“Heated verbal exchanges erupted yesterday in the closing stages of the Da Vinci Code copyright court case, in which two historians are accusing author Dan Brown of lifting their research in his bestseller.”
Category: publishing
Get Real – Fiction’s Battle
“The major struggle in American fiction today is over the question of realism. Anywhere fiction is discussed with partisan heat, a faultline emerges, with ‘realists’ and traditionalists on one side and postmodernists and experimentalists on the other. No comparable struggle exists in British fiction because experimental fiction has never been substantial enough to mount a decent campaign against the dominant discourse. But the 1960s avant-garde in America was full of talent and vigour.”
Da Vinci Code Plaintiffs Concede Major Claim
One of the historians charging Dan Brown with stealing key elements of their work for the Da Vinci Code, concedes a major point. “Your castigatory assertion… that Mr Brown reached all the same historical conjecture as you is untruthful,” said Brown’s lawyer. Mr Baigent replied: “I would concede that ‘all’ is far too strong. I would say ‘most’… We over-egged [exaggerated] that one.”
Potter Apology Could Fetch Thousands At Auction
“A letter from Beatrix Potter to a young fan apologising for the quality of one of her books, is expected to fetch up to £2,500 at auction in Exeter. The four-page letter to Joy Shapland was written by the Peter Rabbit author in 1913. In it, Potter apologises for her book The Tale of Pigland Bland, explaining that she had been feeling poorly.”
The Case For Google Print
“Would publishers object if Google’s project led to an increase, rather than a decrease, in book purchases? I think not. There are already signs in America that Google Book Search is leading to a strong rise in demand for out-of-print books (although unless traditional publishers get their acts together the fruits of this boom may go to the new breed of print-on-demand publishers). I would be amazed if the same did not happen to books in copyright. So let American publishers sue to find out what ‘fair use’ means.”
Meet The Blooker – The First Blog Book Prize
“Dubbed the Blooker Prize, the contest is for those bloggers who have turned their episodic journals into something more substantial. British entries on the Blooker short-list include the intimate diary of a prostitute and a guide to the UK’s best ‘greasy spoon’ cafes.”
Tech On The Menu At London Book Fair
At the London Book Fair, technology is the big theme, with Google’s John Needham speaked to a packed room about his company’s publishing projects…
Author: Da Vinci Code Claims Exaggerated
One of the authors suing Dan Brown, claiming Brown stole details for the Da Vinci Code plot, has admitted he exaggerated his claims. “Michael Baigent had claimed 15 points central to the plot of Brown’s novel had been taken from a 1982 non-fiction book he wrote with two other authors. As the case resumed at the High Court in London, however, Mr Baigent said his language had been ‘infelicitous’.”
The Spoetry Of Spam
Spoetry is email spam poetry. “In an unedited, authorless spoem (spam poem) ‘aardvarks sweat in gibbon rucksacks’ and ‘freight trains rejoice toothpicks, merrily’. Reminiscent of Ezra Pound, or William Burroughs’ cut-ups, spoetry transcends its mundane commercial aim and becomes, yes, art.”
Lost In Translation
“Though translators often get the short shrift, they are more important than ever in this global age. Literature from foreign lands is one of the best ways to understand and experience distant cultures. Yet it represents only a tiny fraction of the books published in America. Of the 195,000 new titles printed in English in 2004 (the most recent year for which numbers are available), only 891 were works of adult literature in translation.”