Category: publishing

Barnes, 65, has been shortlisted three times before for Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) and Arthur and George (2005).

“The poem is a form of texting … it’s the original text,” says Carol Ann Duffy. “It’s a perfecting of a feeling in language – it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.”

“We knew from the longlist that this was a Booker keen on surprises, but with the shortlist omission of Alan Hollinghurst the judges have sprung their biggest surprise yet.”

“Although the number of novels that sold 10,000 copies or more was similar to 2010 levels (97 in 2011 compared to 92 in 2010), BookScan data suggests mid-list sales are feeling the squeeze, with only 697 books selling 1,000 or more in August, down from 798 last year.”

“In 2006, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón published part of their graphic novel, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, in Slate. The book interprets the 9/11 Commission Report with images. To mark the [atrocity’s] anniversary, Slate is reprinting the first chapter.”

Novelist Lynn Coady: “Writing is an amoral process. Your ultimate responsibility is to the truth of the story you’re trying to tell.” That doesn’t sit well with those who feel their lives have been stolen.

Thanks to the Internet and superstore discount pricing, more than 2,000 bookstores have closed in the U.K. during the past six years. And it’s only going to get worse, book advocates warn.

Richard Nash, who pushed Soft Skull Press to prominence in the early 2000s, has moved on to Cursor and Red Lemonade – online communities for writers and readers that he thinks may help revolutionize publishing again.

Zines, those markers of ’90s do-it-yourself culture, have seen a dramatic comeback in the last few years – and they’re far more than “photocopied blogs.” Even Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan writes for them. Why now?

“The Seattle Public Library, a beloved civic trophy in a book-loving city, whose directors are plucked away for plum jobs by presidents and philanthropists and whose buildings are often beacons of design, is closed all week — yet again. The furlough, intended to save about $650,000 from the system’s $50 million budget, has become something of a late-summer tradition in recent years, hardly as welcome as the weather.”