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

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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Do we still need Banned Books Week?

Sep 26 2018: Writing in The Washington Post, Ron Charles asks if we still need Banned Books Week? He concludes:

Far from it being dated, James LaRue (from the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association) believes that Banned Books Week may be more relevant...

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5 Under 35 honorees announced

Sep 24 2018: 5 Under 35 is an annual prize that honors five young and promising fiction writers, each selected by a National Book Award Winner or Finalist. This year's honorees are:

Hannah Lillith Assadi, Sonora
Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater
Lydia Kiesling, The Golden State
Nana ...

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