Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race was a sensation when she first published it, but it took a lot of police brutality for her book to top the lists. She notes, “To know there was a surge of people searching out anti-racism books after seeing what was essentially a film of somebody being murdered, I can’t uncouple those two things.” – The Observer (UK)
Category: words
Federal Judge Rules The Trump Administration May Not Block John Bolton’s Book
Bolton’s lawyer; “The full story of these events has yet to be told—but it will be.” – Slate
The Race To Publish Trump Tell-Alls
The confluence of these explosive books, in the months leading up to the 2020 election, has made Simon & Schuster the current front-runner in an ongoing race among publishers to produce news-making titles about the Trump administration. It’s a lucrative business to be in right now. – The New York Times
Why Per-Article Micropayments For Journalism Just Will Not Catch On
“Publishers can be accused of being slow to wake up to the internet, but they’re not that slow, nor that likely to leave money on the table. But there is, it turns out, a long list of reasons you can’t pay for journalism by the article.” James Ball explains the logic and the arithmetic. – Columbia Journalism Review
With Nine Out Of 24 Board Members Remaining, National Book Critics Circle Tries To Pick Up The Pieces
Following an internal dispute gone public that has led to nearly two-thirds of the organization’s directors resigning (but the one whose incendiary comments were at the heart of the problem still there), a new board chair (clearly reluctant to take the position) and her remaining colleagues have decided to delay most of this year’s awards and have stated to NBCC membership that they will undertake “difficult internal work … with deep reflection upon past mistakes, and a commitment to serious, structural change in how we conduct business and continue to celebrate the rich diversity of global literature.” – Publishers Weekly
The Earliest Editors: “The Correctors”
They corrected authors’ copy as well as proofs. They identified and mended typographical and other errors, to the best of their ability. They divided texts into sections and drew up aids to readers: title pages, tables of contents, chapter headings, and indexes. Some correctors composed texts as well as paratexts, serving as what might now be called content providers. – Lapham’s Quarterly
Library Use Is Dramatically Up Since The Lockdown
Weekly library e-book lending across the country has increased by nearly 50 percent since March 9, according to data from OverDrive, a service used by many libraries to let patrons check out media for e-readers, smartphones and computers. Audiobook check-outs are also up 14% — not quite as large a shift, likely because fewer people are in their cars commuting to work. – NPR
Has Somebody Really Figured Out How To Decipher The Voynich Manuscript This Time?
“Any attempts to decipher the manuscript’s unique text, made up of a mixture of handwritten Latin letters, Arabic numbers, and unknown characters, have so far failed. … Now, after three years of analysis, the German Egyptologist Rainer Hannig … believes he has cracked the code to translating the work, and found the manuscript’s language to be based on Hebrew.” – The Art Newspaper
Relieved Yet Wary, Customers Start Returning To London’s Bookshops
This week book retailers in England have reopened to the public (with limits on how many people may be on the premises at a time) for the first time since the pandemic-induced shutdown began three months ago. Alex Marshall visited half a dozen bookstores around the capital to check on the mood. – The New York Times
A Conservative Reckoning In Book Publishing?
Publishing such authors was once uncontroversial. The conservative publishing industrial complex has been a mainstay ever since Allen Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind topped the bestseller lists. Free speech has always been a slippery concept in book publishing. At times it is presented as a badge of honor—we stand by Salman Rushdie!—but mostly, it is an excuse to publish something that is profitable but otherwise valueless. Beleaguered publishers have understandably cast themselves as slaves to the marketplace: They publish whatever it is people want to buy. – The New Republic