Hatchet Job of the Year goes to AA Gill for Morrissey broadside

Sunday Times critic honoured for 'expert caning' of rock star's autobiography"A cacophony of jangling, misheard and misused words … a sea of Stygian self-justification and stilted self-conscious prose … " AA Gill's caustic review of Morrissey's Autobiography has been named the Hatchet Job of the Year.Gill was revealed as winner of the prize, set up by The Omnivore website and going to the writer "of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review" of the past year, on Tuesday evening. The Sunday Times journalist was up against biting write-ups from the likes of David Sexton, Rachel Cooke and Peter Kemp, but was found to be easily the most scathing of reviewers by judges Rosie Boycott, Brian Sewell and John Sutherland."The 30 reviewers on the long list were easily reduced to eight, and then, as we knocked them off the list from bottom to the top, the winner emerged without argument. It was exactly like awarding the head boy a gold cup for expert caning," said Sewell.Morrissey's Autobiography was published by Penguin, under its Classics imprint – a decision with which Gill takes great issue in his review, calling it the singer's "most Pooterishly embarrassing piece of intellectual social climbing". Gill concludes that putting the book, "a potential firelighter of vanity, self-pity and logorrhoeic dullness", in Penguin Classics "doesn't diminish Aristotle or Homer or Tolstoy; it just roundly mocks Morrissey, and this is a humiliation constructed by the self-regard of its... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2014-02-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Books in the Media: Children's book reviews dip year on year

In August 2019, The Bookseller reported that children's books accounted for just 4.9% of review space, despite making up a third of the market. Latest figures from Books in the Media shows that this figure has dropped to 4.3%, when looking at reviews from the past 12 months.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-24 01:05:09 UTC ]
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Print market volumes up 18% year on year since bookshops reopened

Bookshops reopening since lockdown restrictions eased have boosted the market 18% in volume against the same period in 2019, with 14.6 million books sold since shop doors opened. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-17 09:17:49 UTC ]
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Sales fell 11% year-on-year in second quarter, Nielsen estimates

Book sales fell 11% by volume year-on-year in the second quarter of 2020, estimates by Nielsen suggest, although there have been gains on 2019 since bookshops reopened. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-05 21:42:39 UTC ]
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Strong year for Children's publishing as W H Smith unveils Books of the Year

W H Smith has unveiled its Books of the Year, with the retailer recognising two children's books for the first time.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-13 15:22:56 UTC ]
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HBO's *Years and Years* Unlocks Sci-Fi's Ultimate Potential

At its core, science fiction is a tool for building thought experiment machines. That's the game Russell T Davies' new show is playing so beautifully. Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2019-07-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Preakness TV audience down about 10 percent year to year in Baltimore — and twice that nationally

The TV audience in Baltimore for Saturday’s Preakness race was down 10.65 percent compared with that in 2018. Those are household figures from Nielsen that measure the size of the audience during the actual running of the race. They are provided by WBAL-TV, the NBC affiliate that aired NBC’s... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-05-20 13:50:00 UTC ]
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Preakness TV audience down about 10 percent year to year in Baltimore — and twice that nationally

The TV audience in Baltimore for Saturday’s Preakness race was down 10.65 percent compared with that in 2018. Those are household figures from Nielsen that measure the size of the audience during the actual running of the race. They are provided by WBAL-TV, the NBC affiliate that aired NBC’s... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-05-20 13:50:00 UTC ]
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Last Year's Books Top This Year's First Quarter Sales

Michelle's Obama's 'Becoming,' released in early November, was the biggest title, selling 629,000 copies through outlets that report to BookScan in the period ended March 30. Only three books released in 2019 made the top 20 list in the quarter. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New Year, New Zuck: What Facebook's CEO Really Wants to Say About the Year Ahead at Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg has issued his annual New Year challenge to himself, and it's a big one: Fixing Facebook.The hoodie-wearing CEO, who has previously taken on learning Mandarin, reading books and visiting new parts of the country, is setting a less concrete goal in focusing on fixing important... Continue reading at Advertising Age

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World Book Day sales soar year on year as campaign report assesses engagement

Sales of World Book Day (WBD) titles soared by more than 50% in comparison to last year, with 469,274 copies in total shifted in the week of the event, sales figures have shown. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Year in Preview: 2017 will be the year that platforms pay up

Facebook's paying for live video and Snapchat's evolving the terms of its publisher compensation in 2016 were signs that the platform giants will pony up for content. But it's not out of altruism. What platforms care most about is scale. And only a select few media companies that have the scale... Continue reading at Digiday

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Twenty years of Harry Potter marked with year-long campaign

Bloomsbury is set to celebrate 20 years of Harry Potter with a year-long campaign, including special anniversary publishing and new projects with key partners. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Apple CEO Tim Cook Tried To Give Steve Jobs His Liver—But Jobs Refused

In the forthcoming book Becoming Steve Jobs, we learn just how close Tim Cook and Steve Jobs really were. Here, an exclusive excerpt: Fast Company executive editor Rick Tetzeli and co-author Brent Schlender's new book, Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution Of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary... Continue reading at Fast Company

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A different Morrissey to read Morrissey

An audiobook version of Morrissey's Autobiography will be read by actor David Morrissey.... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gill family takes ownership of Ireland's Gill & Macmillan

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[ The Bookseller | 2013-08-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Cold snap book sales plunge 16% year on year

Printed book sales slipped 3% week on week last week, and were down 16% year on year as the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Salesforce, TIME and Fortune Media are among this year’s Digiday Media Awards winners

This year’s Digiday Media Awards winners celebrate new technologies and the power of partnerships throughout their digital media campaigns. Themes across 2024’s winners include leaning into a surge in short-form video content as consumption for the format increases, implementing more interactive... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2024-05-14 18:30:00 UTC ]
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Reading Has Hurt Me for Years. With a Tablet Holder, It Doesn't

Cysts in both wrists made reading a literal pain. But Lamicall’s Tablet Holder takes that pain away by holding up my Kindle for me. Continue reading at Wired

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UK audiobook downloads up 17% last year, Publishers Association data shows

Audiobooks are fast becoming ‘a major route to market for consumers of books’, the trade body saysThe number of UK audiobook downloads increased by 17% between 2022 and 2023, according to new data from the Publishers Association (PA).Revenue from audiobooks rose 24% across the same period to... Continue reading at The Guardian

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Here are this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners.

The winners and nominated finalists of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes were announced today by administrator Marjorie Miller via remote video stream. The winners each take home $15,000 dollars and serious bragging rights, not to mention a ticket into a very illustrious club. The full list of winners... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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