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 subscription service is adding 30,000 recorded books to the half-million ebooks it already offers.Thirteen months ago, San Francisco startup Scribd launched a service which aims to do for books what Netflix does for movies and TV shows. It offers a large-but-not-utterly-comprehensive... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Literary agency Conville and Walsh has launched a competition to find new novels "that people just can't stop talking about". The agency is offering a prize of £1,000 and possible representation to an unpublished work in its new Word of Mouth competition, which will be judged by author Matt... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The music, film and TV industries have all undergone radical transformations over the last fifteen years. In contrast, the publishing industry is only now feeling the full force of technological change. Ebooks and ereaders are changing consumers' reading habits and throwing up serious questions... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2014-11-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan is to publish Uprooted, the new novel from fantasy writer Naomi Novik. Editorial director Julie Crisp acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Del Rey, part of Penguin Random House in the US. Novik is the author of the Temeraire series, published in the UK by Harper Voyager. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Given that links appear to be more clickable when shared on Facebook, online publishers have scrambled to become savvy gamers of Facebook’s News Feed, seeking to divine the secret rules that push some stories higher than others. But all this genuflection at the altar of Facebook’s algorithms may... Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2014-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month, we’re balancing some quick reads---a Jonathan Franzen-blessed debut and a slim companion volume from one of our favorite new(-ish) fantasy writers---with Walter Isaacson’s latest blockbuster on the history of technological innovation, along with a few other selections. Attention,... Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2014-10-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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There’s a scene early in the recent film Noah in which Noah plants a seed from the garden of Eden. It sprouts and spreads into a lush and glorious forest as quickly as critics scrambled to find biblical precedent. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-book download site On Read has been shut down by the City of London's Police Intellectual... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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September 21-27 is Banned Books Week. Here we offer a list of titles that have been challenged, restricted, removed, or banned in 2013 and 2014. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nook Media has signed a multi-platform partnership with ESI Media, the commercial department of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-09-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Save the Children says it will address the issue of dyslexia through its Read On. Get On.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Just get a Kindle already. You're insufferable.It's the conundrum of any Ikea visit. How big do you go? Do you buy enough storage for right now, or do you pad it out? One way, you have a bunch of tchotchkes sitting on the floor in two years. The other, you live in an abandoned library.Read Full... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new coalition is being formed to tackle what it calls a "reading crisis" among... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-09-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Audiobooks have long been known for, as Audio Publishers Association president Michele Cobb puts it, their “great multitasking properties.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-09-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Burton's book 'The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm' will reportedly be released this October. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-09-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-book retailer Kobo has reached an agreement with Blake eLearning to sell the company’s interactive Reading Eggs kids’ ebooks through the Kobo Kids’ Store. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The children's book by Roald Dahl is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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There was a time when Barnes & Noble was so big, so dominating, that even Tom Hanks managed to look like a jerk when he played a book-chain executive. But times have changed, and as people began to order their books online -- or even download them --... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-08-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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With Barnes and Noble reduced to borrowing Samsung tablets and Sony giving up altogether, only Kobo stands in the way of Amazon's total ebook domination. Now, the company is hoping to steal a march on its rival by introducing the first waterproof... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-08-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How is it professional book critics can pump out scores of reviews a year when many of us struggle just to read one book a week? They are told what to say. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-08-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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