She published her first book in her 40s and became the biggest selling author of the past decade in any genre – The Gruffalo alone has sold 13m copies. How did this former busker make it so big?The room where the children’s author Julia Donaldson writes – the heart of her vast picture book empire – is down a winding staircase, in the cellar of her grand white house in Steyning, West Sussex. Her desk looks out on the street at knee height. “I’m thinking of writing a book about legs,” Donaldson said, as she showed me around the house this summer. Children from the nearby school often wave in at her as they pass. Donaldson is well known in Steyning, due to her frequent signings at the local bookshop. She and her husband, Malcolm, a retired paediatrician, recently bought the local post office to save it from closure. But elsewhere she can walk the pavement without being recognised. “I got a letter the other day for Jacqueline Wilson,” Donaldson told me. “It said: ‘You’re my favourite author!’”If you are not someone who spends much time with young children, you may only be dimly aware of Donaldson’s work – although you will probably be familiar with her most famous creation, the Gruffalo. If you have children, however, you will know her as a cultural juggernaut whose influence among children is perhaps only surpassed by the works of Disney and CBeebies. Donaldson, who is 72, has written more than 210 books: chiefly picture books, but also poetry, plays, a 60-part phonics... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-12-17 06:00:31 UTC ]
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Picture book author Julia Donaldson is encouraging online shoppers to use her local independent bookshop, The Steyning Bookshop. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Is it me, or you? This morning, The Bookseller reported that Waterstones was taking Kindle devices off most of its shelves due to “pitiful” sales. No great surprise here: the chain’s managing director James Daunt said after Christmas 2014 that device sales, once strong, had tapered off, a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Search company unveils Accelerated Mobile Pages in bid to work with publishers, ad companies and rival platforms Google is attempting to counter the threat from ad-blocking and rivals Facebook and Apple by radically improving the loading speed of web pages on smartphones and tablets.Accelerated... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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TV Guide Magazine, once the unrivaled bible for television fans and a powerhouse in the publishing business, has been sold for the third time in less than 10 years. NTVB Media, the Troy, Mich., publisher of the TV listings books Channel Guide and TV Weekly, will announce Wednesday that it has... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The awards were presented tonight at the start of the annual get-together after the first day of the World Publishing Expo in Hamburg. Here is a look at the full list of this year's winners and what made their entries special and succ ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A journey into the strange community of actors and enthusiasts who record full audio books for free at LibriVox. The post The Weird, Obsessive World of Free DIY Audiobooks appeared first on WIRED. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2015-10-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scholastic has acquired world rights to Zog and the Flying Doctors, a new picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. The deal for world rights to the book, which is a follow-up to Zog and features Zog the dragon, Princess Pearl and Sir Galahad, was made by Alison Green of Alison Green... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author SF Said on how almost all the world’s problems come down to ‘us and them’ – and how children’s books can knock down the barriers Do you believe it’s the books we read when we are young that have the deepest impact? Let us know by emailing [email protected] or on Twitter... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Some of Britain's bestselling authors and their publishers are donating their books to raise money for Syrian refugees. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Franki Chan was once unemployed and broke. Today, his IHEARTCOMIX empire works with the likes of The Rolling Stones and Skrillex.Franki Chan is an unlikely nightlife king. Now in his late 30s and softspoken, his big professional ambition earlier in life was to work as a comic book artist. But... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-09-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The year of Amy Schumer continues, with Gallery Books announcing that it has a deal with the actress and comedian for a memoir. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-09-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Thanks to the celebrated agent, a generation of writers, among them Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez, could make a living from their work. She was the godmother of every word I have writtenCarmen Balcells, the queen of the Spanish literary world, died last Sunday, 21 September. She was 85... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-09-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher Chicken House is asking teenagers to upload videos onto YouTube about the books they would like to persuade other people to read to win the chance to be a judge on the 2016 Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition Entrants must be aged between 14 and 18 and can apply to take... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This most fundamental of principles is under attack – from over-zealous law making, online witch hunts, and a profit-driven media offensive on the BBCIn our troubled and insecure environment, Britain has accumulated laws which curtail freedom of expression – in the name of national security and... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In January, Jack Griffin, the chief executive of Tribune Publishing Company, took his senior management team to visit The Los Angeles Times, the jewel in his company’s portfolio of newspapers. At a reception at the newspaper, an ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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To listen to the Audio Book Club discussion of Between the World and Me, click the arrow on the player below. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2015-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gaylord Shaw, a renowned journalist who broke the news of Richard Nixon's resignation and won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1978 for the Los Angeles Times, has died at age 73. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-09-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘I am not departing by choice’ – former investment banker hired a year ago by Tribune Publishing announces departure on Facebook, saying email was cut off Tribune Publishing Company has fired the publisher of the Los Angeles Times after little more than a year on the job.Tribune gave no public... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-09-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin Random House's Michael Joseph division is today (Thursday) releasing the “world’s first post-it note book", co-curated by author Neil Gaiman and film director Richard Curtis. Stick This Book is in support of the Global Goals campaign and will explain the UN’s Global Goals for... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-09-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Macanudo' by Liniers is the most popular comic strip in Argentina, and its singular humor, beautiful linework and endearing characters have no problem translating to a new audience in this third collection. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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