Melville House Books

Controversy

• ‘Just a joke’: Amazon gets more money from UK government grants than it pays in tax

  In the continuing saga of Amazon’s tax dodging (see here and here for just a couple of our reports on this), it was revealed this week that the company’s UK operation made £4.2bn in sales… Read more »

• Madwoman in PW: Claire Messud responds to sexist questions

  Women face a deeply double pressure to please, to be likable—to be made of suger, spice, and everything nice. In the world of fiction, that pressure falls on their characters.… Read more »

• Granta editor: Leeds is “completely out of the literary world”

  While the response to Granta’s latest crop of “Best of Young British Novelists” has been largely positive—the list has been widely and deservedly praised for its diversity—comments made by the… Read more »

• Hilary Mantel’s portrait of Kate Middleton

  Hilary Mantel’s “Royal Bodies” in the London Review of Books discusses Kate Middleton, the Dutchess of Cambridge, and this passage about the recent portrait sticks out particularly: In her first… Read more »

• Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award gets more Amazon-y

  In a further move towards gobbling up every aspect of the publishing business they can get their hands on, yesterday Amazon announced changes to their Breakthrough Novel Award. In past… Read more »

• Ethics of biography — the Paula Broadwell edition

  How much space should biographers keep from their subjects… Read more »

• An attack that “made no sense whatever”: Alexander Cockburn’s fight with a publisher

  In the American Prospect, Harold Myerson considers the legacy of Alex Cockburn, who died last Friday at 71, by revisiting his peculiar reaction to the demolition of Pantheon Books in… Read more »

• Tales from the inside

  Raise your hand if you’ve been to prison. Nobody? Good, we’re all law-abiding citizens here, as are, I propose, most readers interested in books about spending time behind bars. After… Read more »

• When editing online, “it only takes 20 minutes to shift the blame”

  Hawk-eyed media watchers have made a habit of exposing online edits that dramatically change the tone of a story. The Politico article on General Stanley McChrystal being a much-cited example. Now, Craig… Read more »

• Studying up for a life of crime

  When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police recently busted a drug ring in Calgary, Alberta, they found among the cash, weapons and drugs, an autographed copy of a book about money… Read more »