Simon & Schuster has accused the Walt Disney Company of obtaining a copy of the manuscript of Pulitzer Prize-winner James Stewart‘s “forthcoming book about Michael Eisner‘s 20-year reign as Disney chief executive and the shareholder revolt against him,” and the publisher is demanding it be…
Lucien Carr, called by many, including Allen Ginsberg, a “catalyst” of the Beat generation, died on Friday of “complications from cancer treatment” at age 79. As a Reuters obituary by Randall Mikkelsen details, “Carr was a student at Columbia University in New York in 1944…
Stockholders of giant UK bookseller W.H. Smith attending the company’s annual meeting protested the fact that although the company lost £135 million last year it nonetheless gave CEO Kate Swann a 77 percent raise. Caroline Muspratt reports in a Daily Telegraph story that “15.9 m…
Speaking at the opening of the 84th annual Iranian Publishers Book Fair in the northeastern Iranian city of Semnan, the country’s deputy minister of culture noted “200 million books are being published in Iran every year” and that “Iran is among the top ten countries…
“The historic lighthouse which inspired novelist Virginia Woolf‘s most famous work could be switched off,” according to a report from The Scotsman. Sam Marsden reports that Woolf’s novel To The Lighthouse “drew on memories of childhood holidays spent in St Ives, Cornwall, and the striking…
“With a nod to God, next month Simon & Schuster will become the first mainstream publisher to launch its own religion imprint for children,” reports Karen Springen in a story for Newsweek. The new “faith-based line” will be called Little Simon Inspirations. Says Robin Corey, publisher of S&S’s “novelty, media and…
A book being written by a former Army seargeant who was an Arabic translator at the United States prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba describes how “Female interrogators tried to break male Muslim detainees. . . by sexually touching them, by wearing miniskirts and thong underwear,…
A book about the late Earth First! activist Judi Bari is creating a firestorm of controversy, including the disruption of bookstore appearances by the author, according to a New York Times report by Dean E. Murphy. The book, The Secret Wars of Judi Bari by Kate Coleman, which was published by…
A Forbes magazine report notes that Merrill Lynch has evaluated stock in Amazon.com as “reasonably valued” at current prices, but that “the absence of near-term margin growth and decelerating 2005 free cash flow growth will limit near-term stock appreciation, in our view.” The research firm did note that…
A new south African Internet bookseller is showing signs of rapid growth, according to a brief report from AllAfrica.com. Michael van Rooyen, the founder of the one-year-old Loot.co.za, says sales doubled in the last quarter, and he is “bullish” about the future. “People are slowly getting to know…
A group of some major writers, including Iain Banks and A.L.Kennedy, have joined in the criticism of the Waterstone’s chain of booksellers for firing an employee who called the company “Bastardstone’s” on his blog. As Brian Donnelly reports in a story for Glascow’s Herald newspaper (and as previously covered on…
“The county election supervisor who devised the infamous ‘butterfly ballot‘ that helped spur the 2000 presidential election meltdown is writing a book about her experiences.” According to an Associated Press wire story, Theresa LePore admits she’s working on a book and that she’s partnering with Marty Rogol, “a…
In what is seen in the UK as a “major coup,” a “multi-million pound lottery grant has secured for Scotland the most important literary archive to become available in the last 100 years,” according to a BBC Newswire story. The Heritage Lotter Fund announced it will…
One of rock’s greatest lyricists, and most versatile stylists, Elvis Costello, has announced he will write “a piece of lyric theatre based on the life of the great fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen” that will premiere at the Royal Danish Opera in October. In a Guardian report by Charlotte…
“With a nod to God, next month Simon & Schuster will become the first mainstream publisher to launch its own religion imprint for children,” reports Karen Springen in a story for Newsweek. The new “faith-based line” will be called Little Simon Inspirations. Says Robin Corey,…
A book being written by a former Army seargeant who was an Arabic translator at the United States prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba describes how “Female interrogators tried to break male Muslim detainees. . . by sexually touching them, by wearing miniskirts and thong…
A book about the late Earth First! activist Judi Bari is creating a firestorm of controversy, including the disruption of bookstore appearances by the author, according to a New York Times report by Dean E. Murphy. The book, The Secret Wars of Judi Bari by…
A Forbes magazine report notes that Merrill Lynch has evaluated stock in Amazon.com as “reasonably valued” at current prices, but that “the absence of near-term margin growth and decelerating 2005 free cash flow growth will limit near-term stock appreciation, in our view.” The research firm…
A new south African Internet bookseller is showing signs of rapid growth, according to a brief report from AllAfrica.com. Michael van Rooyen, the founder of the one-year-old Loot.co.za, says sales doubled in the last quarter, and he is “bullish” about the future. “People are slowly…
A group of some major writers, including Iain Banks and A.L.Kennedy, have joined in the criticism of the Waterstone’s chain of booksellers for firing an employee who called the company “Bastardstone’s” on his blog. As Brian Donnelly reports in a story for Glascow’s Herald newspaper…
“The county election supervisor who devised the infamous ‘butterfly ballot‘ that helped spur the 2000 presidential election meltdown is writing a book about her experiences.” According to an Associated Press wire story, Theresa LePore admits shes working on a book and that she’s partnering with…
In what is seen in the UK as a “major coup,” a “multi-million pound lottery grant has secured for Scotland the most important literary archive to become available in the last 100 years,” according to a BBC News wire story. The Heritage Lotter Fund announced…
One of rock’s greatest lyricists, and most versatile stylists, Elvis Costello, has announced he will write “a piece of lyric theatre based on the life of the great fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen” that will premiere at the Royal Danish Opera in October. In…
Late yesterday The New York Times caught up with the Quill Awards story that had been announced earlier in the day in an unusual early morning report from Publishers Weekly (see yesterday’s MobyLives digest). The Times report by Edward Wyatt, posted on the Times’ website…
There’s no question that the great Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz was a “modernist master,” but the manner of his death has made him a much more complex historic figure: Schulz, a Jew in the Drohobycz ghetto who survived the Nazi occupation until 1942…
January 25 was the birthday of the great Scottish bard Robert Burns. But, as Kristy Scott reports in a Guardian story, Alloway, “the small thatched cottage where Burns was born in 1759,” and the “adjoining museum that houses many of his works, are in crisis.”…
A 12-year-old British schoolboy “has uncovered several mistakes in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica — regarded by readers as an authority on everything,” notes Justin Parkinson in a BBC News wire story. Lucian George, who goes to Highgate Junior School in London, found…
Kinky Friedman, the some-time country singer (“Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed”) and some-time mystery writer (Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned), announced last week that he will run for governor of Texas as an independent against George Bush‘s…
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Moscow State University (better know by its Russian acronym MGU), the school has built a new library, instituted a new line of textbooks, and mounted an ambitious “exhibition detailing the history of MGU at the State Historical Museum. The…
A 66-year-old grandmother who “cooks treats using cannabis” as treatment for her depression and back pain, and who is up on possession charges in an English court, has written a cookbook called Grandma Eats Cannabis. According to a BBC News report, Patricia Tabram “bakes cannabis-laced…
