Category: words

A new website allows visitors to commission biographies of themselves from well-known writers. It is expensive, however. – CBC

Contrary to popular opinion, those street-side booksellers set up on card tables in Manhattan aren’t vagrants or low-lifes. “While many street booksellers resemble refugees from the Beat era, they’re generally savvy and erudite – and they know their books. They have to, in order to survive” A new movie puts them in the spotlight. – Publishers Weekly

The Harry Potter books have sold 21 million copies. But the hoopla over the latest book – even before it has been released, is formidable. “At least 9,000 Federal Express trucks will be deployed around the nation on that morning by the Internet retail giant Amazon.com to help deliver 250,000 presold copies of the fantasy novel.” – New York Times

“Although their voices are being heard much more loudly in the West than in India, they are ushering in a new era for Indian literature in English. They are often called Midnight’s Grandchildren in homage to another seminal Indian novel, Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” the dark parable of Indian history since independence that won the Booker Prize in 1981 and in 1993 won a special Booker Prize as the best British novel of the previous quarter century. Now the new generation of writers have in many ways broken away from the magic realism that characterizes much of Mr. Rushdie’s work. – New York Times

“The field of southern literary studies has been dominated by a huge Faulkner industry that both overshadows and tames the terms we use for reading southern women’s fiction. If we are to see this fiction in all of its power, we need to change the categories we use to think about southern literature.” – Chronicle of Higher Education

There has been a good deal of secrecy surrounding the impending release of the next Harry Potter novel. No one can get an advance copy, no one knows what the plot is, and booksellers kept getting mixed messages on what the title would be. An elaborate marketing plan?  Nothing so clever. Up until very recently, the book wasn’t finished – author J.K. Rowling was scrambling to meet her deadline. – New York Observer

A small unpretentious used book store in downtown New York has become a hangout for writers. The bookstore relies entirely on random donations, which come variously from people who are moving or deceased, book reviewers, literary agencies, publishers, and collectors. In selecting which books to display, the staff caters to the tastes of regulars—people who live or work in the neighborhood, book dealers, and collectors. – Village Voice

It used to be that winning a major literary award was a ticket to great sales. But a look at recent book sales charts suggests that winning a big prize no longer has much impact on getting a book sold. – The Independent (UK)

If digital e-books do one day move from the curious to the commonplace, what will become of libraries? “For instance, is it possible to “lend” a digital book? Will Internet piracy and digital libraries prompt publishing houses to move to radical new business models such as subscription-based online reading rooms or advertising-sponsored e-books?” A new Australian Copyright Amendment currently before the Senate would allow libraries to distribute copyrighted books without paying royalties to authors. Authors, of course, are opposed. – Sydney Morning Herald