Category: publishing

“Six years after independence the country is seeing what [one academic observer] calls ‘a new wave’ of Montenegrin writers. Only a handful have really come to the fore internationally. But as the country is so small, he says, this is the ‘equivalent of 30 or 50 in the UK. It is very significant. There is something going on.'”

“Figes had commissioned hundreds of interviews with the relatives of victims of the gulag labour camps to produce a 700-page chronicle” – titled The Whisperers – “of ‘private life in Stalin’s Russia’ … But the Moscow-based publishers, and a historian who conducted some of the interviews, claim some of the material was misrepresented” and that the book contains numerous errors of fact.

“In one of the biggest upsets in literary prize history, the mobile services company Orange has announced this morning that it will not be renewing its sponsorship of the prize for women’s fiction that has borne its name since the award’s inception 17 years ago.”

“The work can be dull and stressful but it is rarely unpleasant: you can do it in bed, for a start, and it often has the same sort of compulsive fascination as a crossword puzzle.”

“The legendary writer’s reporting from the Toronto Star archives, featuring historical annotations by William McGeary, a former editor who researched Hemingway’s columns extensively for the newspaper, along with new insight and analysis from the Star‘s team of Hemingway experts.”

“Waterstones has announced a surprise tie-up with Amazon that will enable shoppers to pluck ebooks as well as physical books from its shelves.”

“A treasure trove of pre-revolutionary books and magazines has been discovered in the archives of the Russian State Polytechnical Museum Library in Moscow.” The materials, hidden behind false walls, were found as the library prepares for renovations.

Sylvia Beach Whitman, whose father, longtime owner George Whitman, died in December at 98, now hosts readings, small concerts, and festivals at the legendary little English-language bookshop. She still lets young writers and artists sleep there (at what they call “Hotel Tumbleweed”), but she has the place cleaned properly, and she’s put in (just imagine!) a cash register.

“Hachette, which has not made new e-books available to libraries since 2010, is reconsidering the idea. In a pilot program starting this spring (which is…now?), the publisher is working with two e-book distributors to bring a ‘selection of HBG’s recent bestselling e-books to 7 million library patrons.'”

“These ‘unglued’ e-books can then be easily accessed and read and shared by anyone, with anyone, on any device. (You know, like how it works with printed books.)”