Category: publishing

No, the e-book is not the end of civilization. If readers kindle to the Kindle, splendid: Any reading is better than no reading. Nothing valuable was ever preserved solely on Luddite grounds. The screening of America will inevitably come to include our encounters with serious prose, or what is rather comically described in our culture of speed as “long form.”

While the politics of their native country fills the news, Iranian American writers have been finding enthusiastic audiences since 2003, when Azar Nafisi’s wildly successful memoir “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and Marjane Satrapi’s innovative graphic novel “Persepolis” hit bookstores.

“Raymond Carver’s literary executor and his partner for the last 11 years of his life (he died in 1988, aged 50), Tess Gallagher, has declared her intention to publish the text of the stories as Carver wrote them.”

“Observers say the traditional author tour has been in decline: Fewer writers are being sent out, and those who do tour make fewer stops. Among the many reasons for this shift are marketing tools that have made it possible to orchestrate a virtual encounter, without the hassle or expense of travel.”

A federal appeals court on Thursday set aside a settlement between freelance writers and a group of publishers, including New York Times Co and Thomson Corp, in a copyright case involving work posted online or in databases.

“A generation of 10-year-olds are losing confidence in books, spending fewer hours a week reading at home and enjoying it less than five years ago, the study published yesterday found. Ministers immediately announced a £5m scheme to make more books available in nurseries and promised more radical reforms to the controversial literacy strategy.”

We listen to songs on the radio, but without songwriters they’d be pretty boring; we watch news on the television, but without writers it grinds to a standstill. No matter how many ways the world of the image tries to supersede the word, words and language continually reassert their primacy.

“Test results released Wednesday showed U.S. students, who took the test last year, scored about the same as they did in 2001, the last time the test was given — despite an increased emphasis on reading under the No Child Left Behind law.”

The National Book Critics Circle asked its members t recommend this year’s best titles…

“The award most dreaded by authors was established in 1993 by the late Auberon Waugh when he was editor-in-chief of The Literary Review. Previous winners have included U.S. writer Tom Wolfe and British author Sebastian Faulks.”