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 ]
The Finns’ love of books has bolstered the publishing industry in spite of global economic challenges. Read our interviews with prominent Finnish publishing pros. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jeff Bezos, in the U.K. to launch the Kindle Paperwhite and Amazon's Lending Library service, has told the BBC that his firm makes no money on its Kindles. "We make money from when people use our devices, not when people buy our devices," he told technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. "That... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin has acquired world rights in a new book by the Paris-based English chef, writer and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At the beginning of a standing-room-only Frankfurt Book Fair discussion, Richard Mollet, CEO of the U.K. Publishers Association, said he imagined there was a day 100 or more years ago at a book fair when, after yet another panel on how electricity was going to revolutionize the business, an... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Quercus is to make a second move into the US with a "startup operation" that will begin... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new story from Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, will feature... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bulgarian author Miroslav Penkov has won the £15,000 BBC International Short Story Award,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hachette companies Orion and Hodder & Stoughton are jointly publishing a new story by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Children's author Jeremy Strong has launched a new national schools reading competition... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Four independent presses have made the shortlist for the Polari First Book Prize, with the winner... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Books by Francesca Simon, Anthony Horowitz, Shirley Hughes and Lauren Child will be included in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Anova has acquired the first cookbook by "Masterchef" finalist, Stacie Stewart.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new survey found that more than 70 percent of parents still prefer print books to the iPad when it comes to reading to children. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-09-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kobo’s UK manager Phil Wood described booksellers at yesterday's BA conference as... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Already the world’s largest global trade exhibition for the news publishing and media industry, the World Publishing Expo is expanding the conferences and seminars that accompany the event, making it even more attractive for the thousands o ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new printed book celebrates all of the quirky flaws of the world’s most famous ebook. Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-09-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton has released a free ebook, No, It's Us Too!, today (11th September)... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The price-fixing case turns out well for Amazon but unsettles many others in the industry.Publishing insiders worry that a decisive court ruling benefiting retailer Amazon.com Inc. will undermine an industry already struggling with the transition to ebooks. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-09-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage at a large airplane hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., this morning and presented a dazzling, methodical, hourlong disquisition on the state of the technology business. He began by explaining why most of the iPad’s competitors have failed: “They’re gadgets,” he... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Throughout its 17-year history, Amazon has helped change the way that books are sold, the format in which they’re read and how they are published. Now it could change how they’re written. In addition to the Kindle Fire HD and the Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon introduced a subscription book format... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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