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

Publishers Weekly & Library Journal up for sale - again

Jul 30 2009: Reed Business Information is putting Publishers Weekly and its affiliated publications, Library Journal and School Library Journal, up for sale. Last year, Reed Elsevier, parent company of RBI, tried to sell all of RBI but dropped the sale when it couldn’t get the price...

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The Booker Prize longlist

Jul 28 2009: The Booker Prize Longlist (13 titles known as the Man Booker Dozen) has been announced:

• The Children's Book, AS Byatt. (Chatto and Windus). Byatt won previously with Possession in 1990
• Summertime, JM Coetzee. (Harvill Secker). Coetzee has won twice for Life & ...

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Earliest Wodehouse satires discovered

Jul 28 2009: The discovery of four satirical "playlets" by PG Wodehouse, seen by the public for the first time in 100 years this weekend, prove that the humorist - who is often viewed as apolitical - had a strong interest in public affairs from his youth.

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E Lynn Harris dies aged 54

Jul 24 2009: E. Lynn Harris, the best-selling author of novels that addressed the subject of gay black culture has died. He was 54.

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Barnes & Noble launces eBookstore

Jul 21 2009: Barnes & Noble has launched the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, which it calls "the world's largest eBookstore," a part of its website that will offer more than 700,000 titles that may be read on a range of devices and computers, including iPhones, iPods, Blackberrys, as ...

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Debate continues over removal of Kindle titles

Jul 20 2009: Those interested in following the debate about Amazon's removal of illegal copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from people's Kindles will find the discussion raging at the link below. Shelf Awareness also published a comprehensive list of editorial links in today's issue: ...

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Frank McCourt dies aged 78

Jul 20 2009: Frank McCourt died yesterday, aged 78. His publisher, Scribner, accounted his passing on Sunday afternoon, as a result of metastatic melanoma.

Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said, "Frank will be deeply missed, both as an author and as a warm and welcome ...

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Why the Chinese-reading world still flocks to Hong Kong

Jul 17 2009: Hong Kong has become China's bookseller. The Wall Street Journal reported that "this former British colony, famous as a global financial hub, is best known in Chinese political circles as something else: a supplier of the Chinese-speaking world's most sensitive books......

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