Category: publishing

“The book review will be a pull-out section that will be inserted in one of the newly created sections for The Weekend Journal that will launch later this month.”

Jack Shafer: “Just a decade ago, I hoarded all of my books, refusing to sell them or give them away, because I didn’t want to gamble that I wouldn’t need them on short notice … [Now, if] I ever need a copy of Drudge Manifesto again, I’ll be able to get it on the Web for a penny, plus shipping.” Or download the e-book …

New Federal rules “disqualified publications with paid circulations of less than 5,000 from receiving CPF assistance, with the result that virtually all the country’s literary magazines (among them The Malahat Review, Descant, Grain and Prairie Fire) were removed from government rolls.”

John James Audubon’s Birds of America sold for $8.8 million ten years ago. “The book contains 1,000 life-sized illustrations of almost 500 breeds. Only 119 complete copies of the 19th-century book are known to exist, and 108 are owned by museums and libraries.”

“My dream scenario would be that you could go into a bookshop, examine copies of every book in print that they’re able to offer, then for a fee have them produce in a minute or two a beautiful finished copy in a dust jacket that you would pay for and take home. Book making machines exist and they’re remarkably sophisticated.”

Stealing from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is not necessarily plagiarism. It can also be an experimental form of literature. Even a form of “beauty”. This was the angry defence made by the best-selling French novelist Michel Houellebecq this week after allegations that he lifted passages of his latest book from Wikipedia.fr.

The Times seems to have a bias toward male authors. The question then becomes where the bias comes from. Is it unconscious? But the question might be more complicated. Is the Times slighting books by women because those books are more likely to fall under the category of “commercial fiction,” a category that critics are alleged to routinely ignore?

“Swearing in children’s books, and even in books for teenagers, used to be pure anathema.As swearing on the telly, in films and by grouchy adults who don’t watch their tongues becomes steadily normalised, however, our 19th-century notions of profanity and propriety have been quietly eroded.”

“More than 40 percent of Americans over the age of 13 purchased a book; the average age of the American book buyer is 42.”

“Really? Is that where we are now, framing the discussion over literature in terms of public image rather than language and narrative? What does this have to do with the quality?”