Margaret Atwood loves being an author, and – don’t get her wrong – she loves meeting her fans and hearing about how her books affected them. But the whirlwind nature of the modern book tour has been wearing on her lately, and as a result, she “is developing a remote autographing device that will allow authors to sign books for devoted readers from afar, without those awful tours writers often dread. No, it’s not clear whether she has spoken to Donald Rumsfeld lately.”
Category: publishing
Why Is The Book Business So Badly Run?
“There are some really smart people in the book business, which is why it’s such a mystery that so little is known about the basics, such as why anybody buys a book. Wal-Mart can predict with great specificity that hurricanes in Florida will mean increased demand for batteries and flashlights, but also, based on past correlations, beer and pop-tarts. (Beer, understood, but pop-tarts? Don’t they need toasters for that? Wouldn’t the electricity be out?) The book business has nowhere near this forecasting expertise.”
The People’s Choice Awards Of Books?
A new philanthropy called the Quills Literacy Foundation has announced the formation of the Quill Awards, a slate of 19 annual book awards, most of which will be voted on by the general public.
A Change of Direction At Paris Review
Why did the board of the Paris Review fire Brigid Hughes as George Plimpton’s successor? “Ms. Hughes’ firing was seen by some as a betrayal of Plimpton’s memory: He was fiercely loyal, and Ms. Hughes had apprenticed closely with him. But others saw it as an attempt by an anxiety-ridden board—which Plimpton himself had established—to honor his legacy by searching for new directions for the magazine.”
From Mail Room To Big-Time Publishing
“A few months ago, 28-year-old Dean Carter was a small cog in a very big machine. Hidden away in the basement at the grand old publisher Random House, he spent his days sorting mail sent by fans to such eminent writers A S Byatt and Tom Wolfe. Now, after a series of lucky encounters, he is the recipient of a five-figure, two-book deal, has senior publishers saving his emails as collectors’ items and could soon be considering film deals from the likes of Brad Pitt and Robert De Niro.”
Levy Wins Whitbread
Small Island, Andrea Levy’s affectionate, Orange prize-winning comedy of errors, misunderstandings and prejudice at the onset of West Indian immigration to Britain, was last night voted Whitbread book of the year.
London’s Favorite Book?
According to a Time Out poll, it’s a gudiebook. “The London A-Z street atlas, first published in 1936, yesterday beat volumes by Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, Joseph Conrad, Zadie Smith and Peter Ackroyd to come in at number five in a poll of the 30 best-loved London books.”
Do “Genius” Awards Help A Career?
How effective are the MacArthur “Geniue Awards” that give recipients $500,000 to use as they see fit? “An examination of the program reveals that most of the 31 writers chosen since 1981 as MacArthur Fellows had already hit their artistic peak. Surveying book reviews, author profiles and the opinions of literary scholars, Crain’s determined that 88% of the MacArthur recipients wrote their greatest works before being recognized by the Chicago-based foundation. The sheer number of books produced by the writers declined, too, after their MacArthur awards.”
Hugh Grant On Being A Literary Prize Judge
“Grant, whose only literary claim to fame had been playing a bookseller in ‘Notting Hill,’ confessed that he felt like a student back at Oxford University when put under pressure to read the finalists for the Whitbread Book of the Year award. Asked if he felt insulted by critics who argue it is dumbing down to choose celebrity judges for big literary awards, he told Reuters at Tuesday’s awards ceremony: ‘It is not insulting to me. I am very dumb as everyone knows’.”
The Book Dealer And The Stolen Book
A St. Louis book dealer buys a rare volume for $3,900, then is pleased to see his judgment rewarded when it is valued at $600,000. Just one small hitch: “The book may have been stolen from an unlikely victim — the German government. The state-owned Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart claims a World War II U.S. Army captain took the book and others from a castle and eventually deposited them in his Richmond Heights home.”