Category: publishing

“So why does poetry matter? One reason is that many people still enjoy some sorts of poetry. The one sort they have never liked is the sort they are told to like.”

Two short poems scribbled by Ernest Hemingway in the back of a first edition volume of short stories are making headlines “as one of the most eye-catching attractions of this weekend’s antiquarian book fair at Olympia.”

“Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost’s former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.”

“Borders Group Inc. says it is cutting nearly 275 corporate positions as part of a plan announced last week by the nation’s second-largest bookseller to reduce annual expenses by $120 million… The cuts represent about 20 percent of its corporate jobs, but less than 1 percent of its total work force.”

Is the eBook finally on the public radar in a significant way? The early sales stats for Amazon’s Kindle reader would seem to indicate that it is. “Publishers are certainly beginning to take note of the Kindle’s rise, and of the implications of this with respect to Amazon’s monopoly on the distribution of ebooks.”

“I recognize that we now have many ways to convey, store, and reproduce the sorts of matter that formerly were monopolized by books. I like to think that I’m no bookworm, egghead, four-eyed paleface library rat. I often engage in activities that have no reference to the printed words. I realize that books are not the entire world, even if they sometimes seem to contain it. But I need the stupid things.”

“Microsoft’s announcement last Friday that it would discontinue its book- and journal-scanning initiatives left its partners at university research libraries pondering the future of efforts to digitize materials in their archives.”

Wendy Cope is one of Britain’s “most widely read and best-loved poets”, and is seen as a frontrunner for the position British Poet Laureate after the expected retirement of Andrew Motion next year. If appointed, Cope would be the first woman laureate. But maybe not. Infront of an audience this weekend she called the post “ridiculous” and “archaic”

“You might imagine that Hay is a lovely day out for all the family, a chance for children to meet the authors they love and, conversely, an opportunity for writers to meet the people who actually read their books. Of course, it’s no such thing. Mainly it’s a chance for ramblers and hippies to gather in a field and convince themselves that everyone thinks the same way that they do.”

“One publisher estimated that Amazon had sold roughly 10,000 Kindles, while another estimated that as many as 50,000 electronic-book readers of all types are in general circulation. But both publishers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that those figures were little more than educated guesses.”