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

Backlash to Frank O'Connor Award dispensing with shortlist

Jul 09 2008: Guardian blogger Nicholas Lezard, and a number of readers, react caustically to the announcement that Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth has won the Frank O'Connor award outright because the judges chose to dispense with a shortlist (see yesterday's story).

Lezard ...

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PEN: China Has Failed to Deliver Freedom of Expression

Jul 09 2008: Three international PEN centers have determined that the climate for freedom of expression in China has measurably deteriorated over the past year. Centers in the U.S., Canada and China released a "report card" one month before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, ...

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Death: Thomas M. Disch

Jul 08 2008: SF author, critic, and poet Thomas M. Disch, born 1940, died July 4, 2008, of suicide in his New York City apartment. Ellen Datlow reports that Disch had been depressed for several years, especially by the death of long-time partner Charles Naylor, and worries of ...

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Jhumpa Lahiri jumps the shortlist to world's richest short story prize

Jul 08 2008: The judges for the Frank O'Connor award have dispensed with the ritual of issuing a shortlist, announcing today that Jhumpa Lahiri has won the world's richest honour for a short story collection. The jurors decided that Unaccustomed Earth was so plainly the best book ...

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SIBA Book Award Winners Announced

Jul 08 2008: The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) has announced the winners of the 2008 SIBA Book Award, celebrating the best of southern literature, as chosen by the people who would know. . .independent booksellers throughout the South.

• Fiction:  Garden ...

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Interview with Arthur C Clarke

Jul 01 2008: SciFi.com are featuring a previously unpublished interview with the late Arthur C. Clarke which was conducted between 1999 and 2000. Asked how he felt about his fiction, Clarke replied, "Well, I haven't looked at it for years. In fact I can scarcely ever remember ...

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Judge throws out law on explicit material

Jul 01 2008: A federal court today struck down a law that would have required sellers of sexually explicit materials in Indiana to register with the state, marking a victory for retailers and First Amendment advocates.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ruled that House ...

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On this day: Charles Dickens gives first public reading

Jun 30 2008: On this day in 1857 Charles Dickens gave his very first public reading. He read from A Christmas Carol in St Martin's Hall in London. The reading was so successful that Dickens became one of the first authors to go on extensive international book tours, performing his...

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