Category: publishing

A list…

What makes a novel Jewish? The short answer, of course, is that the maker does. Say you are the real, chosen thing, historically and genetically certifiable. Say you have the nose, the one-generation-old name, the ironic, self-deprecating temperament, the face in which can plainly be seen the entire map of Poland.

“After the arrest this week of three men who wanted to kill a Danish cartoonist, about a dozen papers in Denmark have republished the infamous Muhammad cartoons. Some observers notice a sea-change in Denmark’s integration debate since the 2006 riots in the Muslim world.”

“What is believed to be the first recording of Allen Ginsberg reading his iconic Beat poem ‘Howl’ has been found at the library” of Portland’s Reed College. The recording predates by more than a month a Berkeley recording previously thought to be the earliest.

“In a surprise move, Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, has switched publishers for his next three books.”

“In place of a closed, privileged and costly system, it will help open up the world of learning to everyone who wants to learn. It will be a first step toward freeing scholarship from the stranglehold of commercial publishers by making it freely available on our own university repository.”

Last month, charges were raised against a scholarly edition of Robert Frost’s private notebooks. The work, first published in early 2007, had been heralded as offering a rare glimpse into the reclusive poet’s creative process. But now the notebook transcriptions appear to be riddled with errors that made Frost look like “a dyslexic and deranged speller,” who often “made no sense.”

HarperCollins has decided to beging offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site.

“They are really about brand consolidation for beer companies, phone companies, coffee companies and even frozen food companies,” she says. “Her criticisms were attacked as hypocritical by senior publishing figures, who questioned why she had agreed to accept awards for her books.”