Major writers including Arundhati Roy and Neil Gaiman condemn 'egregious' suppression of Wendy Doniger's book under pressure from Hindu nationalistsMajor authors from Arundhati Roy to William Dalrymple and Neil Gaiman have condemned Penguin's controversial removal of Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus from circulation in India, a withdrawal which has been described as an "egregious violation of free speech" and "deplorable" by the international literary community.The decision is "shocking, appalling, dreadful and entirely negative," Dalrymple told the Guardian, while Roy, the Booker prize-winning author of The God of Small Things, has called on Penguin to explain why it "caved in". Doniger's widely praised book was pulled from India following a lawsuit from the Hindu group Shiksha Bachao Andolan accusing the University of Chicago professor of "hurt[ing] the religious feelings of millions of Hindus" – a violation of the Indian penal code which prohibits "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs". The lawsuit, which also says Doniger's book is "a shallow, distorted and non-serious presentation of Hinduism" which is "riddled with heresies and factual inaccuracies", has been played out over the last four years, and according to the petitioner's lawyer, earlier this week publisher Penguin agreed to withdraw the book, and to pulp copies.The move immediately triggered an avalanche of protest.... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
Thanks to a certain middle-aged former TV producer called Erika James and a little publishing phenomenon called Fifty Shades of Grey, erotica seems to have not so much crept its way into the mainstream, as landed with noisy squawks and a puff of feathers on the bestseller charts. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Books published by Amazon like the Penny Marshall memoir 'My Mother Was Nuts' have not seen strong sales. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-10-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A few days after Amazon announced that the Steve Jobs biography was its top-selling book of 2011 (combined print and ebook sales), the book debuted on bestseller charts around the world, including the three countries highlighted this month. Steve Jobs was #3 in France and the Netherlands, and... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Wed, 07/09/2011 - 08:15 Pan Macmillan has acquired a title which has sold, according to the publisher, more than a quarter of a million copies in eight weeks in France and went to number one in the bestseller charts. Editorial director Liz Gough... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Wed, 01/06/2011 - 14:53 James Bond has failed in his latest mission: to top the bestseller charts. Despite a bargain £5 deal at Tesco (75% off the £19.99 r.r.p.), sales of Jeffery Deaver's 007 novel, Carte Blanche (Hodder & Stoughton), were... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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