Do Novels No Longer Matter To Contemporary Culture? The novel plays a different and a diminished role in our cultural life as compared with even the quite recent past. The Weekly Standard 02/27/12

email this story | Posted 02/22/12@08:09AM

Paramount Sues Mario Puzo's Son Over "Godfather" Sequel Paramount has sued Anthony Puzo, a son of the novelist, seeking to stop publication of a new "Godfather" novel called "The Family Corleone," Reuters reported. The studio says that it gave permission for a 2004 sequel, "The Godfather Returns," written by Mark Winegardner and published by Random House, but not for a 2006 follow-up, "The Godfather's Revenge," also by Mr. Winegardner and published by Putnam. The New york Times 02/22/12

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The Book So Embarrassing That An Alabama Prison Banned It Last year, a legal aid lawyer sent to an incarcerated client a copy of Slavery by Another Name, "Douglas Blackmon's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of how the South instituted a form of de-facto slavery by mass arresting black men on nonsense charges and 'selling' them to plantations, turpentine farms and other places of back-breaking labor." Prison officials thought the book "too dangerous" to have around. Orlando Sentinel 02/20/12

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Cormac McCarthy's Secret Life As Copy Editor The author of All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men edited a new biography, by his friend Lawrence M. Krauss, of physicist Richard Feynman. McCarthy's advice? Remove all exclamation points and semicolons. The Chronicle of Higher Education 02/16/12

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Reed Elsevier Fights Back Against Academic Boycott Of Its Journals CEO Erik Engstrom: "We are taking the petition very seriously and we are engaging with our stakeholders to better understand and address their concerns ... All [objections] ... are based on misstatements or misunderstandings of the fact." Financial Times 02/16/12

email this story | Posted 02/21/12@12:04AM

Where The Action Is - Romance Novels "Low or not, romance is by far the most popular and lucrative genre in American publishing, with over $1.35 billion in revenues estimated in 2010. That is a little less than twice the size of the mystery genre, almost exactly twice that of science fiction/fantasy, and nearly three times the size of the market for classic/literary fiction." The Awl 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/20/12@07:47AM

Let's Hear It For Democracy ... Via The E-Book? "The power to create great books and the power to distribute great books is transferring to the author. Just a few years ago, publishers controlled the printing press and they controlled access to retail distribution. So if you couldn't get your book printed and you couldn't get it distributed, you'd never reach readers. But today, the printing press is completely democratized." NPR 02/19/12

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We Mean It: Kindle Singles Will Save Journalism (And Maybe Fiction, Too) "Singles justify both an e-reader purchase and a low-commitment investment in reading something; they aren't aspirational like the high-designed special editions that might save real books, but there is a version of wantable scarcity that comes with such a custom, niche-y, one-off something." Toronto Globe and Mail 02/19/12

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Books, The Prequel Not long ago, publishers decried low e-book prices as a scourge on their industry that cannibalized print sales and drove down the value of their products. Some even delayed digital editions for months following a print release to nudge readers toward more expensive hardcover editions. Now, in a strategic shift, some publishers are experimenting with cheap digital "prequels" to help build buzz and snag readers in the months leading up to a splashy print release. The Wall Street Journal 02/17/12

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How The Internet Is Killing The Cartooning Business "I have a big web audience, and a lot of my cartoons are incredibly popular. They fly around the web more than a lot of articles do, but for whatever reason, cartoons aren't on the budget." Columbia Journalism Review 02/15/12

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@09:10AM

A Way to Save The Book Business "E-books are here to stay. But there's a way to save the overall book business for both print and electronic editions. The solution requires three parts." Maui Time Weekly 02/15/12

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Just Where Is That Line Between Fact And Fiction Again? "You feel misled by my essay. I accept that. You feel that it's inappropriate for me to have done this. While I feel that it's a necessary part of my job to do this. By taking these liberties, I'm making a better work of art--a truer experience for the reader--than if I stuck to the facts." Slate 02/15/12

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Do E-Books Bring Us Closer To The "Printed" Word? "The e-book, by eliminating all variations in the appearance and weight of the material object we hold in our hand and by discouraging anything but our focus on where we are in the sequence of words (the page once read disappears, the page to come has yet to appear) would seem to bring us closer than the paper book to the essence of the literary experience." New York Review of Books 02/15/12

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Love Letters Of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning Now Online "Wellesley College and Baylor University collaborated on the project, which [launched on Feb. 14] with more than 1,400 letters by the poets available online. Of those, 573 represent the complete set of love letters, and at least 1,500 additional pieces of correspondence to other people the couple knew are to be up by summer." The New York Times 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@12:07AM

15 Ebooks On Whitney Houston Published Since Her Death "Several of the 15 new ebooks released after the singer's death are free, while the others range in price from 99 cents to $9.99. They include unauthorized biographies, a collection of Wikipedia pages about Houston, poems dedicated to the pop diva and a 10-page report analyzing her signature and handwriting." Toronto Star 02/14/12

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Brand Companies Are Becoming Significant Publishers "Major brands are rapidly becoming publishers themselves. Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Sears, Target, Best Buy, and AT&T have all moved into the top 50 U.S. online publishers. Of those seven, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Sears are already running ads on their websites." Wired 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/15/12@09:02AM

Academics Begin Boycott Of Journal Publisher Elsevier Nearly 6,000 researchers so far "have agreed to boycott publishers Elsevier, vowing not to peer-review or submit papers for any of its scientific journals. ... The researchers supporting the boycott, more than 1000 of whom are mathematicians, object to the journals' pricing and the company's support for several proposed US laws ' including the controversial SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills." New Scientist 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/15/12@12:04AM

The Only Problem With 'Chick Lit' Is The Name "The only thing that 'these books' really have in common is that they're written primarily by women and about relationships. Apart from that, they encompass as wide a range as any other genre. [Sophie] Kinsella and Jennifer Weiner, say, have no more in common than do Alan Hollinghurst and Jonathan Franzen." The Guardian (UK) 02/14/12

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Ban On Tintin In The Congo Thrown Out By Belgian Court "A Belgian court has rejected a claim that Tintin In The Congo is racist and tossed a request to withdraw the controversial comic book." CBC 02/13/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@12:01AM

Crowd-funding A Book, And What Happens After The Money Rolls In One graphic novelist raised $600,000 on Kickstarter. Another team raised their money - and then promptly fell apart. What happens then? Publishers Weekly 02/10/12

email this story | Posted 02/13/12@08:06AM

Is The Time Of Gay Literature Over - Thanks To The Internet And TV? Novelist Christopher Bram: "Even when gay books were the only game in town, there were plenty of gay people who didn't read. For them being gay was about sex and going to bars and dancing. There's still gay culture around and it takes different shapes and forms. Gay bars don't play the same role in gay life they once did 10-15 years ago. The Internet has changed that too. I miss the gay bookstores, but I like the difference and the variety." Salon 02/12/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@10:13PM

If You Think Chick-Lit Insults Women, Maybe That's Your Problem Sophie Kinsella, author of the Shopaholic books: "You can be highly intelligent, and also ditzy and klutzy. You can be unable to cook, you can like lipstick. And I think it's more realistic to represent women having all these facets, than to say, OK, you're intelligent, so I've got to write you as all competent, which I think is an unfair ideal." The Guardian (UK) 02/12/12

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Booker Prize-winning Author Strikes Back At Editor Who Claimed To Rewrite His Work Novelist and short story writer Ben Okri says an editor who claimed to have rewritten dialogue in one Okri book "has a tendency to exaggerate his own importance." The Telegraph (UK) 02/11/12

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To Write A Convincing Setting, Don't Think 'Landscape' The author of The Descendants: "Setting shouldn't just consist of describing nature or a landscape, or of saying where something takes place. It is the world of specific people. It's not enough for it to feel vivid or credible; it should feel necessary." The Wall Street Journal 02/11/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@09:17PM

Yes, Happy Birthday Dickens And All That, But Trollope's Our Real Model "With our robber-baron bankers, our financial panics, our privileged political elite and our disenfranchised migrant workers, it can feel as if we are living through a new Victorian era; certainly the narrative mode that Trollope established in The Way We Live Now has seen a renaissance in recent years." The Observer (UK) 02/11/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@08:43AM

Do We No Longer Care About Conflicts Of Interest For Journalists? "Conflicts of interest, which used to be the third rail of journalism, now seem to have become like herpes instead: something you disclose if you want to build a real relationship, but maybe not if a brief assignation is all you've got in mind. And in an age when people are blithely receiving information straight from politicians and companies - Starbucks has a direct channel to 28-million latte lovers through its Facebook page, who can decide for themselves whether they agree with the message - perhaps it's only crusty journalism profs who care about such things." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/09/12

email this story | Posted 02/10/12@07:13AM

James Joyce Children's Story Published For First Time "The Cats of Copenhagenis a 'younger twin sister' to his published children's story The Cat and the Devil, which told of how the devil built a bridge over a French river in one night." Both stories originated as letters from Joyce to his grandson. The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@11:55PM

Self-Published E-Book Tops Best-seller List "A self-published author has beaten names including Lee Child, James Patterson and Stieg Larsson to become the bestselling ebook author on Amazon.co.uk for the last three months of 2011, the online retailer said on Wednesday." The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:31AM

Opposition To Amazon Mounts Among Booksellers "The cold war between north American booksellers and Amazon has hotted up this week, with the booksellers joining together to announce that they will not be selling any of the titles published by the online retailer." The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:29AM

How Science Fiction Has Changed The Real World "If the scientific community wants to engage and inform the public, science fiction is an excellent strategy. Stories captivate people, they survive the test of time, and they become part of the popular culture." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@07:49AM

Romance Writing Contest Bars Same-Sex Entries - And Suffers The Consequences The 'More than Magic' competition, run by the Tulsa chapter of the Romance Writers of America, this year for the first time declined to accept any gay- or lesbian-themed entries. (Sex with vampires, werewolves and aliens is fine.) The backlash was so swift and fierce that organizers have now cancelled the event. Galleycat 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:00AM

The Free Open-Source Textbooks That Will Save Students $70 Million "Using Rice's Connexions platform, OpenStax will offer free course materials for five common introductory classes. The textbooks are open to classes anywhere and organizers believe the programs could save students $90 million in the next five years if the books capture 10 percent of the national market." Inside Higher Ed 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@07:11AM

Canadian Book-Reading Program Steps In Controversy "In extending Canada Reads to include works of non-fiction for the first time since the contest's inception 10 years ago, the CBC has inadvertently transformed a friendly, domestic literary debate into a geopolitical furor focused on volatile questions of truth and justice in distant totalitarian regimes." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@07:03AM

The Craigslist Poetry "The following are real, quirkily obtuse entries from the Missed Connections section of Charleston Craigslist, broken into lines and stanzas and minimally edited for clarity..." Charleston City Paper 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@06:10AM

French Booksellers Come Up With A New Kind Of Strike "In Nicolas Sarkozy's second crisis-budget plan, which raised taxes to try to plug the deficit, he raised VAT on books from 5.5% to 7%. ... Booksellers' unions are up in arms against the measure, which comes into force in April ... Some booksellers have hinted at a possible 'labelling strike' where they simply refuse to stick on new price tags." The Guardian (UK) 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@12:00AM

And The Critical Hatchet Job Of The Year Is ... Adam Mars-Jones's review of Michael Cunningham's novel By Nightfall in Britain's The Observer. The citation for the prize, awarded by The Omnivore, says "Adam Mars-Jones's review ... was at once erudite, attentive, killingly fair-minded and viciously funny. Every one of his zingers ... is earned by the argument it arises from." The Guardian (UK) 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@11:54PM

Dickens Anniversary Argues For A "Slow Reading" Movement "There's no denying that Dickens's embroidered, involved sentences make increasing demands on the modern reader. The enormous success of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books and Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy shows that we still have an appetite for long, complicated stories. But Rowling's and Larsson's prose is built for speed. Unlike Dickens, there's nothing there in the way of language to stop the rapid turning of pages." The Globe & mail (Canada) 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@07:15AM

Culture Minister's Book Pulped Over Cover Image "A new book by Munira Mirza, the culture adviser to the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been withdrawn because of a legal problem over a Tate image on its cover." The Art Newspaper 02/06/12

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Britain's Illiteracy Problem "Poor neighbourhoods in England are still beset by Victorian-era levels of illiteracy, the schools minister has claimed." The Guardian (UK) 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@06:58AM

More Large Book Retailers Join Ban On Amazon "The money-losing U.S. chain stunned and cheered the publishing industry by announcing its Amazon ban earlier this week, citing the online company's policy of reserving exclusive rights to sell e-books produced by its new publishing arm. By week's end, both Indigo and Books-A-Million, the second largest chain with more than 200 stores, had joined the ban." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@07:08AM