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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The magazine editor on integrating print with technology, avoiding the hard sell, and why it’s fine for covers to show a few wrinklesIt seemed, at the time, an odd move. While old media print companies were scrambling to improve their digital offerings and wondering whether their print titles... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-02-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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People who read regularly for pleasure have greater levels of self-esteem, are less stressed, and can cope better with difficult situations than lapsed or non-readers, new research for Galaxy Quick Reads has found. While the research, carried out by Dr Josie Billington at the University of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Killer Reads, HarperFiction’s new digital-first crime and thriller list, has made its first acquisitions through an open submission process it held last summer. Sarah Hodgson, deputy publishing director and Kate Stephenson, editor, have acquired three new titles from the hundreds of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As demand for audiobooks continued to grow in 2014, publishers produced a record number of titles. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Macdonald wins the Costa Book Awards Book of the Year 2014 for her book H is for Hawk. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If you're the sort of Harry Potter fan who can't help but read the series again and again, Oyster has a treat in store. The all-you-can-read subscription service has teamed up with Pottermore to carry all of the Harry Potter books, including the Hogw... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2015-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Schoolchildren’s increased interest in books attributed to school campaigns and better targeting by publishersDespite a myriad of new media competing for their attention, Danish children are bucking the trend and reading more books today than they did 14 years ago.A survey of 1,999... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zuckerberg is asking Facebook users to join him in reading certain titles this year. The next book to be part of the program is Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-01-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Netflix-for-magazines race continues… The post More Competition in the All-You-Can-Read Magazine Market appeared first on Folio:. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2015-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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More than half of teachers believe contemporary children read less than their generation did when they were growing up, according to new research carried out for the launch of this year’s Read for My School competition. For the study, 500 teachers in the UK were asked about the reading habits... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A panel at Digital Book World last week offered several insights on how ebook platforms are analyzing user data and what they have discovered. The post Ebook Platforms Know What, When and How You Read appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Corinne Gotch has joined The Reading Agency as programme co-ordinator for publishing partners. In her new role Gotch will manage the charity’s partnerships with children’s publishers and work with them to deliver reading activities in libraries. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Has the editor of The Bookseller compared the fall of print sales of adult fiction since 2009 by more than £150m with the massively declined budgets of public libraries over the same five-year period (The writing’s on the wall for adult fiction in print, 14 January). This is also conditioned by... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Recently, my boss (the mayor of White Plains) brought together some of the city’s commissioners to discuss the various projects we hope to launch in 2015, with the idea that we may find opportunities to work with one another. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The number of youngsters reading for pleasure has declined sharply, but this sector of publishing is booming – which results in some very strange mathsAre children reading less – or more? I’m confused. If less, then what happened to the 854,262 copies of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars that... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Read and Eat, a bookstore that will specialize in books about food and cuisine, will open in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood in April. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If you need recommendations for your one-person book club, because you'd rather not join an actual one (even if it was founded by a social media mogul), hit up Bing. Microsoft's search engine now displays a carousel of book titles and cover pages (wh... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2015-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zuckerberg wrote that he's resolved to read more new books and is inviting Facebook users to join in. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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EF Labs takes a colorful page from children's book illustrations for its employee manual.The company employee manual: Just saying those words is enough to lull you into a boredom-induced coma. And the idea of actually reading the content within—likely drier than the paper it's printed on—is... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It's sobering to think of carrying on into next year the weight of all the unread books on one's nightstand. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-12-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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