Category: words

It’s somewhat surprising the publishing industry is still betting millions on the future market for e-books, given the dismal performance of the CD-ROM and the fact that reliable e-book technology is still in development. Nevertheless, authors, publishers, online distributors, and e-book middlemen are feverishly trying to stake their claims in the new digital landscape. “Everyone at the table has an eye on someone else’s plate, even before the food has arrived.” – New York Times

Susan Sontag’s “In America” sold only 233 copies for the week ending Nov. 19, “which would reflect only a few days of award buzz. ‘In America’ – which has received mixed reviews – has sold only 3,972 copies since being published in January. Chances are, the award will raise that number, but to judge by the halfhearted reception Sontag got at the ceremony, the book inspires mixed feelings.” – Inside.com

With all these commercial online reference services, will librarians become obsolete? ‘We know that libraries can provide authoritative information, both online and offline.’ And we feel that the only thing stopping us is the fact that patrons aren’t coming to the library much anymore.’ A new project is attempting to make the library an even more vital research source than ever before.” – Wired

A Montreal novelist has come forward to charge that she co-wrote the book that won this year’s Governor General award for non-fiction and was promised recognition she didn’t receive. Nega Mezlekia, author of Notes From the Hyena’s Belly, denies the claim. “I hired her because I was worried about the formal aspects of my work. She would try and change things, but I don’t think she was doing it out of spite, but because she didn’t understand the book. She didn’t have a sense of humour. She was always telling me that the book will never see the light of day.” – National Post (Canada)

“The New York Society Library, a subscription library established in 1754 is a place that is little known outside New York City, but one that has played a role in the creation of literature coming out of that city for nearly 250 years.” – National Post (Canada)

Online publisher LiveREADS has purchased “Orpheus Emerged,” a novella written by Jack Kerouac at age 23, which it will release to the public for the first time this week – over the internet. The Kerouac estate has been gradually selling off his last unpublished works over the last decade. – The Guardian

It seems everyone has a hero to debunk these days, as biographies of famous figures pour out of publishing houses this fall. “Most of the personages currently exposed have little in common except the compulsion or determination of their biographers to manhandle or mishandle them.” – New York Times

Was the selection of Susan Sontag’s “In America” as the winner of this year’s National Book Award a mistake? Daniel Halpern thinks so. ” ‘In America’ is such a bad book that it seems possible that even its nomination – to say nothing of its victory – is the result of some sort of conspiracy, or at least of a mistake resulting from the particularly baffling handwriting of someone at the National Book Foundation.” – The New Republic

“Robert Gottlieb’s near-legendary status in the publishing world owes much to sheer anomaly. Running Simon & Schuster, and then Knopf, he had just two interests: the books he edited and the books he balanced (”What people forget about Bob,’ says Charles McGrath, editor of The New York Times Book Review and Gottlieb’s deputy at the New Yorker, ‘he was a terrific businessman’). – Boston Globe

Comic books (or “graphic novels” as they’re now being called) are hot. “More than a few of these works not only tap into a burgeoning post-20th-century self-referential nostalgia, they also manage brilliantly to bridge the ever-widening chasm between visual and print generations. Thus, the ascendancy of the graphic novel becomes less about economics and more about the intertwined abstractions of demographics and esthetics. A fusion of styles and fascinations has facilitated the maturation of the comic book into a smart, funny, haunting work of literature with effects.” – The Globe & Mail (Canada)