Category: publishing

“On April 23, World Book and Copyright Day, Amsterdam will be officially inaugurated as World Book Capital 2008. The ensuing year-long programme of events centres around an ‘open book’ theme, a reminder that Amsterdam’s infamous tolerance doesn’t just equate to legal coffeeshops and brothels – rather, it was vital in the city’s development as a refuge for the written word.”

The Harry Potter author “returned to the New York courtroom on Wednesday and told a judge that if he allows the fan-written lexicon to be published, it will clear the way for countless rip-offs of her books, as well as those by other authors.”

“A London-based Canadian financier and investment manager is establishing the world’s largest prize for non-fiction historical literature, and he’s getting his alma mater, Montreal’s McGill University, to administer it. Details of the $75,000 (U.S.) prize… are to be announced at a reception in Montreal later today.”

This year’s Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, handed out annually to books that grapple with race, will go to Junot Diaz for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Moshin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Diaz has already won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel.

It’s been exactly a year since the horrifying gun massacre at Virginia Tech University that killed 32. And while it would be stretching things to say that the campus has returned to normal, one professor says that “writing has been a powerfully cathartic refuge” for students and faculty alike.

Why aren’t there more women involved in helping to decide the winners of Canada’s literary prizes? “Nine of the 15 three-member juries assembled over the course of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for fiction have been male-dominated… Of the past 14 juries for the Governor-General’s Award for English-language fiction, nine have had a 2:1 male/female ratio.”

“Those who questioned whether reading was high on the list of the singer Lily Allen’s recreations appeared to be vindicated yesterday when the organisers of the £30,000 Orange Prize for fiction admitted that they had dropped her from their panel of judges after she failed to turn up to meetings.” Allen had said she withdrew for health reasons.

“Three first novelists remain in contention for this year’s Orange prize for fiction, in a shortlist announced this morning that pits them against three others with a total of 24 novels behind them.”

“It’s rare you visit a store these days that feels robust; more often than not they’re hanging in, defying fate. There are stable bookstores right now, but none that are solid.”

“Looking for new ways to attract young people, more than three quarters of the nation’s public libraries support gaming, including card games and online activities, according to a study coming out this week.”