There’s a quality to this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, in these perilous times, that leaves one speechless. But that makes for a very short column. The final accounting–and it is all about accounting these days–won’t come for a while. So the best handle on the show I found is stolen from a prominent journalist at last night’s still-packed Bertelsmann party (though we were assured the guest list had been trimmed by about 300 people): “So book publishing fiddles while Rome burns?” With no one knowing just how bad the wreckage of the financial crisis will be when all is said […]
Archives for October 2008
Update on Efforts to Unlock Borders UK's Financing
The Independent says “Borders UK is still trying to extricate itself from the fall out from the troubles of Landsbanki, the nationalized Icelandic bank” after “last Friday, a number of companies, particularly retailers, found they could not withdraw money from their Landsbanki accounts.” Chairman of the private equity firm that owns the bookseller Luke Johnson says that “We are never more than £3m to £4m drawn on our [continuing] credit facility” but “declined to comment on the other questions put to him.” Additionally, “Euler Hermes is understood to have scaled back its insurance cover for Borders UK in the summer, […]
Another Nobel Tie-In
Norton will have a “greatly expanded and revised edition” of recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics Paul Krugman’s 1999 book THE RETURN OF DEPRESSION ECONOMICS AND THE CRISIS OF 2008 ready to publish in early December 2008. The original book looked at economic crises in Asia and Latin America, but the new edition “will show how depression economics has come to America” and indicate “the steps that must be taken to contain the crisis and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession.” A paperback version of his most recent book, The Conscience of a Liberal, […]
Moneyball Movies Takes Shape
Screenwriter Steve Zaillian is taking a new crack at adapting Michael Lewis’s bestselling MONEYBALL for Columbia pictures, with David Frankel directing, as a starring vehicle for Brad Pitt. Michael De Luca and Rachael Horovitz are producing. Sony optioned the book in 2004 and already commission one screenplay from Stan Chervin, Variety reports.
UK Looks for Books Worth Talking About
In advance of next March’s World Book Day, the organizers have posted a list of 50 UK books and invited readers to vote for “the best book to talk about.” A top ten will be culled in January, the winner receives both promotion and a cash prize.Telegraph item
People, and More
At Random House Canada, Lisa Charters has been promoted to svp, director, digital, continuing to report to president Brad Martin. The company’s BookLounge.ca, a site for “avid readers,” is said to have over 10,000 members. Charters is “also now leading our efforts to get our books into Ebook format and focusing on the increasing sales opportunities for digital downloadable ebooks and audiobooks.” Also electronically, Random House UK is developing a site called AuthorsPlace that gives the house’s authors a toolkit to create pages online with a variety of standardize content elements. At the site, the company says: “We’ve invited our […]