Are Textbook Publishers Working Against Students? A new report "accuses publishers of undermining the used book market and unnecessarily inflating prices. Studies show that the cost of textbooks is rising faster than the rate of inflation, and the price issue has gained traction with at least one lawmaker this year." InsideHigherEd 10/30/06

The Spelling Challenge (Celebs Writers Vie) A group of famous writers show up to participate in a charity spelling bee. How'd they do? Well, it's good writers have spell-checkers... New York 10/30/06

The Directive Review "Recently I've noticed a disconcerting trend for publishers to tell literary critics exactly what they should be saying about a new book. Instead of letting reviewers get on with their job of reviewing, publishers are behaving like anxious children, pulling at the journalist's sleeve and suggesting what should come next." The Guardian (UK) 10/31/06

Philly Chooses Cuban-American Memoir For Citywide Read "One Philadelphia business owner makes his views known with a sign reading, 'This Is America. When Ordering Please Speak English.' Two towns in the region have laws intended to drive out illegal immigrants. On the statewide political trail, two Senate candidates swap heated words about immigration issues. The question of who belongs here and who doesn't, who is American and who isn't, is dominating much local and national debate. Which makes the latest selection for 'One Book, One Philadelphia' all the more appropriate. Carlos Eire's 'Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy' is the citywide reading program's featured book for 2007." Philadelphia Inquirer 10/31/06

Books: One Of Kids' Essential Food Groups "We had a policy on books from the very beginning with our children; they are an essential need not a luxury. You can have as many as you like. A Christmas tradition soon developed. Each year they got a book stack - a selection of books wrapped individually in different coloured tissue paper and joined into a bundle with a large gold ribbon with the largest book at the bottom, the smallest at the top. ... Not cheap, since you need at least eight books to make an impressive stack, but one that has, I think, helped to keep their love of reading going." The Guardian (UK) 10/31/06

A Fresh Flare-Up Of Plagiarism At Harvard "A Harvard student newspaper cartoonist has been suspended from the paper and two of her cartoons retracted after editors learned of their resemblance to ones published in other media outlets. Harvard Crimson staffers found that four cartoons by Kathleen Breeden , a sophomore, bore striking similarity to cartoons shown on a website that compiles cartoons from around the world. ... The incident comes less than a week after Harvard Crimson staff members said they discovered that a columnist, Victoria Ilyinsky , had failed to cite literary references that she had lifted from a column posted to the online magazine Slate." Boston Globe 10/31/06

Unpublished Plath Poem To Be Unveiled Online "An unpublished sonnet that Sylvia Plath wrote in college while pondering themes in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel 'The Great Gatsby' will appear Wednesday in a Virginia online literary journal. Plath, who committed suicide in 1963 at 30, wrote 'Ennui' in 1955 in her senior year at Smith College." Washington Post (AP) 10/31/06

D.C. Authors Settle Scores By Telling All "It used to be that telling tales out of the White House was déclassé, even tawdry." No longer. "These days, book parties have replaced cocktail hours in Washington social circles, and power is no longer measured in proximity to the Oval Office but in phone time with Bob Barnett, book agent to Bob Woodward and other aspiring political literary stars. Things have gotten so bad that the 8 a.m. staff meetings at the White House have reportedly gone chilly, with participants reluctant to express their views for fear someone at the table is taking notes or planning revenge — by the book." Los Angeles Times 10/31/06

Fictionally Yours (The Fans Get Into The Act) "The rise of fan fiction comes as little surprise - it mirrors the trend in music for bands basing their careers on a single sound or period of a earlier act, or in film for endless sequels and remakes of older, classic films. With so much to choose from, at least there will be the enticement of familiarity - or so the thinking goes. Only perhaps in published literature has the premium on originality lasted somewhat longer, though this, too, has been taking a beating with so many recent cases of literary plagiarism." The Observer (UK) 10/29/06

Publishing Surge For The Secularists "A glut of popular science books making a trenchant case against religion have soared up the bestseller lists both here and in America. The phenomenon represents a backlash against a perceived rise in religious fundamentalism and recent crazes for 'spirituality' by way of books such as The Da Vinci Code. Secularists are now eager to show that the empiricism of science can debunk the claims of believers." The Observer (UK) 10/29/06

Charge: Reading Lolita Is Propaganda Is Azar Nafisi’s bestselling memoir, 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' "neoconservative propaganda aimed at Islam?" Boston Globe 10/29/06

Dispute Arises Over (Possibly) Historic Novel "The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride, is believed by some scholars to be the first novel ever published by an African-American woman," and this month, it will be reissued for the first time since its initial printing in 1865. "But the republication has stirred a dispute between its editors... and the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.," who believes that he discovered a published novel by an African-American woman six years older than Slave Bride. The New York Times 10/28/06

Starbuck's Succeeds At Selling Books "Starbucks has sold 45,000 copies of Mitch Albom's novel For One More Day (Hyperion) since it went on sale at the chain October 3, a week after the book reached bookstores. The figure accounts for roughly 12% of a total of 391,000 copies sold." Publishers Weekly 10/26/06

Editors Resign To Protest Academic Journal's Pricing Policies "The nine members of the editorial board of the Oxford University-based mathematics journal Topology have signed a letter expressing their intention to resign on December 31.They cited the price of the journal as well as the general pricing policies of their publisher, Elsevier, as having 'a significant and damaging effect on Topology’s reputation in the mathematical research community'." New York Sun 10/26/06

HarperCollins Gets French Sensation "After a languid intercontinental auction that stretched for more than a week, the American rights to Jonathan Littell’s novel Les Bienveillantes, which became a publishing sensation in France, have been sold to HarperCollins." The New York Times 10/26/06

A Decline In Newspapers' Books Coverage "Books pages are going away because of profit margins. Corporate interests in profitability and the socially-based interests of the average journalist are diametrically opposed. So when asked to cut staff and cut newshole, it's no surprise that newspapers turn to books and arts coverage first." Orlando Sentinel 10/25/06

Analyst: Newspaper Revenues To Be Flat For 30 Years A Merrill Lynch analyst says it could take 30 years for newspapers to get 50 percent of their revenue from online advertising. "Even if the rapid [online] growth continues for the next few years, we don't see online representing over 50% of newspaper ad revenues for at least a couple of decades, suggesting that industry profit could stay flat for the foreseeable future." Yahoo! (E&P) 10/25/06

The Virtual Read Many businesses have joined online virtual worlds. Now a big publisher has set up virtual shop and created an online community... The Guardian (UK) 10/24/06

Better Policing Through Literature? A major Mexican city has "become a crucible for an unusual experiment in enlightened police training." It is sending its officers to school to get culture. "The experiment began early in 2005 with reading and writing classes. It has since mushroomed into an entire literature course with its own constantly expanding editorial series. The principle is that a police officer who is cultured is in a better position to be a better police officer." The Guardian (UK) 10/23/06

The Chosen Ones "All over Britain, tens of thousand of teenagers have begun working their way through books that have been chosen by exam boards as the best examples of contemporary literature. Anyone who has done Eng Lit A-level will know how these books - even the necessary "quotes" from these books - can become the ones you remember for the rest of your life. No author can foresee the judgment of posterity, but there is one certain way of extending the lifespan of one's literary creations: become a set text." The Guardian (UK) 10/23/06

Microsoft Makes A Deal To Digitize Microsoft is ramping up its efforts to digitize books and make them available online. The company has made a deal with a digital-scanning company to produce a vast library of online-accessible digitized books.
Yahoo! (AP) 10/23/06

Rethinking Uncle Tom's Cabin "Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in 1852, sold 10,000 copies within days of publication, 300,000 within a year. In a few decades it had been read in dozens of languages and so inspired Tolstoy that he regarded it as a model. But during the last half-century, the book has come to be seen almost as caricature." The New York Times 10/23/06

Blynded By The Ivory Towers? Last week, the University of Minnesota announced with much fanfare that it would pay $750,000 to acquire the personal archive of author Robert Bly. But at least one observer says the acquisition is yet another example of academia's disconnect from truly good writing. "The literature and creative writing departments of our universities deserve a lot of the blame for this. For decades now, they’ve lavished praise and professorships on authors who dress up tedium with tortured syntax and mystical posturing, the sort who — like Bly — promulge the stereotype that contemporary literature is a pursuit suited only for pseudo-intellectuals in silly vests who go into raptures at the prospect of yet another eight page description of a snowy day." The Insomnia Report 10/21/06

The Coming Wave Of Chinese Novels China's publishing industry is expanding at a startling rate, and "many consider the greatest loophole in Chinese-English publishing efforts to be contemporary Chinese voices in English." As such, Western publishers are lining up to translate the works of China's top young writers. San Francisco Chronicle 10/21/06

Dutch To Give Away Books "Dutch libraries are giving away 575,000 copies of a 1973 bestseller in the hope of turning the nation into one big book group and getting more people to read long-term." Yahoo! (Reuters) 10/20/06

The New Improved Paris Review "When George Plimpton died, the literary world wondered: What will happen to the Paris Review? Now we know the answer. It has gotten even better." Los Angeles Times 10/20/06

U Of Minnesota Acquires Bly Archive Robert Bly has sold his archives to the University of Minnesota Libraries for $775,000. "While other organizations, including the Library of Congress, expressed interest in the collection, fundraisers said it was Bly's wish to house his life's work in his home state." The Star-Tribune 10/19/06

This Fall - Season Of Stars "To the great delight of retailers, autumn is packed with big-budget, name-brand writers, and winners have already begun to emerge, though there have been some crackups as well, and the climate has made it a particularly difficult season for lesser-known writers." The New York Times 10/19/06

McClelland - Is Famed Canadian Publisher A Shell? Fabled Canadian publisher McClelland & Stewart is 100 years old. "But the historic firm that is being celebrated, while still the home of Canada's most famous writers, including Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Leonard Cohen and Michael Ondaatje, has been reconfigured in the past six years in ways that might be causing Jack McClelland to spin in his grave." Toronto Star 10/18/06

Good Book! (But Why's It So Ugly?) "Do books have to be ugly? It is a question that poses itself almost every time one walks through one of the huge American-style bookshops that are now the norm in this country, gazing with dismay at the heaps of ugly dust-wrappers and book covers." The Telegraph (UK) 10/16/06

Where Does Literature Flow Into The Mainstream? " 'The real culture of America,' " Lawrence Ferlinghetti said after announcing the finalists for the 2006 National Book Awards, " 'is not corporate monoculture and television. It's the writers, teachers, universities, libraries and librarians. That's the mainstream culture of America.' It's hard to say what's more unexpected: to hear Ferlinghetti invoke the mainstream or to see him take part in an event like this. ... Still, the issue he raises — that of the mainstream and literature's place within it, of why this stuff matters — is one readers and writers have no choice but to take on." Los Angeles Times 10/17/06

Boys Behind Bars, Reading "Redwall" With his book-tour stop at the Orange County Jail in Florida, crime writer Dennis Lehane became the latest of a dozen authors to visit a class where literature is used to teach teenage boys that, as their program coordinator put it, "they don’t have to be dirtbags." "Ernest J. Gaines was the first author to come, in 2001, after the group read 'A Lesson Before Dying' (Random House), about a black youth sentenced to death. He has visited twice. Brian Jacques, author of the 'Redwall' series, about mice who fight off evil rats, foxes and other predators, has also visited twice, on a book tour for his publisher, Penguin, from England." The New York Times 10/16/06

Solving Agatha Christie's Personal Mystery In 1926 Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. No one's ever been able to explain what happened. "Several plausible theories have competed for favour over the years, but biographer Andrew Norman believes he is the first to find one that satisfies every element of the case." The Guardian (UK) 10/16/06

This Year's Governor General's Award Finalists An "obscure short list of mainly first- and second-time authors" has been named as finalists for this year's Canadian Governor General's Literary Award for English-language fiction. CBC 10/16/06

Pamuk Nobel Richly Diserved "This year, the Academy has done the right thing, thank God, saluting a writer who, in the words of the Nobel citation, 'has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures'. With Turkey and its record as much in the news as it was in 2005, Orhan Pamuk has become the first Turkish writer in 100 years ever to receive this supreme accolade." The Guardian (UK) 10/14/06

Turkish Pride Over Nobel (Sorta) Orhan Pamuk's Nobel win is the first for a Turkish writer. "This year's prize, then, puts the Turkish government in the awkward position of having to celebrate a writer it only recently tried to put in jail. The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a lukewarm statement of congratulation, saying in part, 'For years, it was our public's expectation to see a Turkish writer awarded the Nobel literature prize'." New York Sun 10/13/06

Canadian Court Says Newspapers Have To Pay Freelancers "Newspapers and magazines do not have the right to republish articles written by freelancers in electronic databases without the consent of the authors, according to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling released Thursday." CBC 10/12/06

Important German Manuscript Collection Might Be Liquidated To Pay Castle Bills The Counts of Baden in Germany "are broke and need 70 million euros to fix up their castle." So they propose a "selloff of 3500 of the 4200 medieval manuscripts - many of them of the highest importance -" from the collection in the Badische Landesbibliothek of Karlsruhe. Cronaca 10/12/06

Nobel Prize Goes To Turkish Novelist Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, who was prosecuted last year for talking openly about the slaughter of Armenians in Turkey during World War I, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. "He has published six books in English, the first of these being The White Castle, primarily a historical novel set in 17th-century Istanbul, but also about how stories and fictions build self-perception." BBC 10/12/06

Art & Science: No Longer Mutually Exclusive There was a time when scientific journals reveled in an "all substance, no style" approach, sure that their readers were too high-minded to be sucked in by a glossy look anyway. But no more: "The realities of competing for limited readership have caused editors to employ a little pizazz to stand out on the shelf. That means paintings, photos and, most popular, microscopic illustrations (if medical journals were tabloids, the DNA double helix would be J.Lo). Inside, poems and first-person essays often break up the pages of dauntingly technical and data-laden articles." Chicago Tribune 10/12/06

National Book Award Finalists Announced Richard Powers, Ken Kalfus and Jess Walter are among the nominees for best fiction book of the year, while a chronicle of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. will compete with a much-praised review of the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks in the non-fiction category. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Gluck is among those nominated in the poetry category. Boston Globe 10/12/06

Preparing For The Post-Booker Deluge The first days after winning the Man Booker Prize are a whirlwind of media engagements and adjusting to newfound celebrity. For this year's winner, Kiran Desai, who wasn't even on the radar screen of the oddsmakers that handicap the Booker, "the impact of the win and attendant publicity is likely to be colossal." The Independent (UK) 10/12/06

• What's The Opposite Of Sour Grapes? The two Australian women shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize not only aren't upset that they didn't win, they're professing relief. Kate Grenville and MJ Hyland were the first Australian women ever to make the shortlist, and they say that the whole experience was overwhelming. "In sales terms, the shortlist is certainly enough, with Grenville saying sales of her novel have increased tenfold since it was nominated for the last six." The Age (Melbourne) 10/12/06

Save Time, And Still Sound Smart! Back in 1940, a ponderous, 400-page tome called How To Read A Book was all the rage. But such a volume would be of little use to the average reader these days, says Alex Beam. Why, what with the inescapable wave of excerpts, previews, press releases and half-assed analysis of every important new book that comes out, what we really need is an expert guide to how not to read a book. Boston Globe 10/11/06

Desai Wins Booker Kiran Desai wins for her novel "The Inheritance of Loss." "Desai beat favourite Sarah Waters - shortlisted for The Night Watch - and fellow nominees Kate Greenville, Hisham Matar, M J Hyland and Edward St Aubyn." BBC 10/10/06

Waters Is Bookmakers' Booker Favorite "Novelist Sarah Waters is the favourite to win the Man Booker Prize, which is being announced in London on Tuesday. Waters, who was nominated for the award in 2002, faces competition from five other authors for the honour, which carries a prize of £50,000. The author of 'Night Watch' was 5/4 favourite with bookmakers Ladbrokes before betting closed." BBC 10/10/06

Gourevitch's Paris Review, Reviewed "Most literary mags have the life span of fruit flies, perhaps because most literary magazines are about as interesting as fruit flies. But the Paris Review endured, partly because (founding editor George) Plimpton was great at raising money from his rich friends but mostly because his magazine was actually worth reading. ... When Plimpton died, the literary world wondered: What will happen to the Paris Review? Now we know the answer. It has gotten even better." New editor Philip Gourevitch has made some changes, but cautiously and well. Washington Post 10/10/06

Genre Indie Stores Hold Off Chains Less than 40 percent of books sold in America are sold by independent bookstores. But "genre stores, specializing in literature ranging from fantasy to religion, have bucked this trend by catering to inveterate and demanding readers. Booksellers in southern California, New York, Minneapolis and elsewhere are finding ways to be profitable by targeting specific markets." Yahoo! (AP) 10/08/06

Indie Book Stores Fight Back Even as 200 to 300 independent bookstores close a year, the number of independent book stores opening is creeping up. "For a long time, from 1992 to 2002, you literally could count on two hands the number of openings. In the last three years there are 60, 70, 80 stores opening." Wired 10/08/06

Pinning Down A New Lit Genre "A 'new wave fabulist' is a writer who has transcended the conventions of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, lifting the traditional genre form into a new literary realm. Any effort to narrow down the category much further than that would be like trying to nail a raindrop to the wall." Boston Globe 10/08/06

Agreeing To Disagree What's the greatest English-language novel of the last quarter-century? A recent survey of American literary experts says it's Toni Morrison's Beloved, but in the UK, the poll went in an entirely different direction. "In the novel, as in everything else, there are Anglo-Saxon and American attitudes. We celebrate a literary tradition of astonishing variety. They want to believe in the Great American Novel, the classic exemplar, the last word. We don't really believe in the last word, prefer not to be told what's best and would rather make our own discoveries. They subscribe to the pursuit of (literary) happiness." The Observer (UK) 10/08/06

Alberta's Legendary Indie Turns 50 This week, Edmonton celebrated the 50th anniversary of the opening of one of Canada's most successful independent booksellers. "Hurtig Books proved virtually an immediate success, the only full-service, independently operated book retailer between Toronto and Vancouver. Within a decade, it was being hailed by many as the best bookstore in Canada and, after a couple of moves to ever-larger premises as well as the opening of two satellite outlets, had become one of the biggest book retailers in the country, perhaps even the biggest." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/07/06

Are Publishing Killing The Blogger Craze? Publishers are paying enormous advances for bloggers. "It's like the dot-com boom all over again. In the same way that publishers knew they needed a Web site even if they didn't know what that was, they're just buying up blogs because they're hot." Yahoo! (Reuters) 10/06/06

Why Amazon Rankings Matter "Why are we first-time authors so obsessed with the Amazon rankings? Partly because, like pretending to do your tax return or essential research, it offers yet another displacement activity to avoid the real hard business of writing. But it's also because once your book is out there, all alone in the big wide world, you desperately want to know if it's thriving or has got completely lost - and for a considerable period nobody can tell you." The Guardian (UK) 10/03/06

Lit Nobel Announced Next Week "There is no short list of possible winners, but buzz has centred on Syrian poet Adonis, whose real name is Ali Ahmad Said, and controversial Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. Other contenders, at least in the eyes of the media and on betting Web sites, include Americans Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth and Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/06/06

A New Robert Frost? Um, Okay... Why was there such a flurry of excitement when a Robert Frost poem was recently discovered? "There are a number of unpublished poems that scholars know of, residing in several libraries, that he never chose to publish."
Chronicle of Higher Education 10/05/06

Google Goes Literate Google is launching a Web site "dedicated to literacy, pulling together its books, video, mapping and blogging services to help teachers and educational organizations share reading resources." Yahoo! (Reuters) 10/05/06

Is Poetry Still Relevant? "People were perhaps put off by the way it was taught, searching for meaning and sociological context. Poetry isn't about that, it goes straight to the heart, the brain, the guts if you like." BBC 10/05/06

If Only More Classic Novels Had Sequels "A sequel to children's classic Peter Pan has been published - more than 100 years after the original... The book is set 20 years after the original, with Peter Pan's friend Wendy now having children of her own and the Lost Boys having grown up... Publishers tried to keep details of the book secret but were forced to launch an investigation back in August after an American newspaper printed a summary of the plot. The book is being published in 30 different countries in 34 languages." BBC 10/05/06

Newspaper Readership Soars (What A Great Headline To Write) Online readership of newspapers is going up. And the readers are younger. "The average number of unique visitors to online newspaper sites in the first half was more than 55.5 million a month, the study said. That compares with 42.2 million a year earlier." Wired (Reuters) 10/04/06

Forward Thinking - Robertson Wins Robin Robertson wins the £10,000 Forward Prize for Poetry. "Robertson, 50, from Scone, Perthshire, is the first poet to have won both the best collection prize and the best first collection prize." BBC 10/04/06

Funerary Viol In The What Now? "It seems to be just another esoteric historical tome published to appeal to an academic audience: An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin, by Rohan Kriwaczek, a nonfiction account of a little-known genre of music that was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and almost wiped out by the Great Funerary Purges of the 1830’s and 40’s... Except for a few niggling details. There is no such thing as a funerary violin. [And] there were no Great Funerary Purges." A literary joke? Sure looks like it, and the book's publisher apparently wasn't among those in on it. The New York Times 10/04/06

Giller Looks Beyond The Obvious This year's Giller Prize finalists for Canadian writers are less-known than those who usually make the list. "Pascale Quiviger's A Perfect Circle, which won the Governor General's Award for fiction in French in 2004, is perhaps the most acclaimed of five books selected for the list, announced in Toronto Tuesday." CBC 10/03/06

• Giller - The Year Of Not Being Alice Munro "For an award that tends to favour well-established and high-profile writers, most of the big shots of the 2006 fall season were conspicuously absent from the long list." CBC 10/03/06

Pete Doherty, Poetry Maven. No, Really! Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty may be better known for his tumultuous personal life than for his music, but it turns out all that prison time was an excellent opportunity for reading poetry. Rimbaud, Verlaine ... and don't even get him started on Emily Dickinson. "Aargh, she's outrageous man!" he says. "She's [expletive] hardcore! Can't ignore her." The Guardian (UK) 10/03/06

Laura Bush's Big Five The first lady lists the books that propelled her into literacy advocacy. Her commentary on her favorites is far from devoid of political implications -- but she does speak of the "fun" of reading "The Brothers Karamazov." Wall Street Journal 09/30/06

Would You Pay To Be In A Novel? "Jason Johnson, described by critics as 'the Irish Irving Welsh', will open up an unusual auction in cyberspace next month: a chance to become a character in his third novel." The Observer (UK) 10/01/06

Another Big Indie Bookstore Bites The Dust "Coliseum Books, the Midtown Manhattan store known for its knowledgeable staff, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection." New York Sun 10/02/06

Eco Goes Big In Publishing "It isn't on the fringe anymore. Nowadays doing the right thing can also pay off for publishers. It works in three ways. You have happy, committed employees with a mission.You know you are getting the message out and helping to save the planet. And being green adds green to the bottom line." New York Sun 10/02/06

When All The Books Are Online "Spurred by Google's initiative and by the lower costs, higher profits, and immense reach of unmediated digital distribution, book publishers and other copyright holders must at last overcome their historic inertia and agree, like music publishers, to market their proprietary titles in digital form either to be read on line or, more likely, to be printed on demand at point of sale..." New York Review of Books 10/17/06

Too Much Of A Good Thing? It's looking like this will be a banner fall for the publishing industry, but some observers are wondering if there may be more good books than the marketing apparatus can handle. "The situation has publishers trying novel marketing and publicity strategies as they struggle to get attention for their authors." Los Angeles Times 10/01/06

Reading, Race, And Rap Can hip-hop culture be a tool to encourage greater literacy among ethnic minorities? Some London rappers think it's essential. "What deters people [from reading] is that they are forced to do so much of it at school. It has the stigma attached to it of boredom. But Tupac [the late US rapper] said when he came out of prison that the knowledge he gained was from reading books." The Observer (UK) 10/01/06