Melville House Books

Dennis Johnson

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

• In England, there are awards for radical children

  From the This Could Never Happen Here file: Organizers in England have announced the shortlist for the first-ever prize in radical writing for children. The Little Rebels Children’s Book Award “recognises… Read more »

• Penguin opts for a jury of its peers

  First, Penguin told the Justice Department to “Bring it on” — it was going to stand firm against the government’s bizarre price-fixing lawsuit even when most of the others charged… Read more »

• In for a penny, out for a lot of pounds: Sony v. Amazon price war ends

  The last few times I’ve been in London, it’s all everyone in the book biz there was talking about: the war between Sony and Amazon UK. People would bring it… Read more »

• Shalom Auslander: How to give an acceptance speech

  “I’m as surprised as many of you are, I’m sure, that Hilary Mantel didn’t win, since she seems to win everything — either her or Junot Diaz,” says Shalom Auslander… Read more »

• Bob Woodward: Is the jig finally up?

  How reliable is Bob Woodward? From the very first there have been those who thought, well, he was making shit up. Lots of people questioned whether there ever really was… Read more »

• Celine, as it turns out, was against not only Jews

  One of France’s greatest writers of the 20th century, and one of its most anti-Semitic, Louis-Fernand Celine, who was also a Holocaust denier, gives a wild-haired, late-in-life interview on French… Read more »

• UK indie booksellers call on Cameron to make Amazon pay taxes

  Two British booksellers — Frances and Keith Smith — have announced they’ve nearly got the necessary amount of signatures to present a petition to Prime Minister David Cameron calling upon… Read more »

• Is showrooming unstoppable?

  Indie booksellers have been complaining for a while now about “showrooming” — whereby shoppers go to a brick-and-mortar store to look at books they’re interested in, then buy them from… Read more »

• Vast library of books confiscated from Palestinians resides in basement of Israeli National Library

  An Agence France Presse story speaks to the lasting meaning of print books. According to the story, Israel confiscated all the books they could find in private Palestinian homes in… Read more »

• Kurt Vonnegut: A short lecture on short stories

  For some reason he wasn’t quite famous for it, but the late, great Kurt Vonnegut used to give lots of public lectures. Later in life they were crankier, more prescriptive,… Read more »