Tuesday
April 30
WHERE
BOOKS DO BUSINESS: Publishers and bookstore owners gather
in New York for BookExpo America, the industry's annual confab.
The gathering is "the place where the publishing industry
most clearly demonstrates the obsession with merchandise and marketing.
Publishers often upstage each other with spectacles that are a
far cry from the solitary pursuits of reading and writing. This
year particularly the event will resemble a circus."
The New York Times 04/29/02
BIG
PLANS FOR THE BOOKER: Last week the Booker Prize and its new
sponsor announced that the prize money for the winning book would
jump from £20,000 to £50,000. But it looks like even
bigger changes might be afoot, including expanding the award to
include North America. The
Independent (UK) 04/26/02
THE
BIG BIG THING: Big money is ruining publishing, some say,
forcing publishers to chase after elusive blockbusters at the
expense of everything else. "Publishers are, in the main,
putting out fewer titles and then really going after the big ones
as hard as they can. You can't go into a bookshop with 300 titles
and say `Here is my list'. You have to tell them, `This is the
book that will get a massive marketing and advertising campaign'.
And you can only do it for the big books.''
The Age (Melbourne) 04/30/02
Monday
April 29
WHY
NEWSPAPERS ARE CUTTING BOOK COVERAGE: In the past year American
newspapers have cut back on their coverage of books. "Everybody's
hurting: Why should book coverage be any different? Because book
pages were different. Big-city papers aspiring to any stature
have traditionally presented services that rarely pay their way
in ad sales. Such public services permit papers to hold their
heads up as civic assets and not just dealers in wood pulp. These
include investigative reports, op-ed columns, letters pages, foreign
news, special coverage of disasters – and book reviews and essays.
No, books weren't included solely for snob value. Dailies do believe
they educate and inform and maybe even elevate the local discourse.
It's what separates them from Teen People."
Dallas Morning News 04/28/02
WRITERS
IN THE (WRONG) LIGHT: The New York Times recently had a fashion
spread of prominent writers wearing very expensive clothes. Now,
everyone knows most writers don't make lots of money. And even
when they do, they're usually not the high-fashion model types.
So why the con? "Does this seem petty to you? It's not. This
is what's wrong with our culture now: everything comes down to
money, or appearance. Writing is supposed to examine that, and
remind us to look deeper. If writers actually participate in the
obfuscation, and further our disconnect from meaningfulness, then
all is lost." MobyLives 04/29/02
BOOK
SALES UP IN UK: Sales of books were up 5 percent in the UK
in 2001, with British consumers spening £2.15 billion on books.
"Strongest growth in the retail sector came from book and
stationery shops, large chain bookshops, bargain bookshops and
supermarkets. Independent and specialist bookshops fared worse,
with purchases falling for two consecutive years. Book clubs did
not perform well and purchasing on the Internet was flat—4% by
units and 5% by pounds." Publishers
Weekly 04/26/02
- CUTS
AT READER'S DIGEST: Reader's Digest, which has been struggling
for some time, is cutting 100 jobs and scaling back its promotions
in an effort to stabilize its declining business.
Publishers Weekly 04/26/02
USED
(OR ABUSED)? So Amazon is prominently selling used books,
and the Authors Guild is hopping mad. "Do sales of used books
hurt sales of new books? Neither side has statistical evidence
to support their case, and many commentators, including some authors,
agreed with Bezos' claim that buying used leaves customers with
money to buy more books and this could only be good. Judging by
the silence of publishers, it seems they, too, agree with Bezos.
But to take the consideration too far into abstraction is to miss
the obvious — if you've got two copies of a book listed side–by–side
and they are virtually identical except one is way cheaper, which
one is going to sell?" MobyLives
04/21/02
Sunday
April 28
BOOKER
BOOST: The Booker Prize is already one of the world's most
prestigious. Now it's also becoming one of the most lucrative.
"This autumn's winner will take home £50,000, dwarfing the
£20,000 prize money given last year to Peter Carey's novel True
History of the Kelly Gang. All six shortlisted writers will also
get £2,500 compared with £1,000 in 2001."
The Guardian (UK) 04/26/02
BOOK
CLUBS AS DO-GOODYISM: "I'm deeply bored by the U.S. citywide
reading projects, and by the CBC's Canada Reads book club, which
was just another exercise in good-for-you-ism. If it were really
about literary values it wouldn't have involved actors and singers
(who admitted they hadn't read, you know, every single word .
. .). I don't think these things encourage a love of literature;
they encourage patriotism. They may even discourage the disaffected
-- and I'm thinking of myself at about 20 here -- who already
see novels as some kind of community-service niceness club, and
will find that view confirmed by the kinds of inoffensive books
chosen by national committees, and who may never read again."
The Globe & Mail (Canada)
04/27/02
ALL
THAT'S NEEDED IS COMPETITION: When Canadians order books from
Amazon - even if it's a book by a Canadian publisher - the company
would send out the American edition. Canadian publishers lose
$40 million a year to this. But now there's a Canadian version
of Amazon, and some new competition in the Canadian book market.
Did I just feel the earth mover? National
Post 04/27/02
MUSEUM
OF VERSE: It's hard to believe no one's thought of this before,
but why shouldn't there be a museum of poetry? Seventy-nine-year-old
Bay Area poet Herman Berlandt is on a campaign to establish just
such a place... San
Francisco Chronicle 04/27/02
Friday
April 26
RECREATING ALEXANDRIA: Big celebrations were
planned for the opening of Egypt's historic new Alexandria library.
"But those celebratory plans were scuttled because of the
heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Instead, Bibliotheca
Alexandrina - which ostensibly replaces the original that was
destroyed more than a thousand years ago - opened quietly to the
public this week." Wired 04/25/02
UNIVERSITY
PRESSES ENDANGERED: University presses are under pressure
all over America. And the largest of them - the University of
California - is cutting back. "As part of a general retrenchment,
the UC Press will no longer produce books on philosophy, architecture,
archaeology, political science or geography. It will publish dramatically
less literature and far fewer works of literary theory. Twelve
jobs have been eliminated through attrition, and further job cuts
are planned." San
Jose Mercury News (LAT) 04/26/02
NOW
EVERYBODY'S GOTTA HAVE A BOOK CLUB: Even Regis' sidekick Kelly
Ripa. Ripa announced she's starting a book club - "Read with
Ripa" and "as soon as Ripa announced the book yesterday,
If Looks Could Kill moved from number 7,000 to number 7
on Amazon.com - and publisher Warner Books has ordered an additional
25,000 copies." New
York Post 04/26/02
Thursday
April 25
E-BOOK
AWARDS DISCONTINUED: The Frankfurt E-book Awards have been
discontinued, to almost no one's surprise. "While lack of
funding killed the awards, the show had a problem that money couldn't
resolve: It was an award show created for a new technological
form, yet judged on literary merit. That created confusion, especially
because, as critics pointed out, many of the judges were unfamiliar
with the new technology." Wired
04/23/03
AMAZON
IS PROFITABLE: Amazon.com reported growth of sales of 21 percent
over the same period last year, and reported a $2 million profit,
compared to a $21 million loss last year. "U.S. books, music
and DVD/video sales grew 8% to $443 million."
Publishers Weekly 04/24/02
- DELIVERY
IN THE REAL WORLD: Amazon announces it will give customers
the option to "pick up purchased books, CDs and movies
at Borders bookstores. Amazon already runs the Borders.com Web
site." Publishers
Weekly 04/24/02
Tuesday
April 23
MOM
AND POP PUBLISHERS LAND MEGABOOK: The sequel to The Bridges
of Madison County is being released this week. The book is
a hot property, a followup to "the best-selling hardcover
novel of all time." But when Robert James Waller's editors
at Warner Books turned down the book, he went to his hometown
bookstore in search of a publisher. "This is the story of
how the proprietors of a mom-and-pop bookstore in rural Texas
landed the North American rights to the sequel of the best-selling
hardcover novel of all time." Baltimore
Sun 04/23/02
BOOK
WINNER REVEALED IN ADVANCE BY WAREHOUSE JOE: Canada's CBC
Radio is choosing a book for the entire country to read together.
It's to be announced today, after a weeklong series "featuring
five prominent Canadians who had each picked works of Canadian
literature they thought the country should read. The panel then
voted the books off the list one by one during discussions."
So which book wins? Turns out the winner has been revealed in
advance by a book warehouse worker hired to slap CBC stickers
on the book. National Post (Canada)
04/23/02
NORA
WHO? "Nora Roberts is one of the best-kept secrets in
American book publishing, the (petite, red-haired) elephant in
the middle of the room. She sold about 14 million mass-market
paperbacks last year, more than John Grisham, Tom Clancy or Stephen
King. In the past 20 years, she has produced 145 novels and had
69 New York Times best sellers." Chicago
Tribune 04/23/02
Monday
April 22
SCOTLAND'S
CONTROVERSIAL LIBRARY EXTENSION: A major expansion of Scotland's
National Library has been approved by the government. But "objections
to the extension plans had been raised by the Edinburgh World
Heritage Trust, Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and
the Cockburn Association, which claimed the design and materials
to be used were 'uninspiring'." The
Scotsman 04/19/02
TOO
VIOLENT TO READ: Egypt's ambitious new Alexandria Library
is "11 stories high and can hold up to eight million books.
The total cost of the library was $220 million and it has taken
11 years to complete." Problem is, though it is finished,
it hasn't yet opened, and its inauguration has been postponed
because of violence and security concerns. Middle
East Times 04/19/02
Sunday
April 21
SUBJECT
TO REVIEW: What makes an author great, or a novel a classic?
Although we may not want to admit it, literary greatness is just
as subjective as the success of whichever bubble gum pop act is
making teenage girls shriek on MTV this week. "Literature,
which some may like to conceive of as an immutable set of timeless
verities, solid as granite and fixed as the stars, instead is
every bit as fragile as any other human creation." Chicago
Tribune 04/21/02
- YOU
CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN: "Every lifetime reader has sweet
memories of books read in adolescence that were totally captivating,
that changed his or her outlook on life, that opened new worlds.
The question is: do we dare revisit these books 20 or 30 years
later? It can be like seeing your first love after all these
years, and now she has a sullen look and you realize it was
always there and how could you have missed it?"
Toronto Star 04/20/02
Thursday
April 18
ART
OF PACKAGING LITERATURE: "Building an author's career,
particularly a writer of literary fiction, is a brick-upon-brick
process, and tending to that structure is what the business is
about." So "why are first literary novels — the hardest
sell in book publishing — afforded the more expensive hardcover
start? Because so many book reviewers are snobbish about things
literary and get nervous about reviewing even trade paperbacks,
a format they tend not to take seriously. (Forget mass-market
paperback entirely when it comes to reviewing.)" The
New York Times 04/18/02
Wednesday
April 17
WHAT
SHOULD LIBRARIES BE IN THE DIGITAL AGE? With so much information
flowing through the internet, what should the role of libraries
which are the traditional repositories of information, be? "Digital
technology has split the confluence of medium and content hitherto
known as the book. While information's infrastructure is public
domain, information itself is a private commodity. Intermediaries
such as booksellers and librarians have now become superfluous
in certain areas of the information market. This is especially
true in the realm of scientific, medical and technical literature,
which by trying to combine two incompatible functions is both
expensive and inefficient." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 04/16/02
FAILING
TO DE-LINK AMAZON: Publishers and authors are generally not
heeding the Authors Guild call to take links to Amazon.com off
their websites to protest Amazon's sales of used books. Why? "Using
an average book that sells 30,000 copies a year, Amazon sales
account for 7 to 8 percent, or 2,100 copies. Used books account
for approximately 15 percent of that number - that's 315 books
a year. Those used copies, however, will be read and create a
broader readership through word of mouth. In fact, several authors
and smaller publishers said they are happy to lose a little business
in exchange for the cheap and direct way Amazon offers to cultivate
a readership." Wired
04/16/02
STUDENTS
DON'T READ CANADIAN: Canada's writers may be winning all sorts
of awards, but Canadian students aren't reading the home-grown
books. A new study says that the average Canadian student reads
five Canadian books by the time of graduation.
The Globe & Mail (Canada)
04/17/02
Tuesday
April 16
REALITY
PROGRAMMING, CANADIAN STYLE: Celebrities go on CBC radio to
try to convince people that the book they are talking about should
be the book the entire country reads. At the end of each round,
people vote one book "off the island." An interesting
way to pick a book for the entire country to read? "What
I have trouble with, first of all, is the underlying notion that
the only way listeners will participate in Canada Reads is if
famous personalities - well, at least 'world-famous coast to coast'
- tell us what to read. It isn't possible to find a single novel
that captures the imagination of an entire country."
The Globe & Mail (Canada)
04/16/02
- COMMON
BOOK, COMMON DREAMS? "The problem we wrestled with for some
time was if you want to get the country to read one book, how
do you choose? We did not want it to be a CBC decision. We decided
to seek the opinions of Canadians who had some reputation of
their own and whom we knew were assiduous readers. Most of the
people we approached agreed to do it."
Toronto Star 04/16/02
DEFENDING
THE RIGHT TO BE USED: Last week the American Authors Guild
organized a protest against Amazon because the company is selling
used books alongside new volumes. Amazon head Jeff Bezos has answered
the Guild's call for an authors' boycott of Amazon links "by
e-mailing both individuals and stores around the country who had
sold used books through Amazon.com. He asked them to defend Amazon's
contention that used books actually help authors by bringing in
new readers who otherwise couldn't afford to buy a book. "We've
found that our used books business does not take business away
from the sale of new books. In fact, the opposite has happened."
Nando Times (AP) 04/15/02
FORMULA
ONE WRITING: Harlequin, the schlocky bodice-ripper publisher,
is trying to go up-market. "Inspired by the success of 'chick
lit' - stories of fallible, single professional women in the mould
of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary - the company
is launching a new line of books designed to depict women's real
lives." Sydney
Morning Herald (AP) 04/16/02
Monday
April 15
KINGS OF
U.S. FICTION: Which author sold the most books
in the US last year? Good try if you answered John Grisham;
he led the list the previous seven years. No, the "top-selling
work of hardback fiction in the US last year was written by the
Reverend Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Desecration,
the ninth volume in the series Left Behind, sold 2,969,458
copies, nearly a million ahead of Grisham. If the literati of
New York look down on Grisham, the other two are too low even
to register on their radar screens. The Age (Melbourne)
04/15/02
WHO
MAKES BOOKS EXPENSIVE? Why do book prices get higher with
every passing year? Is it the publishers' fault, as Barnes &
Noble chairman Leonard Riggio has been saying to all and any who
will listen? Nonsense, say the publishers. Just look who gets
the biggest percentage of every sale... MobyLives
04/15/02
BUCKS
FOR STAR WRITERS: Is it fair that big movie stars can earn
tens of millions of dollars out of a film's budget? Must be, or
the studios wouldn't do it. Now the same thing is happening to
books, where enormous advances are being gambled on authors. "Increasingly,
the big publishers are becoming like financing and distributing
houses. They're like the major film studios in Hollywood. It's
like opening a film at 300 theatres if Tom Cruise is starring
in it. Everybody evaluates risk differently, but they're betting
on a pretty sure thing." National
Post 04/11/02
Thursday
April 11
McEWAN
WINS SMITH: Ian McEwan's book Atonement wins Britain's WH
Smith literary prize. "The award is the first for a work
regarded as a near-masterpiece by many critics. Though one of
the literary best sellers of the year, it did not win the biggest
cash prizes, the Whitbread and the Booker."
The Guardian (UK) 04/10/02
OUT
OF BOOKS/OUT OF IDEAS: So Oprah's run out of books that meet
the test of quality for her book club. "There seems something
churlish and—dare I say it?—elitist about this majestic dismissal.
True, trendy academics have been issuing gnomic declarations about
the death of the novel for the last 30 years or so. But Oprah?
How could she and her staff have exhausted the range of existing
share-worthy fiction (including backlists!) in a mere five years?
One answer, of course, is that Oprah was selecting a very special
kind of fiction." Slate
04/10/02
Wednesday
April 10
THE RIGHT TO A PRIVATE READ: The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled
that a Denver bookstore (the Tattered Cover) owner does not have
to provide police with a list of people who bought a book
on how to make illegal drugs. "The high court declared that
the First Amendment and the Colorado Constitution protect an individual's
fundamental right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental
interference." Wired 04/09/02
PRIVACY TEST: "Calling the court's opinion
'a primer on the First Amendment,' Tattered Cover's lawyer, Daniel
Recht of Recht & Kornfeld, said that the ruling has 'huge
national significance' because this is the first of the 50 state
supreme courts to address the issue."
Publishers Weekly
04/09/02
FLEETING FAME: "The curious thing about bestsellers:
their popularity is often shorter than the span of their readers'
lives. As Germaine Greer rather sourly remarks of Lolita: 'Bestsellers
are never bestsellers for the right reasons.' In the end, though,
it's the ephemerality of the bestseller that's so fascinating.
They are such fragile flowers: the merest waft from a passing
new trend consigns them to outer darkness."
The Telegraph
(UK) 04/10/02
OPEN
LETTER TO OPRAH: "Naturally, I have heard a variety of
cynical theories about the real reason you're downsizing your
book club: Ratings for the book-themed shows are abysmally low.
Many authors - after months of isolation in dark garrets, scribbling
away - don't make scintillating guests. Or maybe you're just sick
and tired of the whole literature thing. If that was it, I wish
you'd simply leveled with us. Had you said, 'Look, folks, I'm
sick of reading novels all the time. I want a life. I want to
veg out and watch TV and paint my toenails, OK? Give me a break.
I'm not in high school anymore and there isn't a crabby old English
teacher breathing down my neck for me to finish `Silas Marner,'
OK?' I could've respected that." Chicago
Tribune 04/10/02
- NARROW
SCOPE: Are there too few good books for Oprah to choose
from? "She tends to pick novels that appeal to a broad group
of people," he said. Her power tends to make publishers want
to buy the kind of work of which she'll approve - which in turn
makes contemporary fiction all run together, sounding alike,
causing her to find few new novels that excite her. By picking
books that way, she may be contributing to the problem she's
complaining about." Chicago
Tribune 04/10/02
- WHOM OPRAH HELPED: The publishing industry has been
crying about the news that Oprah's Book Club is winding down.
So "which publishers and authors benefited most from Oprah
over the course of her club, and which of her selections saw
a relatively small jump?" Publishers Week
04/09/02
DE-LINKING AMAZON: Thousands of websites link to Amazon.com
promoting sales of books they care about. Now, to protest Amazon
selling used books alongside new ones, the Authors Guild is urging
webmasters to take down their Amazon links. "We believe it
is in our members' best interests to de-link their websites from
Amazon. There's no good reason for authors to be complicit in
undermining their own sales. It just takes a minute, and it's
the right thing to do." Wired 04/09/02
Tuesday
April 9
THE
FIX WAS IN? Alt-paper Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon
is getting more flak for its fiction contest, in which the entry
chosen by the three judges was overturned by the paper's arts
editor. Was it racism, as some critics are charging, or was it
just a "plain old–fashioned, unethical fix?"
MobyLives 04/09/02
- Previously: RUSH
TO JUDGMENT: Portland alternative weekly Willamette Week
announced a writing contest, engaged some judges, then chose
a winner different from who the judges picked. Now the judges
are complaining, and WW arts editor (who actually chose the
winner herself) explains: "I planned to use their feedback
to aid me in making a final decision - and to run as comments
alongside the winners when they ran in the paper. In retrospect,
perhaps even calling them judges was inappropriate. Maybe Subcommittee
for the Advancement of Literary License or Footsoldiers in the
War Against Cliché would have been more correct..." Willamette
Week 03/18/02
WHEN
CRITICS COLLIDE: Critics disagree all the time, of course.
But rarely has opinion diverged so completely over Richard Flanagan's
Gould's Book of Fish. According to the New York Times' Michiko
Kakutani, this is "an enthralling story", a "remarkable" and "astonishing"
book, "a wondrous, phantasmagorical meditation on art and history
and nature". Peter Craven's review in The Age, on the other hand
called it "a monstrosity of a book. I cannot believe that a novel
like this has been put before the public with such a mishmash
of verbal collisions, such lapses of judgment and such evasions
of pace". At least they have opinions? The
Age (Melbourne) 04/09/02
TODAY'S
NEW BOOK CLUB: Just as Oprah cuts down her popular book club,
NBC's Today Show says it will start its own book club.
"It would be silly for us to say, ‘Oh we just had this idea today.'
But the truth is that it's something we've been working on for
a long time, so with Oprah stepping back from the book world,
it just seemed natural for us to seize the opportunity."
The show has always featured books. "The truth is we introduced
America to John Grisham." New York
Post 04/09/02
- WHY
OPRAH QUIT: It's not because it's too hard to find a good
book to feature. She was rankled by criticism of her choices.
And besides: " 'It was a very arduous and careful screening
process, and was taking a serious toll on Oprah and her staff.
It was the single hardest thing the TV show had to do.' That's
right - finding, reading and recommending one good novel or
collection of stories a month. Can you imagine if she'd had
to wade through histories and biographies?" Philadelphia
Inquirer 04/09/02
LITERARY
PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Writer Jim Munroe has a new book. In it,
he mentions a number of corporations. So he decided to bill the
companies he names $10 each for "product placement,"
just as they do in the movies. So far no takers. "A lot of people
think it was this big promotional thing, and it obviously brings
attention to the book and the issues in the book, but for me,
it was a pretty natural thing. When I was going through the manuscript,
to edit and revise it and stuff, I was like 'Man, I wish I didn't
have to mention all these corporations.' It sort of bugged me
that I was mentioning them ... But the whole point of the book
is to draw attention to the fact that we're totally corporatized,
but at the same time I'm also mentioning all these corporations."
Ottawa Citizen 04/07/02
Monday
April 8
ALL
THAT MONEY: "Last week, after reading just a one-page
proposal from Charles Frazier, Random House bought the National
Book Award winner’s next novel for what sources close to the deal
said was $8.25 million. The publishing community was hardly through
gasping—no one could recall a piece of literary fiction selling
for so much—when producer Scott Rudin, who’s known for buying
high-toned literature (Angela’s Ashes, The Corrections),
got his hands on the proposal. Rudin pitched Frazier a John Ford-style
drama to be directed by Peter Weir. Before anyone else had a chance
to bid, he snapped up the movie rights for more than $3 million.
Then the second-guessing started." Newsweek
04/15/02
ODE
TO THE QUEEN MUM: Andrew Motion has written the biggest charge
of his career as England's Poet Laureate - a poem commemorating
the death of the Queen Mother. "He delivered his words to
the Queen and Prince Charles on Friday but was in his London office
until the last moment, agonising over 'the proper combination
of left- and right-hand brains'." Sydney
Morning Herald 04/08/02
THE
ERRONEOUS OPRAH REPORT: Several publications reported Friday
and over the weekend that Oprah was discontinuing her popular
Book Club [including USAToday, which also printed a list of all
the books Oprah has selected]. But in fact, she's just cutting
back the number of books the club will tackle [see next item]
USA Today 04/08/02
- Previously: OPRAH
CUTS BACK: For six years Oprah's Book Club has been a publishing
world phenomenon. Last year the club was said to be responsible
for sales of 12 million books. Now Oprah says she'll cut back
the number of books the club will read on her popular talk show.
"It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly
basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share. I will continue
featuring books on the Oprah Winfrey Show when I feel
they merit my heartfelt recommendation."
Chicago Tribune 04/07/02
- OF HIGH ART AND POPULAR
READING: Being an author in Oprah Winfrey's book club carried
many rewards, but also came at a price for serious authors,
just as Book-of-the-Month Club authors of a previous generation
found. Jonathan Franzen's dissing of Oprah last fall curiously
cast the author in the chump role as he was raising reasonable
concerns. Boston
Review 04/02
Sunday
April 7
OPRAH
CUTS BACK: For six years Oprah's Book Club has been a publishing
world phenomenon. Last year the club was said to be responsible
for sales of 12 million books. Now Oprah says she'll cut back
the number of books the club will read on her popular talk show.
"It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis
that I feel absolutely compelled to share. I will continue featuring
books on the Oprah Winfrey Show when I feel they merit
my heartfelt recommendation." Chicago
Tribune 04/07/02
SALES
R US: So you've got a publisher and a new book coming out.
But your job as an author is only half over. Now you've got to
go out and sell it. Today that's a full time job. Hartford
Courant 04/07/02
Friday
April 5
CENSORSHIP
LAW LIKELY TO BE THROWN OUT: If the judges' comments are any
indication, the Children's Internet Protection Act will likely
be thrown out. The law says libraries must use filtering software
on their computers to prevent children from seeing pornographic
websites. But every witness testifying in the challenge to the
law has said the filtering programs don't work and that they block
sites that aren't pornogaphic. Wired
04/05/02
TAKE
AWAY PULITZERS? Philip Nobile says the Pulitzer board has
a plagiarism problem. He says in a speech at Columbia University
today that the Pulitzers of Doris Goodwin, David McCullough, and
Alex Haley should be revoked because of the plagiarism found in
their work, and that if action isn't taken, the integrity of the
awards is at stake. This, as the Pulitzer Board assembles at Columbia
for a meeting. MobyLives 04/05/02
POWER
TO EDIT: So what, then, is the value of an editor? The answer
depends on the writer, and even the genre. For all writers, the
editor is the author's champion within the publishing house, the
person who fights the book-jacket battle, who seduces the marketing
and public relations people, who sells the writer's work to the
sales representatives so that, armed with the editor's ebullience,
they can in turn sell the book to the stores. (The truly successful
editors are also rainmakers, attracting authors who want to work
with them.) Generally, nonfiction writers seek more hands-on editing
than literary novelists or huge best-selling commercial novelists,
whose success convinces them that they don't need much help."
The New York Times 04/05/02
AUTHOR
OF PROBABILITY: A group of researchers has been applying "statistical
physics and computer analysis" to ancient texts in an effort
to determine who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey.
"Most historians attribute the classic Greek works to the
poet Homer. According to the recent study, though, Homer — if
such a writer existed — likely scripted the Iliad solo. But he
probably had plenty of help from other poets when creating the
Odyssey" Discovery 04/04/02
Thursday April 4
RELUCTANT
GATEKEEPERS: Should American librarians be forced to monitor
and censor websites that could be accessed from library computers,
as a new law says? Librarians say no. "The ACLU and the American
Library Association claim that blocking software is problematic
for a number of reasons: It doesn't do a good job of preventing
access to porn, it bans many legitimate websites, and the list
of verboten sites is compiled in secret by commercial vendors."
Wired
04/03/02
ARCHITECTURE
MAGAZINE RETOOLS: The 90-year-old magazine Architecture is
retooling and its editor-in-chief is quitting. The magazine "will
turn its focus from pure design to products and services, which
is sure to cast it as more of a trade magazine." The magazine's
owners say that if the makeover doesn't improve revenues, Architecture
could be closed. Design critics bemoan the move: "There will
be a huge huge gap in the information available to us now."
The
New York Times 04/04/02
CANADIAN
INDIE TURNS 25: It was a quarter-century ago when Canada's
NeWest publishing house set up shop, using hand-cranked presses
and children's stencils alongside more sophisticated equipment,
in an effort to change the face of Canadian publishing and prove
that there was a place for regional independents in the corporate-dominated
world of books. "Ever since, NeWest Press has been promoting
the entire spectrum of Western Canadian writing to the rest of
the country, with 205 titles that span fiction, drama, poetry,
literary criticism, political comment and aboriginal writing."
The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/04/02
POET
LAUREATE SWEEPS: Only a few months ago, California sent up
an SOS, looking for more candidates to apply for the state's new
position of poet laureate. Evidently, the call was heeded - 55
poets were considered, and three have been chosen as finalists
for the job. "Gov. Gray Davis is expected to name one of
the three by July, subject to confirmation by the state Senate."
San
Diego Union Tribune 04/03/02
-
Previously: WON'T
YOU BE MY POET... "California's newly established
poet laureate program has run into a problem. Not enough poets
- just seven - have thrown their hats into the ring as nominees
for the two-year office that was established last year to
promote poetry in the state. 'I wouldn't say we're in a panic,'
said Adam Gottlieb, spokesman for the California Arts Council,
'but we're close'." Sacramento
Bee 02/06/02
Wednesday April 3
POETIC
PROBLEMS: "Since its inauguration in 1996 by the Academy
of American Poets, National Poetry Month has reorganized the way
that commercial publishers and the larger independents publish
poetry, drawn unprecedented media attention to the art, and has,
by some lights, boosted poetry sales. Yet this year's festivities
come on the heels of what has been a difficult year for many in
the poetry world."
Publishers
Weekly 04/01/02
PROBABLY
SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING: A new book slated to be released
by a small university press is generating more heat than any scholarly
work since The Bell Curve, and the publisher is shocked
by the venom of the detractors. Harmful to Minors: The Perils
of Protecting Children From Sex, which argues that teens are
harmed more by a lack of credible information on sex than by the
threat of molestation and pedophilia, has pushed nearly every
conservative button, and activists are trying to stifle the book's
impact by bullying the publisher into calling off the release.
Minneapolis Star Tribune 04/03/02
Tuesday April 2
PEN/FAULKNER
WINNER: Ann Patchett wins the PEN/Faulkner Award, America's
richest literary prize for her novel Bel Canto. "She
beat National Book Award winner Jonathan Franzen's novel The
Corrections, Karen Joy Fowler's Sister Noon, Claire
Messud's The Hunters, and Manil Suri's The Death of
Vishnu. Past winners have included John Edgar Wideman, EL
Doctorow and Don DeLillo - last year Philip Roth won with his
novel The Human Stain." BBC
04/02/02
GOING
INDIE: A new study by Consumer Reports says that book-buyers
are more satisfied shopping in independent bookstores than in
big chain stores. The study "found that most people felt
the chains or the equally giant on–line booksellers did indeed
offer a better deal price–wise. Nonetheless, independent bookstores
generated a higher level of customer satisfaction than even the
cheapest chain retailer. In fact, independents scored 'on a par
with the highest–rated stores from any survey we've done in recent
years,' said the magazine." MobyLives
04/02/03
DOUBLE
DUTY POETRY: Maybe one of the reasons poetry doesn't penetrate
the general conciousness is the way it's packaged. If Emily Dickinson
wrote a cookbook, for example... Salon 04/01/02
CRISIS
OF CONFIDENCE: Michael Moore's Stupid White Men is
at the top of the New York Times Best-seller list. This is the
book that publisher HarperCollins asked Moore to rewrite after
September 11 because of its criticisms of George W. Bush. Moore
refused, and a campaign by librarians shamed HC into going ahead
with the book as written. So why would a publisher fight so hard
to avoid publishing a book it had already signed off on?
Miami Herald 04/02/02
Monday April 1
CONSPIRACY
THEORY: A new French book claims that the September 11 attack
on the World Trade Center is a hoax, that "the plane that
smashed into the Pentagon did not exist and that the world has
been duped by a murky U.S. government plot." Okay, kooks
publish books all the time. But this one's got French readers
intrigued - Thierry Meyssan's book, The Frightening Fraud,
is "a popular read, according to booksellers, and has topped
bestseller lists." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/01/02
RUSH
TO JUDGMENT: Portland alternative weekly Willamette Week announced
a writing contest, engaged some judges, then chose a winner different
from who the judges picked. Now the judges are complaining, and
WW arts editor (who actually chose the winner herself) explains:
"I planned to use their feedback to aid me in making a final
decision - and to run as comments alongside the winners when they
ran in the paper. In retrospect, perhaps even calling them judges
was inappropriate. Maybe Subcommittee for the Advancement of Literary
License or Footsoldiers in the War Against Cliché would have been
more correct..." Willamette Week
03/18/02
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