Category: publishing

“To those who say libraries are special because of their devotion to intellectual freedom, law enforcement officials say terrorism has raised the stakes. They say librarians are naïve to think that libraries should be treated differently from other public places where people congregate without an expectation of privacy. They also argue that shielding libraries from government surveillance will just convince everyone from terrorists to pedophiles to patronize the local library, much as some of the Sept. 11 hijackers used library computers for some of their dealings.”

“As literary awards in America grow by leaps and bounds, so does the critical backlash, which now begins before the ceremonies. Last year, the grave concern was the prizes would go to the wrong people. This year, it’s, ‘Do literary awards mean anything?’ “

“America’s literary tradition is in peril, said Toni Morrison, Norman Mailer and Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the 56th annual National Book Awards ceremony, an event that brings out the leaders of the publishing industry to honor the best books of the year.”

“Librarians have to care, and thus suffer a slippage whereby caring for books becomes being perceived by the public as guarding them. Thereby, a mean-spirited, censorious figure is born, figured forth as a crone. (In the popular imagination, librarians are always women.) Her hair is in a bun, and a scowl is on her face. We have done something wrong merely by entering the library. How dare we? And, once inside, how dare we proceed to talk? Another slippage: the library into a shrine, wherein the god of Knowledge is to be venerated by all who enter, while Vestal Virgins preside.”

It costs as little as $500 to have a book self-published. But what to do with the books after they’re printed? “Publicity is almost nonexistent. The publishers don’t run advertising campaigns or have marketing teams devoted to new titles, and they have little luck getting their books reviewed in newspapers and magazines. And forget major booksellers. When they get their titles from traditional publishing houses, they can return those that don’t sell and pay for only those that do. Most print-on-demand publishers don’t allow returns. As a result, stores refuse to take their books.”

Dot mobile, a British mobile-phone service aimed at students, says it plans to condense classic works of literature into SMS text messages. The company claims the service will be a valuable resource for studying for exams. Academic purists will be horrified. Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” becomes “2b? Nt2b? ???”

This year’s winners of Canada’s two biggest literary awards belong to a similar demographic: middle-aged writers who have toiled in relative obscurity throughout their careers, “producing novels that are tight, spare in length and written in a distinctive style” without ever capturing more than a cult following. All that has changed now for Giller winner David Bergen and Governor-General’s Award winner David Gilmour, and both authors admit to a certain feeling of redemption after years of disappointment. “The real enemy for a writer, it’s not booze. It’s vanity that will kill you deader than anything else.”

“The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts are to announce Thursday the national rollout of their verse-recitation contest for high schoolers… Some $50,000 in scholarships and school stipends are to be awarded at the national finals, including a $20,000 scholarship for the grand winner… The organizers hope to tap into the popularity of poetry slams among teens. But this contest will emphasize memorization and performance skills, not creative writing. Contestants will select poems from a special anthology to be distributed to schools or from a Web site being set up for the event.”

Two highly successful editors from the Penguin Group have announced that they will leave the company to head up a new division at Random House. “The move by the editors, Celina Spiegel and Julie Grau, was a major loss for Penguin, where [the imprint they brought to prominence] is celebrating its 10th anniversary and is having a stellar year, with nine of its books having reached The New York Times’s best-seller list, two of them climbing to No. 1.”

“Europe Central, a sprawling series of 37 intertwined stories by William T. Vollmann that examine the moral decisions of characters, some real and some fictional, in Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II, won the National Book Award for fiction on Wednesday night… It was a surprise victory over for Mr. Vollmann over E. L. Doctorow, a previous winner and literary lion; Mary Gaitskill, a sentimental favorite for her piercing stories that demonstrate a willingness to challenge societal norms; and two other finalists.” In the non-fiction category, Joan Didion took home the top prize for her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking.