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 ]
World Book Night gives away 500,000 print books. Wouldn't it make good sense to extend the promotion by offering free ebooks as well? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The United States celebrated World Book Night on April 23, which meant that over 25,000 volunteers throughout the country handed out half a million free books to promote reading. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Givers across the country are gearing up to take part in this evening's World Book Night,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Most readers who preordered Charlaine Harris’s forthcoming Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Ever After (which will be released May 7), likely did so at Amazon, where it is 45% off and has hovered in the top 50 for weeks. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Fundación El Libro and Buenos Aires Book Fair have added another 20 new names to the original 50 on their list of the most inspiring people in the Spanish-language book trade. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As World Book Night approaches again, a list of rankings shows where volunteers – who give away free books on April 23 – are most heavily clustered in the US. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster has acquired the rights to a memoir by Alexander Hanscombe, the son of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new startup called Repost aims to make it easy for online publishers to distribute their articles via embedding — the same way I can share a video from YouTube or a document from Scribd directly in a blog post. Right now, if I saw ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Seagull Books, based in Kolkata, India, is perhaps the world's most prolific translator of German books into English in the world, says Deutsche Well. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum have appealed to the British government to rethink statutory regulation that threatens more than 300 years of press freedom in the UK. In a letter to Prim ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"The Office" writer B.J. Novak signed a two-book deal with Knopf. The first title will be a collection of stories based on some of his previous performances. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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With ebook and total digital sales posting steady—if generally smaller—increases in 2012, sales of print books held up fairly well across the book trade and at most major houses. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A sense of displacement permeates the 'Telex from Cuba' writer's second novel, set amid the social and political unrest of Manhattan and Italy in the 1970s.Rachel Kushner's house in Angelino Heights feels about a million miles — and a million years — from the tumult embodied in her novels. There... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Parents struggle to create time to read at home and view reading largely as a skill rather than... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Independent publisher And Other Stories has teamed up with Consortium Distribution to launch a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new venture to offer digital short stories and long-form journalism to readers through a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Macmillan Distribution Service's Australian arm is reportedly to make 50 positions redundant... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A list of teachers’ favourite books compiled by the Times Educational Supplement (TES) has... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Libraries across the country are taking part in a high-tech treasure based on Simon Mayo’s... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Firehouse World—an event that offers training, equipment and education for the fire service—was acquired by Cygnus Business Media about 11 years ago and following a tough market in 2007, which saw the down economy hit the public safety market particularly hard, the company has been reinvesting... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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