Jamie Byng: ‘Listening to letters being read out is quite something’

The Canongate Books boss on the success of Letters Live, performances of notable correspondence by leading lights of stage and screenJamie Byng, 46, son of the 8th Earl of Strafford, grew up in Hampshire and studied at the University of Edinburgh. After graduating he joined Canongate Books as an intern and bought out the struggling Edinburgh publishing house two years later, aged just 25. His successes include the UK publication of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which won the Man Booker prize in 2002 and sold more than 3m copies. In 2013 he set up Letters Live, “a celebration of the enduring power of literary correspondence” based in part on Shaun Usher’s Letters of Note books. Letters Live returns to London’s Freemasons’ Hall on Thursday 10 March.How did Letters Live come about?In 2013 we published two books about letters on the same day. One was Simon Garfield’s To the Letter, which is a history of letter-writing. The other, Letters of Note, grew out of Shaun Usher’s website, which compiles great correspondence throughout history. We decided to promote both books by getting people to read out letters in a live setting. Nick Cave had a letter in Shaun’s book and he’s a good friend, so it was very straightforward to call him up and say “How’s about it?” Gillian Anderson went totally nuts for a Katharine Hepburn letter to Spencer Tracy. Everyone I asked who was around – Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Berry, Neil Gaiman, Bruce Robinson – said yes. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Recommended Reading: Blame the apps for iPhone privacy woes

iPhone privacy is broken... and apps are to blame Joanna Stern, The Wall Street Journal Thanks in part to Facebook's privacy blunders, concern over personal data security is growing. And we continue to find things gobbling up our info that we didn... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2019-06-01 16:30:00 UTC ]
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Orion dominates £10,000 Thumping Good Read Award shortlist

Orion dominates the seven-strong shortlist for W H Smith's Thumping Good Read Award with two titles up for the £10,000 prize.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-31 14:39:00 UTC ]
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The Best Book You've Never Read is 'The Easter Parade' by Richard Yates

"I think 'The Easter Parade' is an inadvertent feminist classic, a woman’s book in the best possible meaning of that fraught term." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Don’t Read Poetry’ is a literary manual for the Instagram era

Stephanie Burt’s target demographic is “people who do not, or do not yet, read nearly as much” as she does. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-05-30 14:41:42 UTC ]
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BookExpo 2019: Holly M. McGhee Adds Dimension to Listening

Listening with all one’s senses—and one’s heart—may be the key to appreciating what it means to connect and engage with the world around us. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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BookExpo 2019: On Raising Kids Who Live to Read

'How to Raise a Reader' coauthors Pamela Paul and Maria Russo will discuss their book during today’s eponymous panel moderated by Jane Pauley, TV journalist and host of 'CBS Sunday Morning.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Read Sci-Fi Author Elizabeth Bear’s New Short Story About Panic in Space

Read a brand-new story from the award-winning author of Karen Memory, Ancestral Night, and The Red-Stained Wings. Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2019-05-25 11:00:08 UTC ]
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Amazon is working on a device that can read human emotions

Amazon.com Inc. is developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions. The wrist-worn gadget is described as a health and wellness product in internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. It’s a collaboration between Lab126, the hardware development group behind Amazon’s... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-05-23 22:06:23 UTC ]
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What to read this summer? Ten authors weigh in with their picks.

Susan Orlean, Jeff Kinney and Ijeoma Oluo have their to-be-read stacks ready to go. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-05-23 13:57:00 UTC ]
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'We choose Europe': Pullman and Gaiman condemn Brexit in open letter

Almost 90 UK authors including Robert Harris, Neil Gaiman, John le Carré and Philip Pullman, have condemned Brexit in an open letter urging people to vote in tomorrow's European Parliament elections.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-22 12:21:59 UTC ]
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Dick Robinson Calls Reading a 'Civil Right' at PEN Gala

The Scholastic CEO was this year's publishing honoree at the PEN America Literary Gala, held last night at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Journalist and author Bob Woodward received the 2019 PEN America Literary Service Award. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-22 04:00:00 UTC ]
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With ‘Orange World,’ Karen Russell delivers the must-read short-story collection of the summer

The eight stories pay homage to fantasy, horror and science fiction greats, while charting new territory. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-05-20 15:43:55 UTC ]
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BookExpo's Librarians' Lounge 2019: Learn More about Move Books’ Efforts to Get Boys Reading

On Thursday, May 30, from 9:00-9:30 a.m. join Move Books in the Librarians' Lounge (booth 557) to learn about the books that will hook boys on reading. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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BookExpo's Librarians' Lounge 2019: Sweet Summer Reads, Courtesy of Penguin Random House Adult Library Marketing

On Thursday, May 30, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., join Penguin Random House in the Librarians' Lounge (Booth 557) for a meet and greet with some of the publishers' hottest authors. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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7 memoirs about moms to read this Mother's Day

Forget what you've seen in sitcoms and gauzy Hallmark television commercials: being a parent might be rewarding, but there's nothing easy about it. The experience of raising a child is an endlessly difficult one, and while there's no shortage of advice books for parents, there's no book that... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-05-07 19:05:00 UTC ]
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Norwegian reading app to launch in the UK

Poio, an app created to help children learn to read, is launching in the UK in June. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BookTrust chooses The Cave for Time to Read campaign

Reading charity BookTrust will give 700,000 copies of Rob Hodgson’s The Cave (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books) to school starters in England as part of its Time to Read campaign. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Young people who engage less with reading prefer screens, says NLT report

Print is still the preferred medium for young people but digital formats are growing in popularity amongst those who engage less with reading, according to a new report. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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White Supremacists Take Over D.C. Bookstore Reading

White supremacists briefly took over a reading by author Jonathan Metzl at the flagship location for Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, shouting “this land is our land” and marching through the store yelling the name of a group that helped to organize the 2017... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-04-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A First: APA Research Sees 50 Percent of Americans Listening to an Audiobook

The use of smart speakers is on the rise, as is car listening, in reported audiobook consumption in the Audio Publishers Association's 2019 annual survey. The post A First: APA Research Sees 50 Percent of Americans Listening to an Audiobook appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-04-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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