Category: publishing

“When Saad Eskander talks about his library, he makes it sound a combination of a national healing process, a social crucible for establishing a more egalitarian society and a centre of free inquiry that Iraqi intellectuals have been denied for decades. But what does cultural education even mean?”

“Once a staple of many homes, the encyclopedia has become increasingly irrelevant in the internet age. A shelf of leather-bound books may look fabulous but, almost by definition, it becomes obsolete the moment it is published (you can look it up). Oh yeah — and they are way expensive.” So Britannica is incorporating some wiki input…

The daughter of the “Teflon” mafia don John Gotti has been sued by her publisher over failed plans to produce a memoir of her father’s career as a camera-friendly face of organised crime.

Is there still a need for women-only literary prizes like the Orange Prize? “What is it about being a woman that is particularly under threat, in need of attention, or indeed distinctive from being a man when it comes to picking up a pen?”

“Spain is experiencing an unprecedented boom in books. Once the nation that read fewer books than any other in Europe, Spaniards have become voracious readers, devouring more books than ever before.”

The public library board in the Idaho town of Nampa has “voted to permanently remove two sex education books from library shelves, storing them instead in the library director’s office and making them available only on request.”

“Jane Friedman, the president and chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, is stepping down from her post, becoming the second high-profile publishing executive to leave the top slot in the last month.”

“Waterstone’s alone sold over 19,000 copies, with the £100 special souvenir edition selling out in one morning. Queues began outside the chain’s Piccadilly store from 4.30pm the previous day. A luxury edition, designed by Bentley and costing £750, also sold out its 300-copy print run in under two hours in the UK.”

“Publishers’ plans to introduce age ranging guidance onto children’s books have met with fierce opposition from authors including Philip Pullman, Anne Fine and Michael Rosen, following a report of the growing protest last week on guardian.co.uk.”

“Rose Tremain is one of Britain’s most celebrated authors and yet her latest novel, the recipient of rave reviews, was not even longlisted for the Man Booker prize. So… it was a case of patience rewarded when she won the £30,000 Orange Broadband prize for fiction with The Road Home.”