in Japanese, to get out the words "But I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now." The syncopation adds to this version's charm.)

2. Gotta Serve Somebody (performed by Shirley Caesar): A compelling gospel version, performed with passion and flourish. This is one of Dylan's few religious songs that I actually like (another is "Every Grain of Sand"), and this interpretation smoothes out some of the edges. While Dylan's rasp sounds more like a warning against serving the devil, the beautiful voice on this version feels like a more positive opportunity to serve the Lord, if that sort of thing interests you. (Aside: whenever someone covers this song, I always wonder how they'll handle the line: "You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy." This version handles it well and actually improves upon the original verse, I think.)

3. Down In The Flood (performed by Bob Dylan): A good example of how Dylan can reinvent himself and reinterpret his own songs. He takes this old chestnut and polishes it up with his current sound. This track would fit comfortably on either Time Out of Mind or "Love and Theft". In my humble opinion, this version improves on the version released on Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, but it's not as good as the version on The Basement Tapes (where it's titled "Crash on the Levee").

4. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (performed by The Grateful Dead): Such a pretty song, it's hard to ruin. But The Grateful Dead give it a shot anyway. This isn't meant as a criticism of the Dead in general. It's just that the vocals fall flat throughout most of this track. That said, it still sounds okay. It might cause you to cringe a couple times, but I don't think you'll feel the need to skip ahead.

5. Most Of The Time (performed by Sophie Zelmani): An interesting take. It's quiet and slow, and the spoken-word feeling of most of it gets a little old (though the same might be said for Dylan's own version), but when she starts singing she adds some emotional weight to it. This song grew on me, I must admit.

6. On A Night Like This (performed by Los Lobos): A fun, dual-language version of a fun song. Alternating verses between English and Spanish works well on an album with so many non-English tracks.

7. Diamond Joe (performed by Bob Dylan): A fun, up-tempo rendition of a traditional bluegrassy number. This song will quickly have you singing along. (Note: this is a completely different song than the traditional "Diamond Joe" on Good As I Been to You).

8. Come Una Pietra Scalciata (Like A Rolling Stone) (performed by Articolo 31): An Italian rap. I don't know what the hell the lyrics to this song are, but I'm pretty darn sure they're not the lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone" (the fact that this is the only song on the album for which Dylan shares writing credits seems to give credence to this hunch). Basically, there's a hint of the organ from that song sampled in the background of the rap, and the verses are separated by a sample of the chorus from the version Dylan recorded for Highway 61 Revisited (which is itself broken up by Italian echoes). This song has yet to grow on me, but I'm not excluding the possibility that it might eventually.

9. One More Cup Of Coffee (performed by Sertab): An English-language version with a Middle-Eastern flair. Like a few other songs on Desire, the original version of this song already had a Middle-Eastern feel, but this version makes that feeling more explicit. The Turkish vocalist has a beautiful voice, but I actually would have liked to hear her sing the song in her native language, since her inflections are already halfway there.

10. Non Dirle Che Non E' Cosi' (If You See Her, Say Hello) (performed by Francesco De Gregori): A beautiful Italian version of one of my favorite Dylan songs. The music for this track sounds like it was lifted directly from Dylan's recording on Blood on the Tracks (sort of like Italian karaoke), which is a good thing. I also like the fact that the vocalist sings the song straight, without embellishments or gimmicks. It sounds beautiful, even if you can't understand the lyrics.

11. Dixie (performed by Bob Dylan): Just plain silly. This sounds like Dylan was secretly recorded goofing off backstage.

12. Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) (performed by Jerry Garcia): A fine effort on a forgettable (in my opinion) song. Garcia's performance on this collection is better than The Grateful Dead's, though his song choice is worse. This mediocre song has never really done it for me, but if you like the song you'll like this version.

13. Cold Irons Bound (performed by Bob Dylan): Another new version of a song previously released by Dylan. This one's not as successful as the version of "Down in the Flood" on this album, though perhaps this is only because the original version of this song was recorded too recently. He seems to not have anything new to add to the song, save flashes of music (the auditory version of periodic pyrotechnics on stage) that occur throughout the song. Cruising along at the same pace as the original, to the same infectious beat, these intrusive crashes of sound become quite distracting fairly early in the song. Other than that variation, this track sounds too much like the one on Time Out of Mind to warrant a new version, in my opinion.

14. City Of Gold (performed by The Dixie Hummingbirds): Ugh. Ick. Ack. Dylan was wise to never record (or at least release) this song himself, but he would have been wise to have left it in the vault and disallowed anyone else to record it either. (Disclaimer: I actually have never had the stomach to make it to the end of this song, so it's possible that something extraordinary might happen in the middle of the song that makes the recording worthwhile. The unlikelihood of this possibility has kept me from holding out enough hope to give it a chance of happening.)

So, would I recommend this album? Yes, but with reservations and only for the Dylan fanatic who feels the need to complete his collection. And even that completist is going to be disappointed with much of the album. That said, if you're looking for a few solid tracks to beef up an eclectic Dylan mix for a friend, this album is worth a look if you find it on sale.

He's Crafty: Proof

After last week's post, in which I mentioned that I'd been stretching my craftster muscles by knitting, a few people expressed interest in my current projects. I'd like to keep those a surprise for now, because they are intended as gifts. In the meantime, perhaps this will be proof enough:



I knitted this hat for my nephew quite some time ago. I'll post images of my current projects after the holidays.

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

Thanks to JournoList (via Prints the Chaff) for directing my attention to the OneLook Reverse Dictionary:

OneLook's reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word. Just type it into the box above and hit the "Find words" button. (Keep it short to get the best results.) In most cases you'll get back a list of related terms with the best matches shown first.

This resource is quite handy. My search for "dictionary collector" informed me that I'm a lexiconophilist.

D.F.W. News

In this month's issue of The Believer, David Foster Wallace tells Dave Eggers that he has finished work on another book:

It's a book of stories. The shortest is 1.5 pages and the longest is about 100. It was due last January 1 and I was six months late with it. Barring some sort of editorial disaster, it ought to come out next spring.

I'm reading Everything and More right now, and though I don't have the energy to review it yet, I must admit that I'm a little disappointed that the next book won't be a novel either. His nonfiction and novels are always great, but for some reason his short stories usually just don't do it for me.

Grape Press Update

The exciting conclusion of "Ideas of Life, Liberty, and Authenticity: Sartre's and de Beauvoir's Amorous Philosophical Dialogue" is now online. Here's a complete TOC:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Gadamerian Hermeneutics and the Letters as Dialogue
• Chapter 2: Authenticity, the Self, and Philosophy as Reflection
• Chapter 3: Love and Freedom
• Chapter 4: Bad Faith and de Beauvoir's Gendered Self
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

In related news, The Chronicle of Higher Education today reports that a new generation of scholars is exploring the philosophy and politics of Sartre (thanks to Bookslut for the link).

The Fellowship of Style

Having recommended the new edition of The Chicago Manual of Style to Rael (editor, technology maven, and all-around mensch) for use as a reference, I'm thrilled to learn that he's bypassed the index and is actually reading it. His one-line review brings a knowing smile to my face:

an anal-retentive's Lord of the Rings in which an everyeditor goes on a voyage of pedantic discovery

Frodo was a hack.

He's Crafty

I just finished knitting a hat for my niece last night, and today I was pleasantly surprised to learn from BoingBoing (and they should know) that my dorky hobby is now considered hip. Check out the cool new book, the blog, and the project web site. Who knew I was such a hipster?

Talk Like a Texan

Since I spent my adolescence in the rich linguistic landscape of Texas, I couldn't help loving and laughing along with Maud Newton's "Favorite Expressions of My Deceased (and Beloved) Texan Grandmother, with Explanations." I particularly enjoyed #2:

She's really shittin' and flyin' now.

(Translation: "She's nouveau riche and has just bought something that proves it." To the best of my understanding, shitting while flying, as a pigeon would, is glamorous to anyone who would wear a mink coat and drive a Corvette to go grocery shopping.)

Here are a few of my own favorites that she didn't mention:

It's rainin' like a cow pissin' on a flat rock.

(Translation: "It's raining heavily." Hey, it's an image, right?)

Looks like a real frog-strangler.

(Translation: ditto.)

I'm tireder than a one-legged man in an ass-kickin' contest.

(Translation: "I'm very tired." I think I've also heard a "one-armed paper-hanger" version of this one, but I think this version is a bit more uniquely Texan.)

I'm hotter than a rat's ass in a cornfield.

(Translation: "The temperature outside is uncomfortably high." To be honest, I never really understood this one, though that hasn't stopped me from using it.)

I want you on him like a duck on a june bug.

(Translation: "Get as close to him as you can." Another variation on the "fly on shit" or "white on rice" expression, this was one of my soccer coach's favorite ways of describing man-on-man defense.)

Any Texans out there, please feel free to add to this list. For that matter, I'd love to be exposed to idioms from other regions as well.

Hotzeplotz Update

It seems that Michael Chabon has provided The Seattle Times with a few more details about the historical circumstances that surround Hotzeplotz (thanks to The Elegant Variation for the following convenient excerpt):

In 1939, the U.S. Interior Department recommended that the Alaskan territory be developed through importing skilled laborers from around the world, including Jewish refugees from Europe who were escaping the Nazis. President Roosevelt backed the plan, but opposition in Alaska was enough to persuade Congress to reject the bill.
In Chabon's "Hotzeplotz," the bill passed.

"And since it did, Israel did not happen," he said. "So the book explores the idea of a world with no Israel, where Jews are moved completely onto a side track of history, unlike now, where ... this little country of 5 million people, dominates the headlines and gets an insanely disproportionate amount of world attention--and grief."

In related news, The Elegant Variation also reports that Chabon is helping to launch a writers' series for Nextbook:

Nextbook's first major contribution to the local scene is to bring 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon to town Wednesday to launch a writers series. But the New York-based organization already has been busy throughout the year building a relationship with local libraries--buttressed by a three-year, $725,000 grant--and other events with decidedly secular Jewish themes.

"What made Seattle an interesting place for Nextbook is it has a really good library system, a growing Jewish population, and it is a city of readers," said Matthew Brogan, a non-Jew who left his position as head of Seattle Arts & Lectures to become Nextbook's program director. "We aren't promoting religion. We're really about cultural literacy."

(Thanks to MoorishGirl for directing me to this thread at The Elegant Variation.)

Grape Press Update

For those who are interested, Chapter 1 (Gadamerian Hermeneutics and the Letters as Dialogue) and Chapter 2 (Authenticity, the Self, and Philosophy as Reflection) of "Ideas of Life, Liberty, and Authenticity: Sartre's and de Beauvoir's Amorous Philosophical Dialogue" are now online.

Loved It, Actually

Since I'm not a huge fan of romantic comedies, I probably would not have been very interested in seeing Love Actually, if not for the fact that it was written and directed by the genius behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, and Notting Hill (which I only consented to see based on my appreciation of Four Weddings and which I was surprised to have enjoyed). But knowing this, I did actively seek it out at my neighborhood multiplex, and I was glad I did.

Love Actually is a fine film, and I recommend you see it. It does follow the format for a basic romantic comedy, but it does so with more sensitivity and depth than most movies in that genre. While much of the movie is laugh-out-loud funny, it also has quite a few heavy moments (think the poem read during the funeral scene in Four Weddings) and complications that remind you that relationships succeed or fail for a variety of reasons, few of which are ever generic or obvious. None of the story lines are simple boy gets girl or girl doesn't get boy sort of situations.

Almost all of the many distinct, intertwined characters and story lines were crucial to the movie. Though I can think of one story line that could have been dropped without losing too much, only one character's story really hurt the movie (it's not one of the central story lines though, so my disappointment with it is proportional with the screen time it was allotted). In all, I think you'll find that at least an hour and fifty minutes of the two-hour movie will have been time well spent.

Now I can't wait for The Edge of Reason! Since Colin Firth played Bridget's love interest in Bridget Jones's Diary, I'm particularly interested in seeing how they handle the fact that Colin Firth, the actor, has such an important part in the sequel. He's central to the funniest scene in the book.

The Grapes Have Gone to Press

The Grape Press is now ready for your reading pleasure. The first, and probably the longest, essay that will appear on the site is titled "Ideas of Life, Liberty, and Authenticity: Sartre's and de Beauvoir's Amorous Philosophical Dialogue." It's over six years old (it was my undergraduate thesis in 1997), so if you have any questions about it please be patient with my responses. Here's the abstract:

In this paper, through a Gadamerian hermeneutical analysis of Sartre's and de Beauvoir's letters while Sartre was away at war, as a written example of their amorous philosophical dialogue, and their later works as products of this dialogue, I show how they failed to achieve "authenticity" in their own relationship as they themselves defined it. Specifically, I address this failure precisely with regard to both the complete synthetic unity of consciousness and as absolute individual freedom, especially within their relationship of love. This failure of Sartrean existentialism to handle intimacy causes the entire system, supposedly formed from experience, to crumble.

If this happens to whet your appetite for the main event, the Introduction will soon follow. I'll post here when it's been added.

Update
The Introduction is now online.

Coming Soon: The Grape Press

I'm working on a sister site for The Olive Press. The primary reason for beginning this new site is to revive a bit of my intellectual curiosity and perhaps spark some dialogue with others who are interested in doing the same. While I record daily thoughts here, the spinoff will be updated less regularly.

To get this venture started, the initial posts, which will be quite long, will be serial installments of essays I've written (in what now seems like another lifetime) on a variety of philosophical topics. I'll probably slip in a short notification on this site whenever I add content to the new one. As the site matures (see how optimistic I am?), I might rethink or expand the format to include links to other, perhaps more challenging, content. Who knows, I might even solicit original content from others or write some new content myself. We'll see how it goes.

Since I've already used The Olive Press (based on Aristotle's anecdote in The Politics), I'm naming the new site The Grape Press. Why? According to Wikipedia, "Other versions [of the story] say [Thales] bought the wine presses, rather than the olive presses." (Perhaps you're wondering why I'm not calling it The Wine Press, then. I just think that grape maintains a more graceful symmetry with olive.)

Language Abuses Exposed

Dennis DiClaudio is quite irritated (not aggravated, mind you) by "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused by Insipid Brothers-in-Law." (Thanks to Maud for the link.)

Wanting

Though to me Christmas feels like something in the distant future, I guess it's approaching more rapidly than I give it credit for, because I've already been asked for gift ideas from a few interested parties. Since explicitly asking for gifts has always made me uncomfortable (even answering a direct question regarding my desires is difficult), I've decided to do something I haven't done since I was a kid: I've created a wish list.

This was actually pretty fun, once I got into the spirit of it. I figured if I just posted it here, where hardly anyone ever looks, I might avoid some of the awkwardness of the enterprise. At any rate, if anyone is interested, I've made it easy. Just scroll down the sidebar on the right side of this page and look under the new "Wanting" heading. There you'll find my Amazon.com Wish List (in no particular order) and a few things that Amazon.com doesn't sell (or that they do sell, but that can be found at a lower price and/or more timely delivery at the link I provide).

For those of you who have no reason or desire to give me a gift, simply consider this list as another window into my personality, just like the contents of the other headings in the sidebar.

Now I'm a Believer

For years I've been in search of the perfect magazine, something substantial that I could read cover-to-cover every month. My search has finally ended with The Believer. Published by the good folks at McSweeney's:

The Believer is a monthly magazine where length is no object. There are book reviews which are not necessarily timely, and which are very often very long. There are interviews which are also very long.

The Believer contains no ads and is printed in four colors on heavy-stock paper. Each issue contains essays, book reviews, interviews (every month at least one with a philosopher), charts, uncopyrighted ideas free for the taking ("Idea Share"), as well as more timely features that profile the latest in power tools, mammals, motels, lights, and children.

Every month venerated and/or destitute writers answer the question "What are you working on?"; we also compile lists of books that are faster and easier to read than any of the books they contain. Every month, Charles Burns draws the four most attractive subjects of the interviews and articles (in Issue Three's case, that means Steve Erickson, Frank Herbert, Liz Phair, and Richard Rorty).

The content is incredible, and it's all contained in a neatly designed package that's a pleasure to leaf through. The November issue is supposedly available, but I'm still looking for it. Where else am I going to find McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers (author of the appropriately titled A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the excellence of which pardons him for the rather disappointing You Shall Know Our Velocity!) interviewing David Foster Wallace?

From Here to Hotzeplotz

According to his message in The Believer, Michael Chabon (author of the wonderful Wonder Boys and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) is currently "working on a novel, working title Hotzeplotz." Here's how he describes this work in progress:

It's set in the Alaskan panhandle, in the present day, in the territory that was opened to the Jewish refugees of Europe, after Congress passed the King-Havenner Bill of 1940. The precarious balancing act of this Yiddish-speaking nation-within-a-nation is imperiled by the discovery of a mysterious skull in a construction site, and the novel unfolds as its protagonist, a homicide detective named Meyer Landsman, investigates. "Hotzeplotz" is the name of a real town in the Ukraine or someplace, but it's used in the Yiddish expression "from here to Hotzeplotz," meaning more or less the back of nowhere, Bumfuck, Iowa, the ends of the earth.

If you're as excited as I am, you can check Chabon's web site for updates.

Eco-logy

Last year, during the week that Baudolino was released, I had the opportunity to hear Umberto Eco speak at Harvard's Askwith Forum at the Graduate School of Education. At the time, I expected him to read from Baudolino and was surprised to find that he barely mentioned his new book at all. Instead, he chose to discuss the problem of translation.

Though The Name of the Rose is very accessible and one of my favorite books, I expected a stuffy, showy, and overly intellectual lecture from the author of Interpretation and Overinterpretation and Foucault's Pendulum. I should have remembered that he's also the author of the very funny How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays, because I was pleasantly surprised by his warm demeanor, conversational approach, intellectual humility, and abundant humor.

His talk began something like this:

I frequently feel irritated when I read essays on the theory of translation that, even though brilliant and perceptive, do not provide enough examples. I think translation scholars should have had at least one of the following experiences during their life: translating, checking and editing translations, or being translated and working in close cooperation with their translators.

As an editor, I worked for 20 years in a publishing house. As a translator, I made only two translations, which took me many years of reflection and hard work; these were from the Exercices de Style by Raymond Queneau and Gerard de Nerval's Sylvie. As an author, I have almost always collaborated with my translators, an experience that started with my early essays and became more and more intense with my four novels.

Irrespective of the fact that some philosophers or linguists claim there are no rules for deciding whether one translation is better than another, everyday activity in a publishing house tells us that it is easy to establish that a translation is wrong and deserves severe editing. Maybe it is only a question of common sense, but common sense must be respected.

Of course, I didn't record his talk, and my memory is not good enough to reproduce it verbatim. This is actually an excerpt from his new book, Mouse or Rat?: Translation as Negotiation (see the longer excerpt in The Guardian), which now explains why he chose this as the topic for his talk. By the time Baudolino was released, he'd long since finished working on it, and he'd preferred to discuss something a little more fresh.

Eco's anecdotes and insights into treating translation as negotiation are enthralling, and his unique perspective on the subject (as a translator, editor, and translated author) keeps it as real as it is interesting. Rather than present a formal treatise, he invites you into a lively, rewarding dialogue. I can't wait to get my hands on his book, but so far (beginning on November 13) it's only available in the UK. When will it cross the pond and reach my local bookseller, where I can flip through it before actually buying it?

One last thought/question: was the book written in English, or is this book a translation from the original Italian in which Eco normally writes? Perhaps this is not an important question, though, since even if it's a translation, it's surely the result of a successful negotiation.
(Thanks again to Maud Newton for this link.)

Colophon Fun

As a production editor at O'Reilly, one of the best things about wrapping up a book is being able to write the colophon, which describes the animal that appears on the cover. Here's a sneak peak at the one I just finished for SQL Tuning:

The animal on the cover of SQL Tuning is a salamander. Though mature salamanders bear a superficial resemblance to small lizards, salamanders are not reptiles; rather, they are amphibians that retain their tails as adults. Like all amphibians, a salamander begins life underwater as a gelatinous egg and develops through a series of stages. Newly hatched salamander larvae resemble tadpoles (the larval form of toads and frogs) and breathe through gills. As they mature, salamanders develop legs and lungs, which allow them to leave the water and breathe air. But they remain in or around streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, or moist woodlands throughout their lives. They must return to a freshwater source to lay their eggs.

The most immediately recognizable difference between adult salamanders and lizards is the former's lack of scales; a salamander's skin is smooth and porous and is used to absorb moisture. Salamanders' skin can be any of a variety of colors--from brown or black to yellow or red--and is often covered with dark spots, bars, or stripes. As they grow, salamanders molt their skin, usually every few days or every few weeks. Salamanders also have the ability to shed and regrow their tails and other parts of their body that become severed or damaged. Unlike other amphibians, salamanders are carnivorous at every stage of their life cycle (tadpoles are herbivorous), and their diet consists of worms, insects, snails, and small fish.

Mature salamanders are usually about 4 to 8 inches long, though they can be as short as 2 inches and as long as 70 inches. Most have four legs, though some have only two forelegs. Their front feet each have four clawless toes, while hind feet, when present, have five toes. Salamanders are nocturnal and usually divide their time between the land and water, though some live exclusively in the water and a few are purely land-dwelling. When they swim, they make little use of their limbs. Instead, they use their laterally compressed (i.e., taller than it is wide) tail and muscle contraction to propel themselves through the water, as eels do. Some tree-dwelling salamanders have prehensile tails, which they can use to grasp branches.

The name salamander (from the Greek salamandra) originally applied to a legendary creature that could live in and extinguish fire. Aristotle is largely responsible for perpetuating this myth; in his History of Animals, he supports the story that the salamander "not only walks through the fire but puts it out in doing so." The application of the name salamander to an actual amphibian was first recorded in 1611, at which time the supernatural characteristics of the mythological animal became attributed to the actual animal. The common belief (mistaken, of course) that salamanders can endure fire persisted well into the 19th century.

If you're interested in reading a few of my colophons from past books, check out Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic .NET (double-breasted cormorant), Content Syndication with RSS (American kestrel), Java Data Objects (bilby), Essential CVS (bobacs), and Mac OS X Hacks (adjustable wrench; books in the Hacks series feature photographs of tools instead of drawings/engravings of animals).

The Namesake Mistake

As someone who is responsible for creating and sending final files of books to printers, the following news (brought to my attention by Maud Newton) sounds like one of my worst nightmares:

In India, the wrong file of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake went to press. The writer's debut novel was littered with typographical errors when it appeared in bookstores. An employee in Britain gets the blame for the file mix-up. (Via Moorish Girl.)

The print run for the incorrect file was 6,000 copies.