Category: publishing

“Wilson missed a step in his account of our early socialization: the moment someone first got up in front of the fire and told a story that showed the others — especially the children — the magnificence of the universe around them, and made them want to be bigger-souled than they’d been so far. Somewhat further down the evolutionary path, our family does its campfire storytelling by way of audiobooks in the car.”

Audiobook fans know the truth: The quality of the writing matters, but what affects listeners most is the quality of the reader.

“Across the 40 books studied, characters who swore were more likely to be wealthier, more attractive and more popular or socially influential, the researchers reported.”

“Amazon reviews are just as likely to give an accurate summary of a book’s quality as those of professional newspapers, according to a study from Harvard Business School.”

“This year sees the bicentenary of Robert Browning, Charles Dickens and Edward Lear. No need to over-think the glorious posterity of the Inimitable. He was simply a genius who created a whole world for ages to come. But with Browning and Lear it gets more complicated. … What are the qualities that make a writer endure and flourish?”

“Though the Gutenberg Bible was certainly the first mass produced printed work, it was hardly the first printed book – nor was it even the first made using movable type. Chinese and Korean inventors had been producing printed books for centuries before Gutenberg was born.”

In a post to help launch The New Yorker‘s expanded books blog, the most famously censored author of the 20th century reminds us (wittily) of all the things writers would rather talk about – and reminds us why we do need to discuss censorship every so often.

“We’ll debate about books under-noticed or too much noticed, and celebrate writers we’ve … We’ll recommend and we’ll theorize. Daily essays will be the blog’s mainstay, with books as an anchor for wide-ranging cultural comment.”

The monthly’s editor, Nancie Clare, says, “I think it’s fair to say there were revenue issues … I don’t think they got rid of us because they don’t like us.” The magazine’s seven staffers may or may not be offered jobs elsewhere at the newspaper.

“There were no opposition leaders at the head of the vast column of people that peacefully wound its way through central Moscow on Sunday. There was, instead, a corpulent poet … A bespectacled detective novelist was autographing everything at hand … People mobbed a diminutive grandmother who has won many of Russia’s literary prizes.”