“German publishing giant Bertelsmann AG said Wednesday it planned to publish a one-volume reference book containing the best of the Germany version of the popular online encyclopedia. The 993-page book will contain approximately 50,000 definitions and 1,000 illustrations and will be priced at about 20 euros.”
Category: publishing
Argentine Poet Wins Spain’s Top Lit Honor
Juan Gelman gets the 90,000-Euro Cervantes Prize. “His prolific work addresses among other issues the pain of loss under military juntas that ruled his country in the 1970s and 80s.”
A First: Self-Published Book Picks Up PEN/Ackerley Nomination
Jane Haynes’s Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am? is on the shortlist for the prestigious PEN/Ackerley prize for memoir and autobiography.
Nabokov’s Son Decides Not To Destroy Author’s Work
Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura will now not be thrown onto the flames, the 73-year-old has told Der Spiegel magazine, arguing that his father, the creator of Lolita and Pale Fire who died in 1977, would not want his son to suffer any more over his most tortuous dilemma.
The British Library’s Usability Woes
“What is going on at the British Library? Two years ago, admission policy was changed: undergraduates and anyone engaged on research (even riff-raff like me) could apply for passes to the lovely St Pancras building. Since then, more scholarly library users claim it is harder to get a seat. But the situation is worse…”
Study: Many Google Generation Students Are Illiterate Researchers
“From undergraduates to professors, people exhibit a strong tendency towards shallow, horizontal, flicking behaviour in digital libraries. Factors specific to the individual, personality and background are much more significant than generation.”
Authors Complain British Library Is Intolerably OverCrowded
“Two years after one of the world’s greatest libraries opened its doors to undergraduates and anyone working on research, high-profile writers and academics say that the struggle to find a desk is now intolerable. Library directors stand accused of increasing visitor numbers to boost funds and performance bonuses.”
Poetry By Example
Robert Pinsky answers some common questions about the state of modern poetry…
The Writing Life…
“Is it possible to lead a dedicated literary life in the billionaire-filled, media-crazed New York of today? To be heedless of the material world as you burrow into novels and ideas the way the old Partisan Review gang did in the ’40s and ’50s, to come up with notions that rock the intellectual landscape? And if so, who exactly is still paying attention?”
Darwin’s Evolution Goes Online
Some 90,000 of Charles Darwin’s papers are now online. “Among the gems are his first formulation of the theory of natural selection, his first written doubts that species were fixed and touching correspondence from his wife on religious faith.”