The gloves are off as Derek Walcott viciously attacks fellow Nobel Prize winner VS Naipaul in his recently premiered poem, Mongoose. The piece is “a fast-paced, savagely humorous demolition of Naipaul's work and personality that begins with the opening salvo: 'I have been bitten, I must avoid infection/Or else I'll be as dead as Naipaul's fiction.' Ouch! And it gets better.
National Public Radio has expanded the book coverage on its website, adding weekly book reviews, and has hired six new book reviewers—including a graphic novel reviewer—and added more features to an already existing lineup of author podcasts, critics' lists and other book-focused content.
OverDrive, one of the main suppliers of audio content to libraries and other institutions, is adding DRM-free titles to its catalog, and going direct-to-consumer.
The Canadian guy who runs [the Web site Stuff White People Like] just sold a book to Random House for an advance that publishing insiders said had reached at least $350,000 when it was at auction last week. Unclear how high it ended up climbing, but frankly, $350,000 is already a staggering sum for a paperback inspired by a faddish blog that launched just over two months ago.
This years Pulitzer Prize winners have just been announced. Among those honored are Junot Diaz for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and John Matteson for Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. The complete list of finalists and winners can be had here.
In 1990 Salman Rushdie claimed he had renewed his Muslim faith and repudiated the attacks on Islam in his novel Satanic Verses, for which there was a fatwa on his head. Now he’s recanted that statement in an interview to be broadcast next month, saying it was all a sham, a product of “deranged thinking”.
ONE of the great publishing taboos of modern Germany is beginning to buckle: historians are pressing the authorities to bring out a new edition of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic manifesto, Mein Kampf.
Lazy consumers, who don’t want to click more than once to make a purchase, are supplying Amazon the weapon of destruction with which to bend publishers to its will. The online retailing giant has adopted “the literary equivalent of a nuclear option for rebellious publishers who balk at its demands”—disabling the “buy now with 1 click” icon.
The shortlist for the Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction, announced earlier today, suggests a broad definition of the genre. Along with tales of androids and genetic engineers, the six books nominated this year include prize-winning literary fiction, a novel for young adults, and what has been described as "a postmodern psychological mash-up".
The controversy over plans to put recommended age ranges on the covers of children's books ignited at the Hay festival yesterday, with authors speaking both for and against proposals due to be implemented by a wide group of children's publishers later this year.
Question is, is this really about the kids, or are there hidden agendas here?
I suppose we could have used the title 'not safe for anyone' many times already, but I thought it would be especially pertinent here because in this show Richard and Hans illustrate the many situations in which the C-word is perfectly appropriate.
