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 books will be reissued in both trade paperback and ebook formats, and will feature updated interiors and new cover treatments. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The fast-growing news-feature website leads the league in approvals. Is that because it publishes less rather than more?The driving belief for news websites is that more (that's more stories, features, videos, blogs) equals more hits and thus more money. But what if less can also equal more... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Australian authors and critics sift through the piles of books they read in 2013 to highlight the treasures they found. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A seasonal selection of new (and not so new) books about language that are anything but dullBooks about English fall into various categories, mostly offputting ones: the academic, rarely of much interest, and often incomprehensible, to the general reader; the lament for a (mythical) golden age... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Canongate's star-studded Letters Live event (10th December), featuring Neil Gaiman, Benedict... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The magazine was once the most hotly anticipated Sunday read. Now it's been eclipsed by the showy T style publicationTwo magazines, both published by the New York Times, arrived in my house over the weekend, one thin, the other thick.The thin one, The New York Times Magazine, is largely about... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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I read while traveling, waiting for meetings, in the evening, and especially on vacation. As you can see, I'm still pretty much an old-school print guy, because I like to jot notes in the margins, but I assume I'll move over to ebooks when annotation features get better. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Despite being digitally savvy Taiwanese readers are dedicated to print and ebooks remain just 2% of the market — though change is afoot. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Under the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's reading culture was destroyed, but over the past five years it has returned with the help of a revitalized publishing industry. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new deal with Penguin UK means a greater variety of books for the insurgent platform. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2013-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The conversation about the Common Core standards will be a hot topic at this year’s ALA Midwinter Meeting, as many public librarians make efforts to reach their patrons and community members—as well as form partnerships with school librarians—to provide information on the standards. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-11-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mobile devices are increasingly being used for social reading and recommendation sites, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An audiobook version of Morrissey's Autobiography will be read by actor David Morrissey.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The World Book Night project is to be run by The Reading Agency (TRA), with WBN chief executive... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Forty-five US states have adopted the Common Core, a set of standards that spell out what US public school students learn in each grade, from kindergarten to graduation. How would you match up? Test yourself on everything from Dickens to Dirda to see how familiar you are with the novels, poems,... Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It was just more than a year ago that Ev Williams and Biz Stone created the publishing platform Medium. The Internet officially met the site in August 2012, and since then, Medium’s popularity has grown enough for even the most ske ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the wake of the government shutdown, Baltimore-based breathe bookstore café is offering a 10 percent discount to furloughed workers. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the wake of the government shutdown, Baltimore-based breathe bookstore café is offering a 10 percent discount to furloughed workers. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new study finds that reading literary fiction “leads people to perform better on tests that measure empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence." Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The content on Scribd, the San–Francisco based startup that aims to create the digital library of the future, is available on a range of devices, from laptops to smartphones to tablets. But CEO Trip Adler tells Fast Company we won't be reading e–books in our hands in the future––they'll be... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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