Breaking news on authors, publishers, and book-related topics

Need a handbag or a tie to land your first job? Borrow one with a library card

Oct 09 2018: Handbags, briefcases and ties can be checked out for up to three weeks at a time at the Riverside branch of the New York Public Library, as part of a pilot program dreamed up by Michelle Lee, a young adult librarian...

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Johns Hopkins names new research building after Henrietta Lacks

Oct 08 2018: Johns Hopkins University just announced that the school will name a new research building after Henrietta Lacks, the "mother of modern medicine" whose cancer cells revolutionized medical research--and whose story came to the public's attention through Rebecca Skloot's ...

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Amazon's hourly workers lose monthly bonuses and stock awards as minimum wage increases

Oct 04 2018: Amazon's minimum-wage increase for its hourly workers comes with a trade-off: no more monthly bonuses and stock awards.

Amazon confirmed in an email to CNBC that the company is getting rid of incentive pay and stock option awards as it increases the minimum wage to $...

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B&N sets up process to evaluate purchase offers

Oct 04 2018: Barnes & Noble is setting up "a formal review process to evaluate strategic alternatives for the company," it announced yesterday. This follows what management says are "expressions of interest from multiple parties" about buying B&N, including from chairman Len Riggio,...

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Six of this year's 25 MacArthur "genius grant" winners are writers or storytellers

Oct 04 2018: Among the 25 winners of the 2018 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowships (widely referred to as the "genius grants," which come with a no-strings-attached award of $625,000) are at least six people who are writers or story-tellers:

• Natalie Diaz, 40,...

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Amazon boosts minimum wage to $15 for all workers following criticism

Oct 02 2018: Amazon.com announced Tuesday that it will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all employees, a move that comes after the tech giant faced harsh criticism for how much it pays its workers.

The pay increase will affect 250,000 Amazon employees and 100,000 ...

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Guilty verdict for man at center of Nobel Prize in Literature scandal

Oct 02 2018: Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the center of a scandal that led to the cancellation of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, has been found guilty of rape and sentenced to two years in prison by a Swedish court, the New York Times reported. The Swedish Academy ...

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7 characters that didn't make it into the Harry Potter books

Sep 28 2018: Harry Potter fans will enjoy Mental Floss' "7 Characters That Didn’t Make It Into the Harry Potter Books," including a Weasley cousin in Slytherin; a younger sister for Hermione; and an eccentric witch, Mopsy who takes in Padfoot--all characters that were included in J....

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