The Tuttle Story: "Books to Span the East and West"
Many people are surprised to learn that the world's largest publisher of books on Asia had its humble beginnings in the tiny American state of Vermont. The company's founder, Charles E. Tuttle, belonged to a New England family steeped in publishing.
Immediately after WW II, Tuttle served in Tokyo under General Douglas MacArthur and was tasked with reviving the Japanese publishing industry. He later founded the Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, which thrives today as one of the world's leading independent publishers.
Though a westerner, Tuttle was hugely instrumental in bringing a knowledge of Japan and Asia to a world hungry for information about the East. By the time of his death in 1993, Tuttle had published over 6,000 books on Asian culture, history and art—a legacy honored by the Japanese emperor with the "Order of the Sacred Treasure," the highest tribute Japan can bestow upon a non-Japanese.
“With a backlist of 1,500 titles, Tuttle Publishing is more active today than at any time in its past—inspired by Charles Tuttle's core mission to publish fine books to span the East and West and provide a greater understanding of each.”
Excerpt From: Yoel Hoffmann. “Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death.” Apple Books.
Interesting Tuttle humble beginning story, yet the irony I had since 2007 still lingers, about the print is dead, publishing struggles in the new age of tech since Amazon Kindle. The News Media struggles to compete with all this digital platform. 2007 was the wake up call when the recession hits Australia, right after my graduation. Lots of publishing company collapsed and forcefully laid of its workers.
Last weekend I went over to BBW Big Bad Wolf book sales of the year, most of the visitors are book enthusiast obviously but the range of the book is not much, import book are leftovers, the Indonesian book are just not interesting enough. The only biggest range was the children section, selling along with the toys.
This year some Indonesia bookstores has closed their offline stores (Book & Beyond, Gunung Agung end of this year) due to bankruptcy and big sales is the only time for book lovers to buy at bargain price. Only 3 bookstores has left in Jakarta alone (Kinokuniya, Periplus, Gramedia). I wonder what will be the fate of printed books and bookstores in the near future? Where book has its expired date when we don't know how to take care of them. Today just got a second hand book that has been yellowish and fungi mould from second hand book online store. Hope all the book out there has a second life.
Burn after reading.
