As expected, Borders UK collapsed over the holiday, although it turned out to be something even more definitive than mere bankruptcy (“administration,” as the Brits put it). While a Bookseller report notes that many publishers had braced themselves and managed to keep their exposure “minimised,”…
State media in China says the Chinese government believes Google has “breached copyright laws by scanning Chinese books for its online library” and is encouraging writers to “defend their rights,” according to a report in The Independent. The director-general of China’s National Copyright Administration, Wang…
It all started when the new proprietor of a jewelry shop in Hastings, England, was cleaning out the basement and found a box of books. Opening up “an early copy of an 18th century novel” by Tobias Smollet, out fell an old document which, unfolded,…
“A former member of the Romanian secret police has launched a blistering attack on the Nobel prize winning writer Herta Müller,” says a Guardian report by Kate Connolly. According to the report, in the latest round of attacks in her homeland on Müller’s reputation since…
It’s a British legal case wherein an employee is saying harassment from her boss grew so deranged that he hired a hit man to kill her … and it was all triggered by an email quoting first century BC Roman poet Catullus, in Latin, in…
Today was the birthday, in 1835, of the great American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain. In honor of which, we bring to you this amazing bit of history: film footage shot in 1909 by Thomas Edison of Clemens at home at his estate…
MobyLives is off being grateful and reading — simultaneously no less. We’ll be back next Monday. Things you may want to consider doing in the interim: 1. Reading. 2. Supporting your local bookstore, be it large, small, or indifferent. 3. Supporting your local publisher —…
While Borders UK didn’t go into bankruptcy yesterday as expected (but is about to, according to article after article), we here in the US are heading into what is supposed to be the year’s busiest few days of retail — first is Black Friday (brick…
A few years ago, when Michael Wolff was still writing for New York magazine, he wrote a fun column taking the book business to task: “I mean, books suck. Most books are dopier than television or movies or even advertising (many books tend to be…
It’s been eight years since Jonathan Franzen showed an astonishing ability to say increasingly stupid and insulting things about Oprah Winfrey and her audience day after day after day for months, from saying he didn’t want her “corporate logo” on his book (the one of…
Sarah Palin makes me want to do good. At least, as a reaction to the fact that her existence and “popularity” make me fear for the future of our country. Apparently many other people (phew!) feel the same way. If there is one upside to…
It’s one of the most famous lines from twentieth-century poetry: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do.” The poem — “This Be the Verse,” by Philip Larkin – actually goes on to be pretty deeply…
From the relentless follow-up department: Regarding the story we ran yesterday about the auctioning of a first edition Origin of the Species that someone found in their bathroom: the book sold for far more than predicted by the auctioneer. According to a Reuters wire story,…
Did Vladimir Nobokov invent the emoticon? MobyLives recently stumbled upon this exchange from a 1969 interview with the New York Times (and included in the collection Strong Opinions) in which the great author says: How do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the…
It looks like the wheels are coming off of Borders UK, and the company could be in bankruptcy by the time you read this. As The Times of London reported in this story yesterday: STRUGGLING book chain Borders UK is on the verge of collapse…
In France, you can’t pay a dead writer a higher honor than by placing his body in the fabled Pantheon, alongside what’s left of Voltaire, Dumas, Hugo, Rousseau, Zola, and Madame Curie. Nonetheless, President Nicolas Sarkozy‘s recent announcement that he wants to have the remains…
Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin‘s game-changing book, On the Origin of Species. It was first published on Nov. 24, 1859 in a run of 1,250 copies. And, according to a brief wire story from the Associated Press, some lucky…
Over at the New York Times‘ Paper Cuts blog, their “Stray Questions” segment features none other than… Roberto Bolaño. Excerpted from our new collection of interviews with Bolaño — Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview & Other Conversations — the questions show Bolaño’s more casual, and…
Oh, the joys of comparing the book business to the music business: “Digital pirates, who for years have tormented the music and film industries, have found a new source of plunder in e-book publishing,” says Mike Harvey in a Times of London story. It’s the…
A copy of Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There that was owned by the woman who, as a little girl, inspired it — yep, the original Alice in Wonderland — is going on the auction block next month, according to a Reuters…
Reasons to not blog about something: 1. Everyone else is writing about it and we have nothing to add; 2. we don’t think it matters as much as everyone else does; 3. the main source is a New York Times article, where the book biz…
Charging less than half the suggested retail price of books isn’t predatory pricing, says the CEO of Walmart, because the company has already “been the price leader in books for months before that program [the decision to sell bestsllers for $9 no matter the list…
People need to “get over the misconception” that digital publishing is more environmentally friendly than traditional print publishing, says British publisher and author Karen Christensen. Christensen, CEO of Berkshire Publishing and co-editor of the forthcoming title The Business of Sustainability volume 2, tells The Bookseller…
The Guardian rather boldly offer up selections from this year’s finalists for the Bad Sex in Fiction Prize, such as this from Jonathan Littel‘s The Kindly Ones: I whispered to her: ‘I’m going to pull the lever, I’m going to let the blade drop.’ She…
Last week’s New York magazine cover story, “Brooklyn’s Sonic Boom: How New York became America’s music capital again” was accompanied by the “Brooklyn Top 40: A highly subjective ranking of the songs that define the sound of right now,” by Lizzy Goodman. Brooklyn duo Das…
Amongst booksellers in America, not a few are refusing to sell the new memoir by the ol’ book-banner herself, Sarah Palin (see the survey at Shelf Awareness). Amongst others, such as the folks at Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California, the attitude is “We…
Less than a week after it presented a “revised” version of the Google Book Search deal with the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild to considerable criticism in the US (see the earlier MobyLives report), Google has gotten a a “hostile reception” from…
And speaking of that deal whereby Google privatizes the American (and English, and Australian, and Canadian) public library system, steals copyrights from authors and publishers, and decrees that it owns (and can charge you for) anything ever written in English that somebody doesn’t step forward…
Well, the National Book Awards were last night, and it seemed like everyone went home pretty happy. Gawker has a great wrap-up (complete with pictures!) if you want to know how the after party was. I, unfortunately, had other social obligations (Gin Mingle!), although looks…
Here’s former National Book Critics Circle board member David Kipen, current director of literature for the NEA and author of the The Schreiber Theory, at the recent 35th anniversary celebration of the NBCC, with a two sentence celebration of the future of the group.
