Category: publishing

“Bush was paid a reported $7 million US for the book, which had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies. Crown says it now has 2.6 million hardcovers in print in anticipation of strong holiday sales for the book.”

“Judged by his profile in the media and entertainment industries, no Canadian author alive or dead is as popular today as Mordecai Richler … Judged by his profile on university courses that teach Canadian literature, however, Mordecai Richler barely exists. No other author so widely admired both in his day and after is less conspicuous in the emerging canon of Canadian literature.”

“I asked a number of interesting people what book they’d read in 2010 that left a big impression on them, or filled them with intellectual energy, or made them wish it were better known. If all three, then so much the better.”

“The loss of the literary placards, which have offered a reprieve from the usual advertising array of laser acne treatments and injury lawyers, marks the first time in 18 years that the subways will not feature a pinch of erudition.”

“Booktrust, the independent charity set up to encourage reading, is to lose all government funding for its children’s gifting programmes Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up, in England.”

“Ngram, Google’s new searchable dataset of words and phrases from 5.2 million published books, got quite a workout on its first day. Within 24 hours after its launching last Thursday afternoon, more than a million queries were run.”

“Hannah blasted the form out of the Joycean model of epiphany – whereby a short story seeks to impart to its characters, or readers, a hard-earned kernel of revelation – toward a more ecstatic model of release: The men and women in Hannah’s fiction, often at great cost, stumble upon – or crowbar their way into – moments of escape, explosion, literal flight, even transcendence.”

The late writer’s father is a philosophy professor, and DFW seriously considered becoming one himself. James Ryerson considers the ways in which serious philosophical issues suffused DFW’s work: e.g., “Roger Federer as Religious Experience” (the role of aesthetics in watching sports) and “Consider the Lobster” (the ethics of boiling a crustacean alive).

“Is Superman’s heat vision a weapon? If so, would the Second Amendment protect his right to melt pistols and cook hamburgers with it? … [A] new blog and the interest it is generating shows that there are people who look at an epic battle between superheroes and supervillains and really, really want to know who should be found liable for the broken buildings and shattered streets.”

The most prestigious literary prize in the Arab world unveiled its nominees this month, riling critics who say it is a politically charged shortlist crafted to appeal to Western audiences.