The truth about book prizes, why Amazon is like an old-fashioned library and how much famous writers really earned from their journalism …Periodically, signs go up saying that Grub Street is closed to through traffic. Observers speculate that the street is being redeveloped as gentrification forces the former inhabitants to move out, or else that the closure may be due to the expansion of the neighbouring university’s English department. Older heads are shaken in what had been the local pub but is now a coffee’n’crafts shop: there used to be more life in the place, they mourn, when bohemian writers could dash off a review against the clock to pay for their round. Even if Grub Street is eventually reopened, it will never be the same again, and anyway it will probably have been renamed “Creatives Crescent”.Such cliches and exaggerations are characteristic of this genre of lament. Like most keening for the good old days, these threnodies are not pieces of dispassionate historical analysis: they are attempts to compensate for so much that is disagreeable about one’s own time by inventing a more or less idealised version of the past. Still, it is worth wondering why “Grub Street” should be the form taken by paradise lost in this case. After all, the street originally so named in London (it was real before it was metaphorical) came to be the home of that kind of “grub” defined by the OED as “a person of mean abilities; a dull industrious drudge; a literary hack”. Even allowing... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
Setting up Wednesday's #EtherIssue debate on Twitter, Porter Anderson looks at recent writing on perceptions of elitism in the literary world. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The latest popular trend in manga looks at the sometimes unconventional romances and culinary habits of some of Japan's greatest writers. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#greatest writers
Publisher Annette Crossland, who has worked in the industry for over 30 years, is starting up a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#literary agency
Ahdaf Soueif spoke with The Daily Beast about life in Cairo since the uprising as well as its impact on the city’s writers and bookstores. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#daily beast
An independent report on the public library service in England has been commissioned by culture... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Daunt Books in Marylebone is holding its first literary festival on 27th to 28th March. Authors... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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By encouraging the young to publish fan fiction, story-sharing startup Movellas is tackling English children's low literacy levelsLiteracy levels among English young adults compare poorly with those in other industrialised countries, according to an OECD survey last autumn which ranked England a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#team working
#fan fiction
Without Betty Cornell, 15-year-old Maya Van Wagenen would be in a very different place. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Yesterday we called the pre-Super Bowl for Doritos, but a lot can happen overnight when you put a Clydesdale and a bunch of Labrador puppies in the same ad. Therefore, upon further review, we're reversing the call: Budweiser's "Puppy Love" is champion the pre-Super Bowl champion, really crushing... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#visible measures
Jeremy Paxman offers a view of the first world war that has its insights but avoids important questions that need answeringThe battle to carve up the 100th anniversary of the first world war began early this month with education secretary Michael Gove accusing historians and Blackadder – he... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hearst Magazines will roll out its newest title, Dr. Oz, The Good Life, Feb. 4. With 800,000 copies being distributed, including 375,000 copies on newsstands for $3.99 and another 425,000 going to subscribers of other Hearst titles, The Good Life could well be the biggest consumer magazine... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2014-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The existence of the D-notice (aka DA-notice) committee is under threat, reports the Sunday Times. It cites sources who say some officials in the Ministry of Defence, which is considering a review of the system, want to fold the committee into the new press regulator or place it within the MoD's... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Traditional book publishing has met its match in the founder of Blackprint press.Yaba Blay has no problem confessing that she is a "recovering overachiever." Which is not surprising since she is also currently a professor of Africana Studies at Drexel University in Philadelphia, co-director of... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-01-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A fitting salute to the Guardian's late parliamentary sketch writerI thought it unnecessary, and perhaps ethically dubious, to cover this book when its first edition came out in 2012; but now, following Simon Hoggart's death earlier this month, and the addition of a selection from a year's worth... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A recent commentary in Jacobin raises the question of whether young people are being fed a lie about following their passionMany 20 and 30-somethings (if not those older and younger than that) grew up hearing the advice that all you need to do in life is "find your passion". The implication is... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author Vanessa Curtis, whose novels include Zelah Green and The Haunting of Tabitha Grey (both... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For the first time the Zee Jaipur Literary Festival (JLF) has introduced a professional program to discuss the ongoing challenges to book publishing in India. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tasters of the reviews competing for the annual prize that recognises 'the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past 12 months'News: Hatchet Job of the Year award draws and quarters shortlistCraig Brown on Distant Intimacy: A Friendship in the Age of the Internet by Frederic... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#paul theroux
Tony Jordan secures rights to 40 EMI songs for 10-part series Stop! In the Name of Love, partly inspired by 'jukebox musicals'The co-creator of Life on Mars is developing a TV drama series, partly inspired by the success "jukebox musicals" such as Mamma Mia!, featuring famous Motown hits such as... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Although Time Inc. began publishing books that combined the resources of its Time and Life magazines in 1961, Time-Life Books (T-L Books) was not officially established until 1964. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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