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 ]
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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Baker & Taylor, best known for serving the library market, is working to up its business with independent booksellers in a series of initiatives overseen by David Cully, who was hired by the company six years ago as executive v-p of merchandising and president of retail sales. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"I was just sitting with my dog in the sun daydreaming and the book came along, the rabbit fur cover, the feeling of the thing, its weight," Iranian–New Zealander artist Nabil Sabio Azadi tells Co.Design of For You the Traveller, the world's furriest travel book, available this week for the... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mashing up the places, characters and events of various works into one shared universe isn't exactly a new idea. Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton universe imagines that most of the great fictionalized characters of the last few hundred years – including Tarzan, Doc Savage, Dracula, James Bond,... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For the UK celebration, fewer books will be given to volunteers to distribute, but they will be freer give away other titles instead. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon MatchBook, which lets customers who've previously bought the print edition of a book from Amazon score a digital copy on the cheap, is now open for business. Months in the making, the new service is a bold plan by Amazon to convert the world's stacks and stacks of books into digital... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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To compete against the Kindle, Barnes & Noble is going back to its roots, leveraging decades of bookseller expertise to make its Nook e–reader feel more like a paper book. Released Wednesday, the new Nook Simple Touch GlowLight features a brighter, sharper display; lighter body; improved... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The titles which will be distributed for free as part of World Book Night include works by Cheryl Strayed, Maria Semple, Agatha Christie, and more. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An exhibition on New York's graffiti traces the history of the art form in the city, a Parisian museum shows how immigrants helped shape comic books worldwide - and other stories from the world of arts. Continue reading at BBC World
[ BBC World | 2013-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Forty-five US states have adopted the Common Core, a set of standards that spell out what US public school students learn in each grade, from kindergarten to graduation. How would you match up? Test yourself on everything from Dickens to Dirda to see how familiar you are with the novels, poems,... Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo removed self-published pornographic titles from their sites and Kobo stopped sales of self-published titles altogether. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In much of the INMA network worldwide, the focus is on big news brands producing life-changing, business-building journalism that transforms democracies and speaks truth to power. Yet among the other 99% of news publishers worldwide, the challeng ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Researchers from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) spoke with online editors and community managers at 104 news organizations from 63 countries to help assemble a report written by Emma Goodman about what works and wh ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It was just more than a year ago that Ev Williams and Biz Stone created the publishing platform Medium. The Internet officially met the site in August 2012, and since then, Medium’s popularity has grown enough for even the most ske ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Profile is to republish a short story by Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-10-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If there a theme emerged from the deal-making at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, it was the dominance of HarperCollins as a buyer of big books, and of William Morris Endeavor as the seller of those books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The first Canadian winner, Alice Munro has published nothing but short stories in a 50-year career. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The first Canadian winner, Alice Munro has published nothing but short stories in a 50-year career. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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While digital distribution has roiled the newspaper, book publishing and music industries, a different story may be playing out in the world of comic books. Continue reading at Knowledge@Wharton
[ Knowledge@Wharton | 2013-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At an opening session at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, U.K. Publishers Association CEO Richard Mollet remarked that digital publishing was no longer in its infancy, but in the “voting and drinking stages of early adulthood.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-10-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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