Category: publishing

“Oates was nominated in fiction for “The Gravedigger’s Daughter,” along with Junot Diaz’s “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” which was passed over for a National Book Award nomination last fall.”

“If you want to know how independent booksellers really are doing, come ask us. Reacting to the closing of one bookshop by saying it is another death-knell of an industry simply isn’t fair or correct and can be counterproductive. Why not do a story about how some independents are doing fine because of their customers who want to support small businesses? Isn’t there a story in that?”

Sean Dodson has made a list. From Japan to Mexico to Brazil to London, these distinctive stores do it right, he says.

“The Office for National Statistics reveals that a quarter of people in the UK haven’t read a single book in the past year – a figure that has sent the government into a tailspin.” A catastrophe? “You won’t find ministers in a tizzy about non-attendance at art galleries or theatres. So why are books so elevated?”

“Presumably motivated by the fear of ‘corrupting’ young minds and offending readers, publishers have edited and elided passages and pictures with a politically correct zeal resembling Soviet agitprop.”

The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., has ordered an additional 50,000 copies of Sen. Obama’s million-selling policy book, “The Audacity of Hope,” and another 10,000 for his million-selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father.”

“The announcement on Monday that Vancouver-based Raincoast Books is suspending its domestic publishing program, shuttering its Ontario warehouse and laying off 20 employees this year is a harbinger of tough times ahead for the Canadian trade-book industry.”

“Gov. Matt Blunt on Tuesday appointed Walter Bargen to the newly created post. The author, 59, lives in Ashland and has more than 10 books to his credit. He also has won numerous awards for his work.”

“There was a time when great Persian poets such as Hafez, Rumi or Khayyam were present in people’s daily lives, permeating their speech even in the very rural regions, but now books scarcely figure in a country once recognised by its literature. Today, you are unlikely to see signs of literary life in Iran. Writers face immense challenges in getting their works read. Crackdowns imposed by Ahmadinejad’s government have plunged publishing into crisis.”

“Younger librarians, plus younger patrons, mean a changing library. More are creating bookstore atmospheres by adding cafes and dropping the Dewey Decimal System for topical categories. Three in four, according to Loriene Roy, offer free video gaming events, and of the patrons who attend those programs, well more than half return to the library for other types of events.”