Category: publishing

Yes, that’s right — amid the worst economic crisis to hit the United States in decades, publishing executives are still making what many see as outrageous gambles on new manuscripts.

The faux memoir has become so common that you wonder what it says about our culture that so many people with access to power and the media lie so readily.

“Mayor Nutter said yesterday that five of the 11 library branches once scheduled to close permanently on Thursday are instead on track to be taken over by private foundations, wealthy individuals, companies, and community development corporations. … Though the services would vary from branch to branch, Nutter said the centers would likely retain book collections, computers, and perhaps even trained librarians.”

“The children’s book based on the story of a Holocaust survivor who met his future wife when she tossed him apples over a concentration camp fence has been recalled. The move came a few days after the North Miami-Dade couple on whom the book was based admitted their love story was a lie. Angel Girl was written by Coral Gables children’s book author Laurie Friedman and illustrated by Israeli illustrator Ofra Amit.”

“Six melancholic one-syllable words to summon all we know and feel about stark deprivation: ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’ But what if we coldly ask whether Oliver really needed any more — that is, was the Victorian workhouse diet sufficient for a 9-year-old boy?”

“In what without a doubt is the most astounding op-ed piece of the year, Karl Rove reveals that his friend and former boss, George W. Bush, has read probably hundreds of books over the course of his presidency. … But the books themselves reveal — actually, confirm — something about Bush that maybe Rove did not intend. They are not the reading of a widely read man, but instead the books of a man who seeks — and sees — vindication in every page.”

“The Wonder Book story offers the standard plot elements of successful entrepreneurial sagas: hard work, risk-taking, technical innovation, good luck. But … the story of how Chuck Roberts came to fill up those 54,000 square feet of warehouse space is also the story of how swiftly the once-sleepy business of selling used books has been remade over the past decade. To Roberts, ‘the Web book business is literally the Wild West.'”

At editor Robert Giroux’s memorial service this month, editor Paul Elie cautioned the assembled, “It is tempting to float an analogy between his death and the death of a certain kind of publishing. But the fact is that his kind of publishing was rare in his own time, and so was he.” The legendary Giroux died in September, just as publishing was entering a particularly rough patch.

“In 2009, it won’t be works of non-fiction, but novels that command the majority of attention. This is because an unusual number of high-profile (and therefore newsworthy) novelists publish new books – and lots of those books are going to be unusually interesting.”

“Much of Canada’s finest literature is in the short-story form, and publication of a first-rate anthology of short fiction would be like the appearance of a new literary classic on the Canadian landscape. It would solidify our sense of possessing a vital literature.”