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 ]
As a member of Hollywood royalty, a fashion icon and an Academy Award-winning actress, Anjelica Huston has led a full life -- so much so that she's taking two books to tell her story.As a member of Hollywood royalty, a fashion icon and an Academy Award-winning actress, Anjelica Huston has led a... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Guinness World Records is partnering with Chinese publisher Foreign Languages Teaching and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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I read while traveling, waiting for meetings, in the evening, and especially on vacation. As you can see, I'm still pretty much an old-school print guy, because I like to jot notes in the margins, but I assume I'll move over to ebooks when annotation features get better. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new deal with Penguin UK means a greater variety of books for the insurgent platform. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2013-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The conversation about the Common Core standards will be a hot topic at this year’s ALA Midwinter Meeting, as many public librarians make efforts to reach their patrons and community members—as well as form partnerships with school librarians—to provide information on the standards. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-11-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#hot topic
#form partnerships
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Virgin Books has bought a book that goes behind the scenes of the digital gaming phenomenon... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#virgin books
Mobile devices are increasingly being used for social reading and recommendation sites, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#social reading
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Publishers in 36 countries snap up book about modern witches in Britain by Sally Green, who only began writing three years agoAfter JK Rowling's wizards and Stephenie Meyer's vampires, publishers and producers have now been spellbound by a first novel about witches written by a former... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the new book Before They Pass Away, photographer Jimmy Nelson has captured a series of gorgeous pictures of 31 remote cultures that are on the verge of disappearing.Over the last three years, British photographer Jimmy Nelson traveled around the world--from Namibia to Papua New Guinea to... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Aurum Press has signed a book on cyclist Dieter Wiedermann, an East German sports star who... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For the past few years, newspaper publishers have prowled their buildings, asking why, and getting some amazing answers. Institutional knowledge is wonderful, but institutional resistance is intolerable. We must invoke a brilliant strategy to conquer ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A substantial donation to the Red Cross was made, with concern for the nearly 1,400 PRH employees in the Author Solutions division who work in Cebu, an area very near where the greatest devastation has taken place. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-11-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ross Levinsohn, CEO of Guggenheim Digital Media, publisher of Adweek, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, is on the growing list of industry executives set to speak at the inaugural 2014 Digital Entertainment World conference in Los Angeles. The global marketplace and conference, which is... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2013-11-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Campus bookselling chain Follett in the US has made 570 people redundant as part of a move to shift... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gertrude Stein's children's book, The World is Round, is 75 this year and is being rereleased by Harper Design in a reproduction of the book’s first edition from 1939. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-11-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hutchinson has acquired a new anthology of life-writing from and about the First World War,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Like mapmakers, we tend to put where we reside at the center of the world. It's natural: for most publishers it's the trade closer to home that's the lifeblood of your business. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the long, important, trillion-dollar history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 2011’s Thor represented its first semi-risk. Iron Man, the 2008 film that launched the franchise, introduced a character who wasn’t terribly well-known outside the comic book shop, but it starred Robert Downey Jr.... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2013-11-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Is wasting time as productivity killing as we've always thought, or does it provide a creativity–enhancing escape from the chaos of the world? Stop dawdling and let's explore!Recently, I read a great book and promised to mail it to a friend overseas when I was done, about nine months ago. Today,... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-11-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Most startups will never see anything close to the amount of money Twitter plans on raising during its IPO this week (a reported $1.6 billion) and in fact, three out of four tech businesses fail. Entrepreneurs in training looking to create a successful company, then, might want to know what... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#makes sense
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