Apr 04 2013: Film critic and author Roger Ebert died today aged 70. He had been in poor health over the past decade, battling cancers of the thyroid and salivary gland. He posted an upbeat message on his blog just two days before his death:
"...At this point in my life, in addition to writing about...
Iain Banks announces he has inoperable late-stage cancer
Apr 03 2013: Author Iain Banks has announced that he has inoperable late-stage metastatic gall bladder cancer and is "extremely unlikely" to live for more than another year. He and his partner Adele have just married and, at the time of his announcement, are on a short honeymoon.
Random House to publish book by 17-year-old Wattpad star
Apr 03 2013: Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, has announced that it will publish e-book and print editions of The Kissing Booth, a debut book by Beth Reekles, a 17-year-old from Wales which has received more than 19 million reads and 40,000 comments to date on Wattpad....
Mar 29 2013: Amazon.com has reached an agreement to acquire Goodreads, a leading site for readers and book recommendations that helps people find and share books they love. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013.
The purchase comes amid mounting rumors that Goodreads, which CEO...
Mar 27 2013: French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti has unveiled part of the government's plan to shore up independent booksellers. Filippetti observed that the government wants to ensure France "never suffers the same fate as the United States" with "the collapse of several [bookshop] chains" and the...
B&N reduces number of S&S books in stores as financial dispute escalates
Mar 25 2013: Barnes & Noble has sharply reduced the number of Simon & Schuster titles it carries in its stores as well as the promotion it gives those books as a result of a financial dispute between the two companies. The dispute, which one publishing executive likened to a blackout of TV channels by a cable...
Senate procedural vote gives big thumbs up to Marketplace Fairness Act
Mar 25 2013: On Friday, the Senate voted 75-24 in favor of a budget resolution amendment that supports the right of states to require "remote" retailers to collect and remit sales tax on purchases made in the state. The vote was a very positive procedural move to test support for the Marketplace Fairness Act,...
Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop wins Oddest Book Title of the Year
Mar 22 2013:Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop has been named as the winner of Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. The title won 38% of the public vote, fighting off competition from fellow contenders How Tea Cosies Changed the World and God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the...
Chinua Achebe, grandfather of modern African literature, has died aged 82
Mar 22 2013: Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe, widely seen as a grandfather of modern African literature, has died at the age of 82. Achebe made his name more than 50 years ago with his novel "Things Fall Apart," about his Igbo ethnic group's fatal brush with British colonialism in the 1800s. It was...
Protests continue over ban of memoir in Chicago schools
Mar 19 2013: The controversy over the Chicago Public Schools restricting access to Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of her youth in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, continues to roil the nation’s third largest school district, as free speech advocates weigh in.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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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...
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