Penguin LostAndrey Kurkov
RotisStephane Reynaud
Alison Flood reports in the Guardian that a Harvard Business School study finds that “Amazon reviews are just as likely to give an accurate summary of a book’s quality as those of professional newspapers.” The study, “What Makes a Critic Tick? Connected Authors and the…
With Passover approaching next month, it’s time for Jewish families to get out the Haggadah, the text that outlines the progression of the seder. There are countless versions of the book, ranging from beautiful illuminated editions from the Middle Ages to pamphlets published by Maxwell…
Al Jazeera English covered the bombing last week of the offices of the satirical French weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Fingers are pointing to Islamic radicals, since the paper recently published an issue where the prophet Muhammad was listed as the guest editor, though the cartoonist…
“An Italian publisher has yanked copies of a book on Catholic Church teaching after a translation error implied the Vatican approved of contraception,” according to an Associated Press report. The Italian publisher Nuova Citta has had to pulp 45,000 copies of the Italian edition of…
Thankfully, The Mustache backed down, but here’s a fun thought experiment: let’s say that at least one of the knuckle-draggers cheering on the burning of Korans during the “international burn-a-Koran day” had paused, if briefly, to consider something other than the hate in his heart…
Emperor Palpatine Pope Benedict XVI has published his first children’s book! The pope, apparently already an author of many volumes, has taken it upon himself to educate young ones about his religion. Maybe entice them to get into it a bit more. Granted, I can’t…
In a controversy that brings to mind the recent contretemps in Denmark, in which the caricaturing of the prophet Muhammad led to widespread Muslim outrage, at least one-hundred deaths, and the attempted assassination of the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has…
“The selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope has led to immediate demand for his many books,” according to an Associated Press wire story. “Within hours of the announcement, several books by Ratzinger jumped on to the best seller list of Amazon.com, including…
One of the leading contenders to replace Pope John Paul II “harshly criticizes pro-market reforms and the globalization of the economy and urges solidarity with workers in a new book rushed into publication” in Brazil. According to an Associated Press wire story, the book by…
“Pope John Paul‘s death was big business for publishers and memorabilia collectors yesterday as five books penned by the pope zoomed into Amazon.com‘s Top 100,” with his newest, Memory and Identity, charting at number three on Amazon and number two on Barnes & Noble.com within…