Last week, Ruth Rendell claimed that reading novels is a dying art. Sadly, she might have a pointNo one can say precisely why John Williams's novel Stoner has become a bestseller almost 50 years after its first publication. After all, plenty of books, "forgotten" or otherwise, are recommended by word of mouth and yet most will not go on to sell more than a few hundred copies. And it's hard to know in what ways, if any, its story – a young man falls in love with literature and thus a new world is revealed to him – might have touched people. Many of those who rushed to buy it will not yet have got around to opening it and some will never read it. Stoner will languish on their shelves, its spine unbroken, just like Jung Chang's Wild Swans, the non-fiction hit of 1992.But still, it has given us something to think about, this dusting down of so plangent and substantial a novel. On Radio 4 last week, Ruth Rendell, the novelist and Labour peer, suggested that Stoner is a book for our times, her argument being that we live in an age when reading is for most an alien pastime, just as it is to William Stoner until he has an epiphany. (Asked to elucidate a poem by a professor, he is unable to say anything except: "It means... it means..." and yet, in this moment, everything changes; the verse, whether he understands it or not, has touched him on some powerfully deep level.) "We are told that it isn't happening," said Rendell. "But it is. Reading is no longer something that everybody... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
In a 2015 piece, PW columnist Brian Kenney jumpstarted a frank conversation about library reference. A year later, librarians tell us why that article struck a chord, and how reference is changing. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital disruptions and soft economies created challenges for even the planet's largest publishers last year. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hecht recently left her position as executive director of children's and YA scouting at Mary Anne Thompson Associates to launch her own company, Rachel Hecht Children's Scouting. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Renamed Bookstr, the book discovery and recommendation platform has a new CEO, Sarah Hill, a relaunched website, and plans to release a new app later in September. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Co-founder of Oneworld, Juliet Mabey, and authors A L Kennedy and Irenosen Okojie, have been selected to judge literature development organisation Spread the Word's London Short Story Prize 2016. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Ship of Adventures bookshop in London's Hackney has been named in Small Business Saturday UK’s "Small Biz 100" for 2016, a campaign promoting and supporting small businesses on the high street. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Sun’s fantasy football site, Dream Team, has been a publisher in its own right for nearly a year. Like other publishers, it’s working out the route to monetizing social video, which means branded content. It has changed several things in its editorial strategy to help build a smoother path... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2016-08-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When it came time to design the look of the recently released Faber Nature Poets series, Faber & Faber senior designer Eleanor Crow had a wealth of history to draw on. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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US president Barack Obama has released his official summer reading list, which includes Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Doubleday) and H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Vintage). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Syria Speaks, which made headlines after it led to a honeymooning airline passenger being questioned under the Terrorism Act, sees surge of interestThe publisher of a book about Syrian culture that hit the headlines last week, when a British Muslim woman was detained after being seen reading it... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-08-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin Random House is celebrating summer with a new campaign, #ByBook, designed to take adult, parent and teen readers to new places and champion books as "the ultimate way to travel". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital magazine audiences are growing, but most U.S. adults prefer to consume across multiple platforms. The post Study: Over Two-Thirds of Americans Still Read Print Magazines appeared first on Folio:. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2016-08-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Antonio Garcia Martinez's Silicon Valley exposé Chaos Monkeys (Ebury) has been longlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A devoted dad's self-published bedtime story, about a hot air balloon, a rabbit and an owl, has got off to a flying start after receiving an order for 2,000 copies from Virgin Atlantic airline. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Instagram Stories are just a few days old, but publishers ranging from Bloomberg Business U.K. to Bustle have started playing with the feature. While Stories lack some of the bells and whistles offered by Snapchat Stories (which inspired the Instagram product), social teams are still finding a... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2016-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder imprint Coronet has acquired narrative non-fiction book No Spend Year by personal finance journalist Michelle McGagh. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher Saqi Books has said it is saddened after a British Muslim NHS worker was detained after reading one of their titles on Syrian culture onboard a flight. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Three British writers made the list of the world’s 14 highest paid authors, with Paula Hawkins entering the table for the first time. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Silvertail is to publish a behind-the-scenes account of the 2011 UK riots by former police officer Michael Matthews. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As a "digital-first company," Time Inc. is now trying to keep pace with tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Comcast, in addition to fellow magazine publishers like Hearst and Cond Nast.That's one of the big reasons why Time Inc. is embracing a category-focused, more streamlined approach to... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2016-08-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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