Poet’s prize prompts pettiness: rights plight cited
[Note from the marketing director] After last week’s fiasco the managing editor has been restored to factory settings, but is currently on probation. We will be watching him closely. AS… Read more »
London Book Fair cancellation highlights need for IRL meetings
On Wednesday it was announced—after much speculation, and a raft of major publisher withdrawals—that the London Book Fair, scheduled for March 10th-12th, would not be going ahead. In an announcement… Read more »
Is Literary Iran ready to feel the Berne?
Enter a bookstore in Iran and you’re likely to be greeted by countless books that, although penned by familiar writers, you’ve never seen before: works long out-of-print, or never-before-in-print, elsewhere. Writing… Read more »
Leading booksellers and authors’ groups join together to file pro-Apple petition with Supreme Court
New developments in the court case that never ends: As reported in this Shelf Awareness story, the American Booksellers Association (ABA), Authors United (AU), Barnes & Noble and the Authors Guild (AG) joined… Read more »
Calling girls without dragon tattoos: Hachette Australia would like to have your back
It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it, before someone would think this was a good marketing idea: Hachette Australia is looking for a woman to “donate” her back… Read more »
AWP and Vanessa Place respond to this week’s events
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) announced on Sunday that poet Vanessa Place would no longer sit on a committee that determines which panels will be accepted for next year’s… Read more »
The remarkable story of Mein Kampf’s translation into English
Who would want to translate Mein Kampf? The translator’s grandson, John Murphy, shared the story of the first English language edition with the BBC this week. In 1934, Dr. James Murphy… Read more »
Why you won’t hear any actual lines from MLK’s speeches in the movie Selma
The powerful movie Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, is a biographical drama about Martin Luther King’s role in the civil rights marches in 1965. But you won’t hear any direct… Read more »
Finding a “message in a bottle” in Google book scans
We’ve written about when book scanners go wrong on this blog, and we’ve also covered the controversy and lawsuits over Google’s decision to scan books. But somewhere in the midst… Read more »
Ugandan pirates on the loose: 80,000 illegal books seized
Eighty thousand illegal copies of books, worth about Shs1.8b or $750,000 U.S., have been seized in Uganda. This is an effort to take unlicensed copies from bookshops and printers, part… Read more »