Category: publishing

“Following the current trend for modern retellings of classic stories … a ‘major’ new project reimagining Shakespeare’s canon for a 21st-century audience” debuts in 2016 with Jeannette Winterson’s take on The Winter’s Tale and Anne Tyler’s version of The Taming of the Shrew.

The New Yorker received more letters (over 300) in response to Shirley Jackson’s story than to anything else the magazine had yet published. Only 18 of those responses were positive, Jackson later said; the rest were split between “bewilderment, speculation, and plain old-fashioned abuse” – and all too many readers thought the story was real.

As of Thursday morning, Paula Deen’s New Testament: 250 Recipes, All Lightened Up, ranked No. 1 on Amazon.com. The book is scheduled for October.

“France’s Socialist government aims to introduce a law preventing online retailer Amazon from offering both discounts and free delivery for books in France, the culture minister said, arguing this amounts to unfair competition.”

Journalist and novelist Hanan Al-Shaykh explains why she was moved to write new adaptations of favorite stories from the massive collection – and she explores how Scheherazade is even more resourceful, compassionate and compelling than we’d thought.

“There are multiple theories for the genre dominance in digital publishing, including the appeal of anonymity offered by e-reader devices, which don’t display the cover of a potentially embarrassing book for all the world to see.”

Adam Gopnik: “It isn’t the least of Stein’s virtues, or importance, that Hemingway was in many ways the popularizer of a style that she had invented. One could even say, to borrow Picasso’s famous disparaging remark about his imitators, that Stein did it first and Hemingway did it pretty. But, prettified or not, Hemingway’s style was the most influential in American prose for more than fifty years.”

“With losses mounting in its Nook segment, Barnes & Noble reported a net loss of $154.8 million in the fiscal year ended April 27, 2013 compared to a loss of $65.6 million in fiscal 2012.”

“Twenty four authors – including the acclaimed triumvirate of David Grossman, Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua – have put their names to an appeal to save the [Palestinian] villages of the South Hebron hills.”

“One of the great mysteries of 20th-century literary history is why Ralph Ellison never completed the highly anticipated second novel that he worked on for four decades after Invisible Man was published to wide acclaim in 1952.” Paul Devlin has a theory. (It’s all Norman Mailer’s fault.)