http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing.shtml Copyright 2008 Fri, 16 May 2008 08:12:01 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.33 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss "A shocking biography of the Nobel laureate Sir V.S.Naipaul, which exposes his cruelty towards those closest to him, is tipped to win its author the richest prize in non-fiction writing."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/could_harsh_nai.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/could_harsh_nai.shtml publishing Thu, 15 May 2008 18:03:40 -0800 They have survived the advent of radio, television, the Internet, and Nintendo. Rather, they will be challenged once again, and books' content will find new ways to express itself more effectively.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_latest_book.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_latest_book.shtml publishing Thu, 15 May 2008 17:44:57 -0800 "Silicon Valley isn't usually where aspiring authors go to kick-start a literary reputation. But for first-time novelist Leinad Zeraus, it proved the ideal launching pad: Sans publicist, promotional budget, or even publisher, Zeraus scored encomiums for his debut work, Daemon. How'd he do it? By courting bloggers and influential techies like Joi Ito, Stewart Brand, and Craig Newmark -- demonstrating that if you can get the geek grapevine on your side, you don't need Random House."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/making_profitab.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/making_profitab.shtml publishing Thu, 15 May 2008 06:15:51 -0800 Bookstore sales rose 1.3% in March, to $1.03 billion, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Sales have increased every month so far in 2008 and finished the first quarter up 5.1%, to $4.46 billion.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/us_book_sales_u_2.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/us_book_sales_u_2.shtml publishing Wed, 14 May 2008 18:22:31 -0800 Last week the opening line of The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot's most famous poem, became "one of most explosively googled phrases in America. Google's aptly named Hot Trends list, a utility offered by the company that offers a glimpse of what the online nation is most furiously searching for at any given moment." The question is why?... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/ts_eliot_google.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/ts_eliot_google.shtml publishing Wed, 14 May 2008 18:17:23 -0800 "No longer will the disgruntled writing masses be able to complain that their work has not been published because it has been vetoed by elite, snobbish publishing industry professionals. Now they will be kyboshing each other. (Or launching each other's careers.)"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/publisher_launc.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/publisher_launc.shtml publishing Tue, 13 May 2008 17:45:10 -0800 "Why is it that the work of this earnest but artless writer continues to enjoy such astonishing popularity? It's not hard to understand why his books are widely assigned in middle and high school English classes; they are easy to read, they are honest in their portrayal of working-class Americans, they passionately support basic American values and principles even when they criticize particulars of American life. Whatever their literary shortcomings, they have an integrity to which young readers respond. But why do adults continue to read Steinbeck in such numbers?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/john_steinbeck.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/john_steinbeck.shtml publishing Tue, 13 May 2008 17:40:24 -0800 "Studies show that children who are read to from an earlier age have better language development and tend to have better language scores later in life. Getting children to grip pages with their thumb and forefinger improves their motor skills."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/study_reading_t.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/study_reading_t.shtml publishing Tue, 13 May 2008 17:31:18 -0800 "HarperCollins announced Monday that it was planning to make their listings of upcoming releases available only online, calling the current system both economically and environmentally indefensible."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/publishers_drop.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/publishers_drop.shtml publishing Tue, 13 May 2008 07:53:02 -0800 There are so many of them. Politicians seem to be obsessed with writing books about their exploits after they've left office. There seem to be three audiences for these books...... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/does_anyone_rea.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/does_anyone_rea.shtml publishing Tue, 13 May 2008 07:34:58 -0800 "Lexicographers are uploading their work to the Oxford English Dictionary online. Their revisions sit cheek-by-jowl with old entries, some of which haven't been touched in 150 years. A chicken in the online O.E.D. is therefore "the young of the domestic fowl; its flesh," which seems poetic and factually not bad but also ambiguous and barely idiomatic in the 21st century.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_venerable_d.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_venerable_d.shtml publishing Mon, 12 May 2008 18:45:28 -0800 "Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter is suing book publisher Airleaf, formerly known as Bookman Marketing, for accepting payment from authors and not following through on its promises to provide book publishing, royalty reimbursement and promotional services."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/indiana_sues_pu.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/indiana_sues_pu.shtml publishing Mon, 12 May 2008 18:27:10 -0800 The answer is yes but a terrible one! "But the project itself is ripe for sociological study. It's a fully and publicly documented interaction between over a thousand would-be authors, a postmodern literary critic's orgiastic wet dream."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/can_the_interne.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/can_the_interne.shtml publishing Mon, 12 May 2008 07:14:59 -0800 "For generations, the study of literature has been a pillar of liberal education... But over the last decade or so, more and more literary scholars have agreed that the field has become moribund, aimless, and increasingly irrelevant to the concerns not only of the 'outside world,' but also to the world inside the ivory tower."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/why_literary_st.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/why_literary_st.shtml publishing Mon, 12 May 2008 07:01:37 -0800 "The Pictorial Webster's may be the most curious of the many volumes that have borne the name Webster's over the years. The book costs $2,600, and that's the least-expensive edition. It took the artist nearly a dozen years to create. And - perhaps most strangely for a dictionary whose entries are images - it has become an overwhelming object of desire for lexicographers."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_most_expens_3.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_most_expens_3.shtml publishing Mon, 12 May 2008 06:07:39 -0800 Iris Murdoch, William Golding and Kingsley Amis are among some of the 20th century's foremost writers who have failed to make the shortlist. The nominees are Sir Salman Rushdie, Pat Barker, Peter Carey, J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and J. G. Farrell. Four of them were born outside Britain.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_bestofbooke.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_bestofbooke.shtml publishing Mon, 12 May 2008 05:59:08 -0800 The story of Israeli literature is as troubled and turbulent as the country's 60-year-old history. "In a world where the struggle over meaning is felt to have the power to determine the destinies of peoples, it has most often - certainly most powerfully - acted as the nation's conscience, shattering the rhetoric of state."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/fiction_that_re.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/fiction_that_re.shtml publishing Sun, 11 May 2008 10:18:44 -0800 "Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing has said winning the prestigious award in 2007 had been a 'bloody disaster'. The increased media interest in her has meant that writing a full novel was next to impossible... Lessing, 88, also said she would probably now be giving up writing novels altogether."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/lessing_calls_n.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/lessing_calls_n.shtml publishing Sun, 11 May 2008 09:39:56 -0800 "In smaller towns, newspapers have rarely paid much attention to reviewing books or much else, for that matter, using national press services when needed. That's not likely to change. Suddenly, however, a white knight has emerged on the scene to fill that void of reviews at the hometown paper. I'm just not sure he's riding the right horse."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/a_plan_for_more.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/a_plan_for_more.shtml publishing Thu, 08 May 2008 18:54:59 -0800 "Publishers, especially the purveyors of what some derisively refer to as 'airport books,' actually want you to judge their books by the covers. They've arranged the jackets with that very plan in mind... Imagery, fonts, type sizes and color palette conspire to telegraph whether the stuff inside is concerned with code-crackers and shoe phones, spirits and trapdoors or rich widows and pool boys."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/airport_books_g.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/airport_books_g.shtml publishing Thu, 08 May 2008 06:31:55 -0800 "We are used to hearing about globalisation and the Americanisation (and therefore the Englishing) of popular culture. Opponents of these forces perceive the spread of English as linguistic imperialism; it erodes traditions and cultural identities. Those who fear this spread connect it with Christianity, colonialism and America's political and military interventionism. But is this right?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/does_english_do.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/does_english_do.shtml publishing Wed, 07 May 2008 17:48:25 -0800 "A children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the American public objects to the most... Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/library_challen.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/library_challen.shtml publishing Wed, 07 May 2008 05:56:27 -0800 And Tango Makes Three, "released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most "challenged" book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/gay_penguins_ki.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/gay_penguins_ki.shtml publishing Tue, 06 May 2008 15:52:15 -0800 "Authors face a dilemma of the imagination today. The crux of this dilemma is the literary imagination's relationship to the historical imagination."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/a_literary_cris.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/a_literary_cris.shtml publishing Tue, 06 May 2008 15:11:23 -0800 "Publishers have convinced retailers that stacks of books piled high in the aisles will attract customers and spawn bestsellers. It's a leaky theory posing little risk for booksellers. If the books don't sell, they're only out the cost of shipping and handling the returns."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_insane_poli.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2008/05/the_insane_poli.shtml publishing Tue, 06 May 2008 14:58:03 -0800