Consolidation of the book industry is reshaping the face of publishing. But just as significant is the rise of print-on-demand publishing. “Print-on-demand technology allows books to be produced quickly and in small quantities. It eliminates huge print runs, which require large sales to break even. It relieves publishing companies of the need to warehouse inventories and process bookstore returns.” – Chicago Tribune
Category: words
BEST READ
What are America’s top public libraries? Here’s a list. – Book
THE JOYCE INDUSTRY
More exciting than a dotcom (and more profitable too), the cult around perpetuating James Joyce is a big and fascinating business. – New Statesman
AN EXPENSIVE NAME
Comic book writer is told to pay a hockey player $24 million after the writer uses the name of the hockey player as a character in a comic book. The court judgment sends a chill though all those who need to name the characters in their books (or comics or songs). – Inside.com
WHEN SAID MET SARTRE
- Edward Said met Jean Paul Sartre in 1979: “For my generation he [Sartre] has always been one of the great intellectual heroes of the 20th century, a man whose insight and intellectual gifts were at the service of nearly every progressive cause of our time. Yet he seemed neither infallible nor prophetic. On the contrary, one admired Sartre for the efforts he made to understand situations and, when necessary, to offer solidarity to political causes. He was never condescending or evasive, even if he was given to error and overstatement. Nearly everything he wrote is interesting for its sheer audacity, its freedom (even its freedom to be verbose) and its generosity of spirit.” – London Review of Books
A DOORSTOP OF A BOOK
Jacques Barzun’s new 900-page history of the last 500 years looks formidable on the bookshelf. But it’s a kind of history seldom seen: a “technicolor, wide-screen, multi-media epic in print of what you missed while suffering through Western Civ. 101. Here is an intellectual Dr. Seuss: ‘Oh, the Places You’ll See! The People You’ll Meet!’ – The Idler
THE NEXT BIG THING
“Why should anyone be surprised to learn that a Western nation of 18-odd million people has among it some novelists, poets and playwrights whose work is wondrous and breathtaking and reaches into all the dark corners where only art can go?” Commemorating Australia’s 100th anniversary of nationhood, London hosts a weekend-long Australian writing festival with many of the country’s literary lights in attendance. – The Telegraph (UK)
A NEW “NEW TESTAMENT”
The first version of the Bible to be reproduced in English – a 1526 “New Testament” translated from the Greek – has been fully reprinted for the very first time by the British Library. – Times of India (AP)
THE 411 OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
That E. Ethelbert Miller is a major mover in the African American literary world is undeniable. That he is considered by many to be an outstanding poet is indisputable. “I can’t think of an African American writer whose life I haven’t affected.” So why is Howard University – his alma mater – going out of its way to ignore him? – Washington Post
NO MORE OVERDUE FINES
San Francisco’s Public Library is beginning to allow readers to browse, search, borrow, read and return 1,500 electronic books from the library’s collection. The process of doing so is still arduous, but if the practice catches on, doesn’t that mean the end of the publishing industry? – Salon