As publishers vie to persuade us to pack their titles for the holidays, we chart the evolution of the ’beach read’Summer reads, beach reads, holiday reads … at this time of year, the publishing world works itself into a sweat trying to force its novels into our carry-on luggage, or over the ether on to our Kindles. There are more books sold in the summer than during any other season: the well-established publishing calendar tends to see hardbacks released in the autumn to be given as gifts at Christmas, then repackaged as paperbacks in late spring. As Donna Harrington-Lueker sets out in her history of the beach read, Books for Idle Hours, the summer publishing rush is at least a century old, and has typically aimed “airy and froth-like” books on “young ladies” (the quote is from an 1888 work on summer books by Arlo Bates). The summer fiction market is changing, though, with more and more “serious”, “literary” novels showing up where once there were only thrillers and crime novels, bonkbusters and romances. So it is that Normal People by Sally Rooney is currently piled high on the tables of WH Smith’s Travel alongside Lee Child, Jodi Picoult and Bernard Cornwell.I’m aware of how contentious and porous discussions of genre can be. Generic labels, though, are the terms that booksellers and publishers think in and for literary novels, the chances of summer success are still relatively slim. Tom Tivnan, managing editor of the Bookseller, points to Nielsen BookScan data that... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-07-14 07:00:23 UTC ]
Fred Klein, who helped make Bantam Books a major force in mass market paperback publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, died on October 22. He was described by a former colleague as "the greatest ringmaster the publishing world has ever known.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-02 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
AS AN EXPRESSIVE MEDIUM, video games have a strange way of reducing central concepts of modernist art and theory to basic operational elements. The technical specifications of “point of view” that have preoccupied novelists since the turn of the 20th century are crudely literalized within game... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-31 17:00:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club (Viking) has bounced back into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 28,756 copies through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-26 19:38:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Writers Rachel Howzell Hall, Attica Locke and Ivy Pochoda talked with Times reporter James Queally for a 2020 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-24 16:06:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this
As The Bookseller reports, UK publisher Faber has announced that they will be releasing the complete screenplays of Normal People, the popular BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel of the same name. Whether or not you understand on a larger level the reason anyone might buy and read a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-14 14:37:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Of mixed Filipino, Chinese, Spanish and Indian descent, and identifying as queer, Catherine Hernandez’s new novel, Crosshairs, imagines a dystopian near-future Canada where an oppressive regime is rounding up those deemed “Other”—people of colour, the disabled and members of the LGBTQ+... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-14 02:09:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Javier Celaya is the founder and c.e.o. of Dosdoce.com, a member of the executive board of the Digital Economy Association of Spain, as well as head of institutional relations at the Spanish Digital Publishing Association (Aselid). He talks to Tom Tivnan. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-14 01:37:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Faber is to release the complete screenplays of the television series "Normal People", based on Sally Rooney's novel of the same title. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-13 21:25:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hachette Children’s Group has acquired two middle-grade fiction titles by debut author Kate Gilby Smith, to be published on the Orion Children's Book imprint. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-02 10:02:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club (Penguin) has charted top of the Bookstat e-book top 10 in its second week on sale, rising from third to score an across-formats double, after its hardback claimed the UK Official Top 50 number one through Nielsen BookScan's TCM. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-16 21:50:09 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club (Penguin) has topped the Amazon Charts' Most-Sold: Fiction top 20 for a second week running, in the same week its hardback claimed a second week atop the UK Official Top 50 chart through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-16 05:52:35 UTC ]
More news stories like this
With no room for Hilary Mantel’s conclusion to her Wolf Hall trilogy, the six finalists also include four debutsHilary Mantel will not win a third Booker prize with the final novel in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, after American writers made a near clean sweep of this year’s shortlist.With four... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-09-15 12:21:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Bolinda has scooped a “laugh out loud” romantic comedy by debut author Aly Mennuti, featuring a literary agent based partly on the author's own, Simon Trewin. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-25 02:20:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Jamie Oliver's 7 Ways (Michael Joseph) has soared into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 34,241 copies through Nielsen BookScan's TCM. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-24 18:56:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Ah, yes, the good old days: when novelists lent their faces and testimonials to advertisers hoping to sell tires, or a certain kind of beer, or fancy watches. It’s something you don’t see very much anymore, because we writers have become too principled to participate in advertising campaigns.... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-19 17:14:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Chris Bohjalian, Mary Kay Andrews and other novelists have turned to Zoom and Facebook Live to find their audience. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
From 'islands of pain' to the 'peril of exposure,' writers have captured the fear, emptiness and despair that characterize life during the current pandemic, writes a poet and English scholar. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2020-08-17 12:24:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Novelists including Candice Carty-Williams, Beth O'Leary and Jeanette Winterson are in the running for the Comedy Women in Print Prize (CWIP). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-16 13:06:20 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The Women's Prize for Fiction has just published 25 literary works by female authors with their real names for the first time. Could we do the same for Miles Franklin and Henry Handel Richardson here? Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2020-08-13 06:43:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Stephenie Meyer's Midnight Sun (Atom) rose 11 places to top the Amazon Charts' Most-Sold: Fiction chart, as the Twilight reboot sold 62,460 copies in hardback to claim the UK Official Top 50 number one through Nielsen BookScan's TCM. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-12 02:23:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this