On Tuesday, Donald Rumsfeld—who, as defense secretary under George W. Bush, was a driving force behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—died. Major outlets wheeled out pre-written obituaries. The AP’s, by Robert Burns, bordered on hagiography. Its headline initially declared Rumsfeld “a cunning leader undermined by Iraq war”; that language was later changed to “cunning leader who oversaw a ruinous Iraq war,” but the opening paragraph still says that “try as he might,” Rumsfeld “could not outmaneuver the ruinous politics of the Iraq war,” as if he had been forced to play chess against a supercomputer. The Iraqi death toll from the war is not noted; the American death toll is—but not before Rumsfeld’s charitable work on behalf of veterans, his “accomplished” college wrestling career, and colleagues’ recollections of his smarts and patriotism. The first words of the article’s URL are “Chicago Bears,” a reference to the football team Rumsfeld supported as a kid. Because the AP is a wire service, the obituary was republished widely. Other prominent efforts were better, but did not adequately foreground the human cost of Rumsfeld’s military aggression: The New York Times addressed Iraq only after mentioning the records he broke as defense secretary (he was the youngest person in that post, under Gerald Ford, then the oldest, under Bush) and his reputation as a “combative infighter” who challenged “military orthodoxies.” The Washington Post described him as “controversial,” but... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-02 12:32:38 UTC ]
A 19% increase in Scholastic's children's book publishing and distribution segment drove total sales up 12% in the second quarter, while operating income rose 20%. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-16 05:00:00 UTC ]
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As the year comes to a close, ‘Fast Company’ asked leaders which books they sought out for guidance and leadership advice. In 2022, as they faced a tight labor market and a looming economic downturn, business leaders had a lot on their minds. With the year coming to a close, Fast Company asked... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2022-12-14 07:00:00 UTC ]
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You should watch Euphoria, a friend told me while we were on a walk during our young daughters’ dance class. I wasn’t sure why she would suggest this. Particularly in the context of our conversation: I was confiding in her about the anxiety that felt like it had been boiling inside of me for... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-12-13 12:05:00 UTC ]
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A filmmaker has accused Canadian writer Leah McLaren of sexual assault, saying that Penguin Random House Canada knowingly published a memoir by McLaren that depicts the alleged incident as consensual. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2022-12-09 19:13:28 UTC ]
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Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction; Nonfiction; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections;... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-09 09:52:42 UTC ]
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Back in August I wrote about Pavel Filatyev, an active-duty Russian soldier who posted online his 141-page account of the lead up to and taking of Kherson by Russian forces. With the help of Vladimir Osechkin, who runs Gulagu.net (an anti-corruption website whose name translates as “No to the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-08 15:42:53 UTC ]
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Film-maker Zoe Greenberg says she raised concerns with Penguin Random House Canada over Leah McLaren’s bookA Canadian film-maker who was allegedly sexually assaulted as a teenager has accused the country’s largest book publisher of knowingly releasing a memoir by one of her alleged assailants... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-12-08 14:58:26 UTC ]
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Hearing a memoir in the author’s voice can make a big difference, and not just when the author is Viola Davis. Plus: A creepy novel gets creepier in audio. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-12-07 10:00:40 UTC ]
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As a cultivated writing praxis, creative nonfiction allows for a broader panorama of experience than a genre restricted to the empirical. It is one which permits dreams to presage and queer bodies to serve as repositories of memory. With the best of intentions, I believe Waiting in the Wings, my... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-07 09:51:50 UTC ]
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Audio production company Audio Up Media and book publishing house Harlequin Enterprises are teaming up to adapt 52 of the publisher's romance titles into scripted podcast series, with an eye to also turn these into--more highly monetizable--TV series. Audio Up, also home to mental health and... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2022-12-06 12:42:46 UTC ]
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Mary-Alice Daniel has been on a journey, literally, across continents. She documents her experiences in A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing, which is a memoir about places, from which she has been uprooted, assimilated into, revisited, and settled, giving the reader a close look into the lives... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-12-05 12:00:00 UTC ]
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This season’s music books include a collection of interviews with Nick Cave, a memoir by Sporty Spice and Greil Marcus’s latest meditation on Bob Dylan. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-12-02 14:45:06 UTC ]
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Broadside buys a memoir from Florida governor Ron DeSantis, NBC News reporter Char Adams sells a book on Black-owned bookstores to Tiny Reparations, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-02 05:00:00 UTC ]
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In a report designed to measure the economic impact of NYC's various publishing segments, the first-of-its-kind study found that the number of book publishing jobs dipped 1.7% between 2010 and 2020, while bookselling jobs tumbled 37.1%. The average book publishing salary was $119,000, compared... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-01 05:00:00 UTC ]
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After publishing two issues, 'Astra Magazine' will shut down by the end of the year. The closure, the president of parent company Astra House Publishing said, will allow the company to focus on its book publishing business. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-11-29 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The first chapter of Daniella Mestyanek Young’s memoir Uncultured opens with a screech: It is 1993 and Mestyanek Young—then 5 years old—is inside a commune in Brazil, standing at the back of a line of children waiting to be paddled. As she explains, it’s a normal day in the Children of God, the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-25 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Movies are dreams,” young Sammy Fabelman’s mother explains to him in the first few moments of The Fabelmans, “that you never forget.” But movies are also memories, and this is a different thing. The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s cinematic memoir about the childhood and adolescence he spent... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-23 09:57:44 UTC ]
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Instructions for using the online spreadsheet that accompanies our Book Publishing Startups in the U.S. 2022 report. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-11-18 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The memoir Heretic opens with Jeanna Kadlec boarding a bus to the Middlesex County Courthouse in Massachusetts, where she is filing for divorce against her husband, an Evangelical Christian, and pastor’s son to boot. Kadlec is twenty-five and exhausted from the labor of suppressing her... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-17 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Hilary Duff, who dated Aaron Carter in the early 2000s, accused his memoir publisher of 'recklessly pushing a book out to capitalize on this tragedy.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-11-14 00:40:03 UTC ]
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