Category: publishing

The international version of the Kindle goes on sale this month. “Until now, the device was only available in the U.S. Amazon.com, which introduced the Kindle in 2007, is trying to extend its dominance in the electronic-reader market to the rest of the world.”

“The university will announce today that Houghton Library, Harvard’s primary repository for rare books and manuscripts, will house the John Updike Archive, making the library the center for studies on the life and work of the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and prolific novelist, poet, and critic.”

“The prize,” to be announced tomorrow, “has a political edge, so will the academy throw a bone to Barack Obama by giving it to an American for the first time in 16 years? Could be, though recent precedent suggests that U.S. writers don’t stand a chance.”

“Some analysts say the broad-based opposition to Google’s lofty plans was unprecedented and a harbinger of the intense scrutiny the company’s ambitious agenda will face. ‘This was the first issue through which Google’s power became clearly articulated to the public,’ said [one observer].”

Boyd Tonkin: “So often in recent years a playground for the maverick judge, the runaway panel, the perverse decision, yesterday the Man Booker Prize rewarded a genuinely outstanding novel. … Wolf Hall achieves the near-impossible task of rescuing the Tudor court saga from cliché and melodrama.”

“After weeks of longlists, shortlists, readings, discussions, voting, heated debate, posts from authors, praise, blame and all the other marvellous workings of democracy,” readers of the paper’s books blog selected (by a large margin) Rana Dasgupta’s novel Solo, about a man living through the 20th century in Bulgaria. Dasgupta will receive a Guardian mug.

“A late run of support for Simon Mawer has sent the author shooting from outsider to second favourite in the race for the Booker prize, as judges prepare to decide on a winner this afternoon. … Mawer is now at 7/2, behind [Hilary] Mantel at 10/11….”

“Somehow, the old-school format of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire romance series hasn’t alienated the vast army of Twi-hards, most of whom, by the way, qualify as digital natives, the generation who supposedly have no patience for print. … Some even claim to find printed books a welcome break from staring at screens all day.”

“The odds-on favourite is Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, a sweeping historical novel about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s marriage fixer. Both William Hill and Paddy Power are offering odds of 4/5 (win £4 for every £5 staked).” Which raises the question: “Do bookies read the Bookers?”

“JM Coetzee will not be ruining his reputation as one of the world’s most reclusive writers by turning up to the Booker prize ceremony” on Tuesday. “Of course, Coetzee may be doing the world a favour. It is said that he smiles rarely and can sit through a dinner party without saying a word.”