The Female Shipwright

As part of its “Caird Library Reprints” series, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has reprinted two works describing the very different maritime...

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2:53 PM | 0 comments

Is the era of the print newspaper coming to an end?

Lost in the glut of dismal news and the world's preoccupation with the US presidential election campaign is a week's worth of bad tidings for the print...

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12:56 PM | 0 comments

Latest from Spy Mouse

Spy Mouse has emerged from a summer of reading books (and castles in Italy may have had something to do with it, too).The whisper, it seems, is that an...

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12:55 PM | 0 comments

New series on women scientists

In the harbinger of what promises to be remarkably successful venture, book distributor Beagle Bay of Nevada has just announced that one of their clients,...

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2:07 PM | 0 comments

Tony Hillerman passes away

Sadly, the great mystery writer Tony Hillerman has died at the age of 83, and Ron and I have read the last of his wonderful books. Though Caucasian, Hillerman...

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5:44 PM | 0 comments

A book jacket that breathes

It's funny, but you never think much about breathing. Until it's all you think about ...Amber Thody has responded to Hugh Price's comment that blue and...

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7:06 PM | 0 comments

What jacket helps a book sell?

My last post elicited a very interesting comment from bookseller Amber Thody. Fascinated by the idea of jackets selling books, she confided that she found...

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7:20 PM | 0 comments

New book on maritime leadership . . .

. . . and thoughts about book jacketsAdmirals: The Naval Commanders Who Made Britain Great, by Andrew Lambert has just been published by Faber & Faber...

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3:38 PM | 0 comments

Newspaper blogging

The ever-lively GalleyCat comments on a survey just released by the Online Journalism Blog, which reveals how deeply blogging has affected the traditional...

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2:41 PM | 0 comments

VIACOM up for sale?

Well-informed speculation by Peter Lauria in the New York Post has it that mega-media-mogul Sumner Redstone, 85, may be forced to sell Viacom.Viacom, no less, home of MTV, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Studios.Another option is to sell off bits of CBS,...

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2:45 PM | 0 comments

Is the Associated Press becoming an unaffordable luxury?

One hundred and sixty-two years ago, a bunch of US newspapers banded together to create a wire service, called The Associated Press, which would provide breaking news and instant headlines to the group, for a fee. It worked outstandingly well, and has...

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1:00 AM | 0 comments

Wellington misses out on City of Literature standing

In this morning's Dominion Post, Ruth Hill contributes the sad news that Wellington's bid for Unesco City of Literature status has been written off by...

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3:11 PM | 0 comments

The words you use

This is not even about the written word, but the spoken word instead.However, I found this story, written by Jessica Wapner for the science section of...

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1:45 PM | 0 comments

Leviathan -- and cat poetry

New Zealand economist Brian Easton sent me a ripped out page from The Spectator with a review of yet another whaling history, called (yet again) Leviathan.The...

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10:11 PM | 0 comments

Dean Koontz to write dog's memoir

Horror/thriller writer Dean Koontz has signed a contract with Hyperion to write A Bit Little Life, a memoir of his love affair with a dog. According to...

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1:30 PM | 0 comments

Rambles in the bookselling world

After lunch, I ran into Bridget Kinsella—who was wearing a Shelf Awareness badge. "Oh!" I said as she walked by. I've read Bridget's work in Publisher's...

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5:35 PM | 0 comments

Spin-off from a Nobel Award

Norton is moving quickly to bring out a paperback edition of Luc Montagnier's 1999 book Virus: The Co-discoverer of HIV Tracks its Rampage and Charts...

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2:20 PM | 0 comments

National Book Award Finalists

Fiction:Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Riverhead)Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Scribner)Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)Marilynne...

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1:59 PM | 0 comments

British Library pays half-million pounds for Hughes archive

An immense collection of the letters, diaries, drafts of poems, and "innermost thoughts" of Ted Hughes has been purchased by the British Library.Hughes,...

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6:17 PM | 0 comments

The Mystery of the Secret Service Watch

As the writer of the Wiki Coffin mystery novels, I surely do love a mystery -- and so I was instantly intrigued when I stumbled over the mystery of Barack...

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2:25 PM | 0 comments

Blogging cost a guy his job

Novelist Christopher Buckley is the back-page columnist for the conservative mag, National Review, which was founded by his father, William F. Buckley....

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1:50 PM | 0 comments

New book by author of Pomegranate Soup

Some time ago, our book club read and discussed Marsha Mehran's Pomegranate Soup, the story of three sisters, refugees from revolution-torn Iran, who...

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1:01 PM | 0 comments

Tidbits from the Frankfurt Book Fair

The mood, among German publishing houses, anyway, is upbeat. While lots of publishers feel dismal about economic prospects, most think that business will stay pretty much the same. The digital future zooms near, which led to a lot of discussion. While...

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12:34 PM | 0 comments

Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize

No, not another literature prize. But I could not resist announcing that the wonderful Paul Krugman, whose comments on the economic situation appear every...

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12:58 PM | 0 comments

Yasmine Gooneratne named Jewel of Literature

In Sri Lanka, the title "Sahithya Rathna"―“Jewel of Literature”―has been awarded to scholar and writer Yasmine Gooneratne, in recognition of her outstanding...

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7:46 PM | 0 comments

Honorary doctorate for popular New Zealand author

It’s not often Tessa Duder is lost for words, but the author, editor and playwright admits to being “gobsmacked” when she got word she was being awarded...

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6:01 PM | 0 comments

An inspiring story of sponsorship

Jacqueline Church Simonds, CEO of BeagleBayBooks, the energetic small press that is distributing the latest in Clare Bell's fantasy series, Ratha's Courage...

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5:49 PM | 0 comments

Albert Goldbarth, Amy Hempel Win Literary Prizes

Earlier this week, at a ceremony in Chicago, the Poetry Foundation named Albert Goldbarth the winner of its annual $25,000 Mark Twain Poetry Award, which...

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5:05 PM | 0 comments

Author of Jewel of Medina not being showcased at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Because the US publication date of Sherry Jones's Jewel Of Medina has been moved up from the original release of October 15, Beaufort Books publisher...

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3:09 PM | 0 comments

Nobel Prize in Literature Announced

And surprise, surprise, it is not an American -- just as Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which administers the award, predicted...

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2:32 PM | 0 comments

Bulls and bears, and the Dow index

Yet another shock announcement: Stocks have plunged again, and the Dow is under 8,600 -- and this in an era when hitting 10,000 was considered pretty...

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2:12 PM | 0 comments

The Contest is Won, the Flame is Gone

The Flame Is GoneFollowing a week of blazing books, GalleyCat's fiery contest has now ended. For those who have forgotten what it was all about, the...

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8:24 PM | 0 comments

A blog for nautical books

Nautical fiction writer and internet genius, Richard Spilman, has started a blog to promote nautical fiction - the OldSaltBlog When he announced this...

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2:07 PM | 0 comments

Essential art history texts for budding historians

On September 29, TimesOnline (UK) ran a list of art history texts considered basic needs for students of the discipline -- without comment. Obviously,...

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1:21 PM | 0 comments

Australia to charge royalty on art resales

Oh boy, I am getting further and further away from posting about words, publishing, more words, and books -- but this is really mind-bendingly wonderful....

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9:32 PM | 0 comments

Puns, at a time when humor is necessary

According to Ed Baker, publisher of Yachting magazine, people with mere money are having problems with the meltdown in the market, but people with wealth couldn't care less. Marianne Richards, who manages super-yachts in the Antibes, says, "There might...

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5:17 PM | 0 comments

Word of the day -- MAVERICK

MAVERICK is a word bandied about a lot. At first glance (or hearing), I was irresistibly reminded of the TV series, a favorite more years ago than I care...

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2:05 PM | 0 comments

Nobel prize for literature -- US books too insular to qualify

Any American who is hoping to find his or her name in the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature next week had better brace herself (or himself) for a big disappointment.Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which administers...

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3:09 PM | 0 comments

Political books

Can one predict political outcomes by looking at book sales?Probably not, but it is amusing to look at the ratings of books penned by or about current...

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3:27 PM | 0 comments

Had a manuscript rejected lately?

Been rejected by Academy Chicago?Poets & Writers, the largest non-profit organization to serve creative writers in the United States, reports that a bookkeeper employed by the 33-year-old independent publisher has been sending back submissions off...

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3:12 PM | 0 comments