When is a book not a book? When it is performed by a starry cast of hundreds. Except it has always been more complicated than thatNews this week of a 17% hike in the UK’s audiobook sales might seem like a niche business story, but it raises an existential question. What exactly is an audiobook today? Is it a book? Is it a play? Or is it becoming something else entirely? What is clear is that a jostle for market dominance is driving it into new dimensions. The streaming platform Spotify followed its move into podcasting two years ago with the launch of an audiobooks business. Though it has yet to start making its own recordings, last autumn it made a deal for 200,000 audiobooks to be available to its premium users.Not to be outdone, Amazon-owned Audible – accustomed to being the market leader – upped its game, hiring the Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes to record multi-voice versions of the Dickens novels Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, and announcing last month that it had reached an agreement for a recording of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, voiced by more than 100 actors and featuring a “groundbreaking new soundscape”. The new Potter audiobooks, it said, would not usurp but “sit alongside and complement” conventional recordings by Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, which Audible also hosts. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-10 17:25:03 UTC ]
Tech start-up GivingTales has developed a children’s fairy tale app with actor Roger Moore to raise money for Unicef. The app includes stories by Hans Christian Anderson read by actors such as Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor and Joan Collins The GivingTales app launches today and is free to download... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The 'Theory of Everything' actor has reportedly been offered the role of protagonist Newt Scamander. 'Harry Potter' author J.K. Rowling is writing the screenplay for the movie, which is set in the world of 'Potter.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Booksellers Association has said it hopes the European Commission’s competition inquiry into the e-commerce sector will look specifically at market dominance in ebooks. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As the fictional anniversary of a 'Harry Potter' battle was celebrated, Rowling took to social media to apologize to fans for killing off a beloved character. More may be coming. 'I thought I might apologise for one death per anniversary,' the author wrote. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-05-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As the fictional anniversary of a 'Harry Potter' battle was celebrated, Rowling took to social media to apologize to fans for killing off a beloved character. More may be coming. 'I thought I might apologise for one death per anniversary,' the author wrote. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-05-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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British scientists say their research confirms that emotion-charged passages in 'Harry Potter' books have significant impact on the brains of readers. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'You will fail,' says 'Harry Potter' author J.K. Rowling, talking about her new book 'Very Good Lives.' 'That's inevitable. It's what you do with it.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has acquired the first standalone thriller from crime writer Mari Hannah. Publishing director Wayne Brookes bought UK and Commonwealth rights including Canada to The Silent Room from Oli Munson at A M Heath. Hannah is the author of a series of novels, published by Pan Macmillan,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When a fan questioned Rowling's statement that she envisioned 'Harry Potter' character Dumbledore as gay, the author replied that 'gay people just look like ... people.' 'Amazing answer,' the fan replied. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Bibliography,' which will be released in the US in April, includes details about alternate titles considered and also tells readers which 'Harry Potter' book Rowling got 'sick' of reading after many edits. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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To celebrate Harry Potter Book Night we have a mesmerising insight into how Jonny Duddle created new Harry Potter covers for JK Rowling’s beloved series. So feast your eyes and enjoy these process animationsPlus win a complete set of the newly illustrated Harry Potter books in hardback – find... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The novelist Robert Harris was right to call the BBC’s lack of a books show a ‘disgrace’. There’s plenty the corporation could do to make a popular literary programme on TVWith injury, there is always a little insult. When a BBC spokesperson, responding to Robert Harris’s complaints at the Costa... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-29 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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Bloomsbury has launched a competition for schools to win a workshop with Harry Potter jacket illustrator Jonny Duddle as part of Harry Potter Book Night, which will take place on the 5th February. To win the workshop, pupils must design a new "chocolate frog" card. The cards, which feature... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Three projects from the UK and one from the Ukraine have been named as winners in the YourFry competition. YourFry was launched by Penguin in partnership with file transfer site WeTransfer in 2014 and challenged people to use technology to develop the stories in Stephen Fry’s autobiographies... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Artist Jim Kay is doing the artwork for the new version of the first book of the 'Harry Potter' series, which will be released this October. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers Scholastic and Bloomsbury are re-releasing the series with full-color illustrations.Between author J.K. Rowling's fan hub experience Pottermore and a slew of fans bringing elements of Harry Potter's world to life (Marauder's Map, a seven-book saga in one), the boy who lived lives on,... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Books for children and young adults are top of the league, bagging seven of this year’s top 10, but non-fiction has endured another annus horribilisSee the chart in fullAt long last, kids ruled in 2014. Books aimed at them have often figured in the top 10 of the all-year sales chart for printed... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-12-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Girls are quick to romanticise anti-heroes, says Harry Potter author, as she shares her vision for the future of the boy wizard’s school enemyJK Rowling says that “girls are very apt to romanticise” the antihero, and reveals that she had been forced to pour “cold common sense” on the startling... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-12-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The character 'is the only one I feel guilty about,' the author recently wrote in an essay detailing how she plotted her seven-part series and how a story change made this character's death necessary. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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