Category: publishing

“Amazon’s holiday-season gambit, and a New York Times op-ed denouncing it written by novelist Richard Russo, alerted readers who value their local bookstores to the possibility that those stores will vanish if we don’t make a point of patronizing them. But what if you prefer e-books?”

“‘We come too late to say anything which has not been said already,’ lamented La Bruyère at the end of the 17th century. The fact that he came too late even to say this (Terence having pipped him to the post back in the 2nd century BC) merely proved his point.”

“Since 2000, Random House has had a 25 per cent stake in McClelland & Stewart, a Canadian publisher established in 1906 with a renowned stable of authors that includes Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Rohinton Mistry, Farley Mowat and Michael Ondaatje. The decline in sales of print books, pressure from digital publishing and the difficult economy have put financial pressure on McClelland & Stewart in the past few years.”

“A novel by an anonymous Chinese author living in America, which started life as a blog, has become a worldwide publishing sensation. It has been snapped up by publishers in 15 countries who have been impressed by the fact that it has sold more than a million copies in China and inspired a film by an Oscar-winning Chinese director,” Zhang Yimou.

For real: It’s the Hatchet Job of the Year Award — and the critic who wins gets a year’s supply of potted shrimp.

“Staff and visitors at the National and University Library began putting on extra layers on Friday, as the heating was switched off after the library failed to pay its bills. The library, in central Sarajevo, is facing the same fate as Bosnia’s History Museum and Art Gallery, recently closed because they could not pay for basic operating costs.”

“Universities have raised almost £50m from fining students for overdue library books in the past six years. Leeds University accrued the most money from overdue books, collecting more than £1.8m in fines for the six academic years from 2004/05.”

“In choosing accent pieces, opt for bright colors and transcend the dreary blandness of Mary and Tyrone’s summer house in ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night.’ Shop smart and avoid the look of lifeless rot that made Tyrone feel detached from his surroundings and indifferent to his wife’s morphine addiction. If despair persists, avoid mirrors.”

One recent bestseller list showed that 42 of the topselling 50 books sold more in e-books than in print, thanks to the millions of new e-readers that came as gifts over the holidays.

“Not since the palmy days of late-Victorian publishing has so much care and attention been lavished on the hardback. Go into any bookshop now and you will find piles of brand-new hardbacks sporting coloured endpapers, scarlet silk bookmarks, heavy, deckle-edged paper and elaborate laminated boards.”