March 26, 2011
“Why do writers write? What influences their work? Where do they find inspiration? ” Some of the United Kingdom’s most celebrated writers answer these questions and more for the National Life Stories’ Authors’ Lives project archived at the British Library. You can read and listen to excerpts at the Guardian (both here and here), or purchase the complete […]
March 25, 2011
The latest creation of Maurice Sendak, renowned children’s author and illustrator, will be released in September. HarperCollins said that “Bumble-Ardy,” a fun-loving pig, will see an initial printing of 500,000. Not child’s play! PS- If you remember, he worked on a Chicago Lyric Opera a few years back (2003). Here’s a link to Brundibar (2009). […]
March 23, 2011
Barnes and Noble may be doing extremely well in sales (see recent post), however, it now has to fend off Microsoft in a lawsuit over possible patent infringements. Bill Gates is famous for his aggressive attitude in marketing his products and defending them, so it’s no surprise that Motorola has also been sued over Android […]
March 23, 2011
A NY judge decided yesterday that the $125 million dollar deal between Google and the book industry smacked of anti-trust problems, despite the appeal of making so many works available to the public. Google has prepared 15 million(!) books for this project. He also expressed concern about Google’s ability to use books without consent of […]
March 22, 2011
Barnes and Noble grabbed the lion’s share of the book market, according to an annual survey from Bowker’s. This includes online sales at bn.com. What surprised me about this was the strong share Borders claimed despite its ongoing problems with bankruptcy. Brief, informative article at Publisher’s Weekly.com with clear chart depicting the major players in […]
March 19, 2011
Our latest Book Trailer of the Week is for Peter Bognanni’s fantastic debut novel The House of Tomorrow. A finalist for the 2010 L.A. Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, The House of Tomorrow tells the story of Sebastian Prendergast, a lonely 16-year-old who lives in rural Iowa with his grandma and is homeschooled in a geodesic […]
March 18, 2011
Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, […]
March 17, 2011
This may be old news to those of you who frequent the public parks in Chicago, but Gabriel Levinson, a young college grad with a mission to promote literacy, has been quietly offering free books to passers-by at various parks around the city from the fold-out, mini kiosk he totes around on his bike. He […]
March 16, 2011
An unusual number of book awards have been presented in the past couple of weeks. Yesterday Deborah Eisenberg won the PEN/Faulkner prize for her short story collection, imaginatively named ‘The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg.” The award was founded in 1980 to recognize top quality American fiction. “Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes won the PNBA (Pacific […]
March 14, 2011
Of course, the important priorities are taking care of people and housing,etc., during a natural catastrophe. However, people do always wonder about the additional things they care about. In this case, I mean books. So, what is the status of libraries around Japan? The Huffington Post linked to […]
