China has been loosening controls on its publishing industry. More to read and greater variety. – Financial Times
Category: words
WRITE AGAINST THE MACHINE
A writer/academic is wistful for pen and ink and wonders if we haven’t given up something as writers by being tied to computers. – Chronicle of Higher Education
E-SURPRISE
Library circulation is down at the University of Texas at Austin. But newly-acquired e-books are flying through readers at a stunning pace. Maybe the public is more ready to “cuddle up with a good byte” than many think. – New York Times
A THING FOR TWENTIES
Bay Area librarian arrested after failing to turn in money for overdue fines she collected. She kept all the $20s – 6,500 of them over four years — averaging between $130 and $140 a day. – San Francisco Chronicle
E-BOOK BREAKTHROUGH
Three-quarters of the 3,000 e-books published are romances. Now the most popular has sold 6,000 copies. The Romance Writers of America requires that an electronic book sell more than 5,000 copies before it will recognize the author or publisher. Thus for the first time is legitimacy conferred. – Wired
A NEW GOVERNMENT INQUIRY –
– on the state of Canada’s bookselling industry will investigate disappearance of independent booksellers. – CBC
BEST BOOKS OF 99
A bumpy year that got better. – Washington Post
A LESSON TO BE LEARNED?
Amazon bans selling “Mein Kampf” to customers with addresses in Germany. German Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin sent letters urging both Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com to refrain from shipping the book to Germany. Amazon.com banned such sales, and Barnesandnoble.com asked for a complete list of restricted books. – Wired
WHERE’S THE LITERATURE IN LITERARY STUDIES?
Even the current economic boom can’t accommodate the best of our new humanities Ph.Ds. “Some assume that we humanists have a clear sense of what the humanities do and what makes them valuable – that we simply need to convince those crass others, whether within the university or outside its walls, that they really need us. But that assumption is untrue. No one’s even angry with us now, just bored.” – Boston Review
TAKING THE HIGH ROAD
French publisher has found a way to mine her country’s intellectual elite and her countrymen’s passion for ideas and produce a formula for commercial success. – Financial Times