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

The changing face of romance novels

Jul 09 2018: The New York Times reports on the changing face of the romance novel genre:

...The landscape is slowly starting to change, as more diverse writers break into the genre, and publishers take chances on love stories that reflect a broader range of experiences and don’t ...

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Barnes & Noble fires another CEO

Jul 04 2018: In a brief statement released late Tuesday afternoon, Barnes & Noble said CEO Demos Parneros (who had been named CEO in April 2017) had been terminated for "violations of the Company’s policies." While not saying what policies Parneros violated, B&N said his termination...

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Junot Díaz adamantly denies allegations of inappropriate behavior

Jul 02 2018: In his first interview since being accused of inappropriate behavior with women, celebrated novelist Junot Díaz adamantly denied the allegations, including a claim he once "forcibly kissed" writer Zinzi Clemmons.

Díaz, who was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his ...

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Harlan Ellison: where to start reading

Jun 29 2018: Harlan Ellison, a major figure in the New Wave of science fiction writers in the 1960s who became a legend in science fiction and fantasy circles for his award-winning stories and notoriously outspoken and combative persona, died this week 84. During his life, he wrote ...

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Donald Hall, US poet laureate and prize-winning man of letters, dies at 89

Jun 25 2018: Donald Hall, a prolific and award-winning poet and man of letters who was widely admired for his sharp humor and painful candor about nature, mortality, baseball and the distant past, has died. He was 89.

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Where the ‘no ending a sentence with a preposition’ rule comes from

Jun 25 2018: Atlas Obscura explains the history behind the, arguably nonsensical, grammar rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition which, "all goes back to 17th-century England and a fusspot named John Dryden":

There are thousands of individual rules for proper ...

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B&N posted loss of $125 million on 6% sales drop in FY '18

Jun 21 2018: Total sales at Barnes & Noble fell 6.0% in the fiscal year ended April 28, 2018, compared to fiscal 2017, and the retailer posted a net loss of $125.5 million last year, compared to net income of $22.0 million in fiscal 2017. Revenue last year was $3.66 billion, down ...

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The 2017 VIDA Count

Jun 20 2018: Since 2009 VIDA has tracked the review coverage of major print publications to analyze how many women and gender minorities are represented.

For the 2017 VIDA Count, they looked at 15 major print publications over the course of the year. Even though many, if not all ...

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