Category: publishing

Yahoo is starting its own program to digitize books, following Google’s much publicaized project. “Yahoo will help digitise 18,000 works of American literature plus material from national and European archives. It hopes to avoid the legal action that has dogged Google’s plan by adopting an opt-in policy on copyrighted works.”

Andrea Levy wins the Orange Prize for Fiction’s best of the best award, for her novel “Small Island”. The award was granted for the best of the first 10 winners of the Orange Prize which aims to recognise and promote women’s fiction. The chairwomen of judging teams from each year chose Levy – who won the prize in 2004 – as the overall winner.

“You gotta admit a nationally televised awards show for authors has its challenges. Let’s face it, most honorees are just a tad lower on the recognition-o-meter than your average Gwyneth Paltrows and George Clooneys. But for some, that’s just the start of the problems with the Quill Awards, which, in the book world, has managed to strike as many nerves as the plastic surgeon who paralyzed Joan Rivers’ face.”

“The magazine’s design — size, paper, type font — has been updated for a new sleeker look, but its contents have only slightly changed. No drastic moves here. As has been the case since the magazine’s inception, fiction, poetry and author interviews remain the central focus. But to that mix, Philip Gourevitch has added non-fiction writing and photographic essays.”

The lack of any marquee names on this year’s shortlist for the Giller Prize could be seen as a PR misstep, especially since the CBC lockout virtually guarantees that the award will not be televised for the first time in recent memory. But where there are no superstars, everyone becomes a frontrunner, and the unusual shortlist could also be a unique opportunity for fresh new literary voices to emerge from the vast sea of Canadian literature.

Random House has announced that Truman Capote’s long-lost first novel will be published next month. The manuscript for Summer Crossing, which Capote wrote beginning in 1943, was found in 2004 in a box of the author’s papers put up for auction. “Set in New York just after World War II, Summer Crossing is the story of a young lighthearted socialite, Grady McNeil, whose parents leave her alone in their Manhattan penthouse for the summer while they travel to France to check on their war-torn villa.”

Canada’s Giller Prize, which awards $40,000 for the best homegrown novel, got new life this month when a major bank stepped up to sponsor the competition. Now, the five-author shortlist has been released, and there are a few surprises. Well-reviewed author Joseph Boyden was left off, and some of the finalists are not terribly well-known. But now the prognosticating can begin, and nearly 100 libraries across Canada will be participating in a “Guess the Giller” contest over the next several weeks.

“In barely a decade, online booksellers have grown to account for two-thirds of the market for general-interest used books, a trend that calls into question the future of brick-and-mortar stores devoted to used books, according to a study financed by the publishing industry and released yesterday.”

“Three of the most challenged books of 2004 – King and King by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky, and Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – have been criticised for their homosexual themes. Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, meanwhile, has attracted complaints for its alleged depictions of racism and sexism and its use of violent language.”

Nineteen bidders raised $90,000 “by paying for the right to be named a character — or a place or thing — in works by such authors as John Grisham, Stephen King, Amy Tan and Lemony Snicket.” The money goes to charity.