Category: publishing

What do CEOs read that gives them an edge? “Serious leaders who are serious readers build personal libraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete.”

It’s choosing a book. “Time-deprived women — and a few men — are making room for book clubs, a trend that took off in 1996 when Oprah Winfrey launched her club with Jacquelyn Mitchard’s “The Deep End of the Ocean.” But members often find it difficult to choose a book. Avid readers have plowed through the obvious choices. Some crave juicy reads, while others want to tackle classics. As a result, members may join a book club in hopes of diversifying their library and instead find the club taking a safe route.”

“UK book chain Waterstones said more than 250,000 fans turned up at midnight to its shops across the UK. WH Smith said it had sold a total of 15 of the books per second at 400 of its shops since they opened just after midnight on Saturday. And supermarket chain Asda said it had sold 250,000 copies between midnight and 0900 BST, half of its entire Deathly Hallows stock.”

Scholastic believes that DeepDiscount.com and its supplier, Chas. Levy Co.’s Levy Home Entertainment distribution arm, violated their contractual obligations to ensure that “Deathly Hallows” went on sale no sooner than one minute after midnight on Saturday. In a suit filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., Scholastic alleged that Infinity Resources Inc., doing business as DeepDiscount.com, shipped “Deathly Hallows” as much as a week “before the contractually permitted shipping date.”

“Did Harry Potter really change the world? …Plenty of claims have been made. Among them: Harry got kids to read, especially boys, and he revitalized the sleepy universe of children’s publishing. Talk to informed observers of that universe, however, and you’ll find that nearly every claim made for Harry is open to interpretation, if not dispute.”

Only days before the release of the last Harry Potter book, leaked copies are getting out. “With so many copies already printed of what is confidently predicted to be a huge bestseller, the risks of the feverishly anticipated story leaking have always been high, particularly so since the book’s author, JK Rowling, has revealed two characters are to die before the story ends, hinting that they may also be among the most popular.”

The population of Winnipeg, Manitoba is 648,000, and 413,513 Winnipeggers own a library card. Ten years ago the figure was 328,000. Traffic at the downtown Millennium Library has jumped 50 per cent in the last year to 1.5 million visitors. So what accounts for the love affair with the city’s public libraries?

New York will be one big Harry Potter party when the new book is released Friday night. “The front of the Time Warner Center will be bathed in orange light, and the lobby in front of the Borders bookstore at the center will be draped in curtains and decorated with ice sculptures. Magicians and balloon artists will be on hand, and a fortuneteller will look into the future at a ‘divination station.’ Then, shortly before midnight, a horse and carriage will pull up…”

Speculation has run rampant concerning what will be revealed when the final installment of the Harry Potter series is released later this week. But rather than guessing at the denouement, one newspaper commissioned a collection of local authors to pen alternate endings to the hugely successful franchise.

“Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm, 10 miles east of Havana, is the place Ernest Hemingway called home from 1939 to 1960, and it is there that the author’s abundant tastes, in literature and in life, are on display.” But the house is in decay, and getting help from American rescuers is being hampered by US government sanctions against Cuba.