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 ]
Abrams has bought world rights to make-up artist Lisa Eldridge's history of make-up,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Total Boox, an unusual ebook delivery service based on metered reading, is making its library of 20,000 ebook titles available to the public to read entirely for free during the week of April 13 to April 20. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Offering a colorful and fanciful interface with more than 600 digital stories for kids, FarFaria is a subscription app for the iPad, providing unlimited access to its content for $3.99 a month. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sphere has acquired an "incredible" true Holocaust story "about three pregnant... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hello, and welcome to your new 'Cooking the Books.' Beginning with this issue, we'll be landing in your inbox twice every month, bringing you even more news, interviews, deals, reviews, and forward-looking coverage of cookbooks and other writing from the world of food and drink. And as the newly... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bookseller will be producing daily editions during this year's London Book Fair,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson has won the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for his short... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Powering more than 50 e-bookstores for publishers specializing in such subjects as fiction, academic, professional and romance has given Qbend COO Kaushik Sampath many unique insights on e-retailing. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For Cenveo Publisher Services, 2014 is the year digital strategies must deliver in terms of profits for its publisher clients. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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“We used to get our news from a couple of anchormen," noted Forbes CEO Mike Perlis in his OnCopyright 2014 keynote. "That’s not the world we live in any more." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Just how well do cookbooks do at Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga.? The bestselling book at Avid – period – is "Top Chef" judge Hugh Acheson’s James Beard Award–winning cookbook, "A New Turn in the South." Store owner Janet Geddis spoke to PW about her store's cookbook-themed events and the books her... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nobel laureate was told by publisher that 'people will shudder and be puzzled and confused' by reading Echo's BonesA previously unpublished story by Samuel Beckett will go on sale in bookshops for the first time, 80 years after his publisher rejected it as a nightmare read that gave him "the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Gifts' consists of 18 short stories by young residents of Afghanistan who write about their lives – filled with tradition and warfare, on top of all the more ordinary things that young people everywhere hope and wish for. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Super Furry Animals second film will be accompanied by an album, a book and an appMusician Gruff Rhys latest project saw him following in the footsteps of 18th-century explorer John Evans, who spent 1792 hunting for a fabled Welsh-speaking Native American tribe.The American Interior project has... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mark Thompson says New York Times journalism will remain impartial and won't be swayed by commercial considerationsMark Thompson, the chief executive of the New York Times, has hit out at rival Bloomberg for saying it shouldn't have published investigative news stories criticising China, because... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Reed Exhibitions has made no secret about its interest in drawing more members of the general reading public to BookExpo America and, today, released details about its new consumer-focused event at the trade show. BookCon is set for the final day of BEA and promises to be, Reed said, a "show... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One of the ongoing challenges for publishers is the sense of instability that arises from the never-ending changes in technology and audience behavior. From sales to marketing and even publishing’s most fundamental service—content creation—market dynamics are constantly evolving. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2014-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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USA Today is in the midst of rethinking what it’s all about. Gone is the mindset of being a national newspaper; in is the goal of establishing itself as a national news brand on several platforms -- and yes, that includes print. USA Today president and publisher Larry Kramer explained the... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2014-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sam Gardiner is a football-mad schoolboy, but no one took his opinions seriously. So he created a fake Twitter personality and soon was talking tactics with Premiership players. Tim Lewis meets the spoofer extraordinaireFor five minutes, Sam Gardiner panicked. He had been rumbled: he wasn't... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The publishers of a weekly newspaper have issued an unreserved apology for "appearing to link football hooliganism with the Hillsborough tragedy".The latest issue of the Reading Chronicle carries a front page story, headlined "The other face of football", which says:"Football hooliganism may be... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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