Jun 12 2013: Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position comes with a $25,000 prize and "aims to raise awareness that children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are its most appreciative...
Tom Sharpe, Porterhouse Blue novelist, dies aged 85
Jun 06 2013: British author Tom Sharpe, author of more than a dozen comedic novels including Porterhouse Blue (1974) and Blott on the Landscape (1975), has died aged...
French government pledges further $11.8 million dollars to support independent booksellers
Jun 05 2013: Aurélie Filippetti, the French culture minister, is "mulling a ban on free postage offers and a current system allowing 5% discounts on books". She has also announced a €9 million (about $11.8 million) joint plan with French publishers to support independent booksellers, which is in addition to an...
A. M. Homes wins Women's Prize for Fiction for May We Be Forgiven
Jun 05 2013:May We Be Forgiven, an often breathtakingly dark and crazy satire on modern American life caused a literary upset on Wednesday night when it won the women's prize for fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) beating novels by Zadie Smith, Kate Atkinson and the bookies' favorite, Hilary Mantel....
China approves Penguin-Random House merger; completion set for next month
Jun 03 2013: Penguin Group and Random House confirm that China's antitrust authority has "cleared the planned merger of Penguin Group and Random House without conditions." China was the final international approval needed for the deal to go through - so Bertelsmann and Pearson plan on completing the merger...
Jun 03 2013: A proposal by Northern California booksellers to create a Bookstore Day received a positive reception at BookExpo America.
Northern California Independent Booksellers Association executive director Hut Landon wrote to NCIBA members that he and board member Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of...
May 31 2013: The cheerful mood of American Bookseller Association members at Book Expo America reflected the positive feeling among independent booksellers in general. The majority of them have seen business improve in the last year and a half and feel that, while the path is not easy, the days when their...
Judge rules unused Borders gift cards to be worthless
May 23 2013: Borders owes nothing to holders of roughly $210.5 million of gift cards that had not been used by the time the bookstore chain shut down, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter said it would be unfair to other creditors of the former Borders...
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.
May 20 2013: Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate income tax bill," Reuters reported, noting that during the past six years, Amazon has paid approximately $9 million in income tax on more...
U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing
May 16 2013: In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth slowed.
After several years of triple-digit growth, e-book sales grew 43% in 2012, representing 457 million e-books compared to 557...
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with...
From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years...
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Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part...
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A magical book, an enchanted house, a cast of characters who previously lived there but remain on the walls in photographs to be talked to whenever...
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Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate(Jun 12 2013) Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position...
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