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

Great American Read Top 10 announced

Oct 12 2018: The deadline is approaching to cast votes for the USA's best-loved novel. To date, more than 3.8 million votes have been cast.

Organizers of The Great American Read have released a Top 10 list of the leading candidates. The winning book will be revealed in the "Grand ...

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The number of self-published books topped 1 million in 2017

Oct 11 2018: The number of self-published books topped the 1 million mark for the first time in 2017, according to Bowker’s annual report on the number of ISBNs that were issued to self-published authors. The total number of ISBNs issued last year rose 28% over 2016, to 1,009,188. ...

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The 2018 National Book Award finalists are in, including a new category for translated literature

Oct 10 2018: The finalists for the National Book Award are in, and this year, there’s more of them than ever before.

For 2018, the National Book Foundation has added a new category for translated literature, in what seems to be an attempt to push back against the idea that ...

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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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