Playboy founder, who has died aged 91, claimed he wanted to help liberate women as sexual beings – but critics decry a legacy of objectificationOne evening in 1967, Hugh Hefner, who has died aged 91, appeared on a TV special broadcast from the Playboy Mansion’s library. Puffing on his customary pipe, and flanked by Harvard theologian Harvey Cox and conservative editor William F Buckley, the billionaire porn magazine magnate and American men’s titillator-in-chief argued that the religious basis for morality was obsolete.If America was to fulfil its manifest destiny and its citizens were to genuinely enjoy life, it needed to be liberated sexually. This, he said, was what Playboy Enterprises, of which he was the CEO and visionary founder, was patriotically supplying. In this, arguably, Hefner was fulfilling his mother’s wish that he become a missionary. True, his work involved more pool parties, voluptuous women pillow-fighting and wearisome boasts about sexual prowess (“I have slept with thousands of women, and they all still like me,” he told Esquire magazine in 2002) than previous missionaries found necessary, but he always imagined himself to be a proselytiser for hedonistic anti-puritanism. Related: Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine, dies aged 91 Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2017-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One of three editors in the 1971 Oz obscenity trial who went on to become a hugely successful magazine and book publisherFelix Dennis cackling laugh, roistering humour, ribald in appetite, loyal and immensely generous has died aged 67 from cancer. One of the richest men in Britain, he made his... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Alan Mirken, who arranged the sale of the Crown Publishing Group to Random House in 1988 when he served as president of the company, died June 12 from heart problems. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helene Green, v-p, business information and data operations at Simon & Schuster, died June 10 after a long illness. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Frances Foster, editor of numerous award-winning authors and illustrators, died on Sunday, June 8. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scholarly and academic publisher Colin Jones passed away on March 1, after a bout with Alzheimer's Disease. He was 76. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon’s Jet City Comics imprint is serializing the comics adaptation of sci-fi novelist Hugh Howey’s 'Wool' simultaneously on Comixology and Amazon. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend and colleague Joan Bunting, who has died aged 88, was in charge of overseas sales at Cambridge University Press (CUP) for many years. A woman of pioneering spirit and great business acumen, she was instrumental in opening up the Japanese market and in setting up CUP's Australian... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Oscar Dystel, an early pioneer of mass market paperbacks and one-time CEO of Bantam Books, passed away at the age of 101. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-05-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barb Burg, who started her career in publicity in 1986 at Bantam Books and rose to become senior v-p and director of publicity and public relations for Bantam Doubleday Dell, died April 29. She was 50. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the forty years since she founded the Wallace Literary Agency, she has represented authors like William F. Buckley, Joan Didion, and Don DeLillo. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Erica Kochman Warshal, director of national accounts at Abrams, passed away suddenly on March 31. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ted Hughes' widow Carol has withdrawn her co-operation on a biography of the poet by academic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-03-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Teacher, who cofounded Running Press in 1972, died at his home in Philadelphia on March 25. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kraig is perhaps best known as the author of "Modern Magick," published in 1988. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The manager of Vroman’s Hastings Ranch store since 2002 passed away March 14 after a long battle with cancer. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Controversial writer and journalist known for Fatal Vision and The Selling of the PresidentIs a journalist "a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse?" That was the question asked by Janet Malcolm in her... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tobago-born writer, activist and founder of the London-based publishing venture Karia PressBuzz Johnson, who has died aged 62 from an arterial haemorrhage, was the founder of Karia Press, one of the small but dedicated band of African-Caribbean publishing initiatives in the UK that have had an... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Former literary agent and book packager Bill Adler died on February 28. He was 84. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Founder of New Scientist, Sunday Times journalist and BBC broadcaster who made complicated subjects easy to understandA powerful mind coupled with a gift for rendering complex ideas in popular terms made Tom Margerison, who has died aged 90, an outstanding ambassador for science. Equally at home... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Walter Freese, former executive at Doubleday Publishing, died February 21 on Shelter Island, N.Y., four days shy of his 86th birthday. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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