Category: publishing

“Book publishers in recent years have moved away from buying ads in standalone book-review sections in favor of paying to stack mounds of books in the front of chain bookstores. Some small literary publications, such as the New York Review of Books, are showing growth, but the book review as a separate section is endangered not only at the Los Angeles Times but at other major newspapers like the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and San Diego Union-Tribune.”

“The book market along Mutanabi Street was a throwback to the Baghdad of old…. Somehow it survived the war, until Monday, when a powerful suicide car bomb hit the market, slicing through the heart of the capital’s intellectual scene. It killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 65. … ‘There are no Americans or Iraqi politicians here — there are only Iraqi intellectuals who represent themselves and their homeland, plus stationery and book dealers,’ said Abdul Baqi Faidhullah, 61, a poet who frequently visits the street.”

“A federal advisory panel studying the high cost of college texts was offered a simple suggestion Monday for keeping down expenses: Don’t use so many books. Or, at least, not books in the conventional sense. The idea is to prod professors to develop more courses that take advantage of articles, lecture notes, study guides and other materials available for free on the Internet.” One unresolved question: “Who is to blame for textbooks that often cost more than $100?”

“I find it difficult to respect books as objects, and see no harm whatsoever in abusing them. … Once a book is mine, I see no reason to read it with kid gloves. And if you have ever seen a printing press disgorge best sellers at 20,000 copies an hour, you might be tempted to agree. It is the content of books that counts, not the books themselves — no matter how well they furnish a room.”

The 2007 list, published 11 years after Granta’s original American selection, lowers the age for qualification as a “young novelist” from 40 to 35. “People seem to be writing (and publishing) fiction sooner,” explains the editor of Granta, Ian Jack “… they have, at least in theory, a head start on their predecessors and should be getting better, quicker.”

“Four months after the editor and publisher left the Times in protest — rather than proceed with cutbacks ordered by the paper’s owner in Chicago, the Tribune Co. — media watchers are reacting to news that the Sunday Book Review, a stand-alone section for 30 years, may soon be combined with the opinion section, Currents, and run in Saturday editions.”

“Why is the new wave of books on atheism getting such a drubbing? The criticism is not primarily, it should be pointed out, from the pious, which would hardly be noteworthy, but from avowed atheists as well as scientists and philosophers writing in publications like The New Republic and The New York Review of Books, not known as cells in the vast God-fearing conspiracy.”

It’s in a county in southern Oregon and includes 15 branches and 100 employees, after the loss of $7 million in federal funding – 80 percent of the library system’s budget. “The library crisis has stirred accusations of county mismanagement, children’s protests in the streets, and a backlash against a proposed property tax to keep the libraries open.”

“Are publishers any use? What reasons do they have to exist? What will they do in the future? And, crucially, has the book entered the last phase of its physical life? Publishers are a bridge between the market and writers. While providing an expert route to creating economic value in the work (ie the author’s work is rewarded), they can also act as a sustaining and supporting partner.”

“Count best-selling novelist James Patterson among the admirers of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. Count him an admirer to the sweet tune of $100,000. That’s the amount that the Florida writer will contribute to Center for the Book over the next four years, as it is the top winner of Patterson’s second annual PageTurner Awards.”