Archives for February 2023
Puffin UK Defends Changes to Dahl Books
Puffin UK made a statement to The Bookseller defending the changes they implemented to Roald Dahl’s children’s books that caused an uproar online over the weekend. Changes include referring to Augustus Gloop as “enormous” rather than “fat” and cutting the word “ugly” from a description of a character in The Twits. They said, “Over the course of the last year Puffin has published updated editions of 16 of Roald Dahl’s books, in close partnership with the Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC) as the custodian of his legacy. These included a relatively small number of textual edits, as well as routine […]
Forthcoming: Blackstone Publishing Acquires Crichton’s “John Lange” Books
Blackstone Publishing has acquired eight books Michael Crichton wrote under the pseudonym John Lange in a reported seven-figure world rights deal with CrichtonSun. Crichton wrote the John Lange books when he was at Harvard Medical School in the late 1960s and early 70s, before he was a bestselling author. They are about “secret treasures, heists, archaeology, unlikely heroes, seductive and at times treacherous lovers, classic villains, and much more,” and many of them are stand alone novels. Crichton’s widow and ceo of CrichtonSun Sherri Crichton said, “In these eight early adventure books, Michael was honing his skills and themes that […]
Bookselling: McNally Jackson Opens In Rockefeller Center
McNally Jackson opened a new location, its fifth, in Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. They wrote on Twitter, “This store is our effort to resurrect the lost tradition of grand, midtown bookstores. Please come see it, and tell us what you think.” The 7,000-square-foot store is located at 1 Rockefeller Plaza.
Reliving The Trial
Three months after Penguin Random House’s effort to acquire Simon & Schuster was terminated, Christian Lorentzen summarizes the August antitrust trial in a cover piece for Harper’s. Spoiler alert: PRH loses. About the most quotable graph: “The view put forth by the government was that the publishing industry was a market like any other, that its practices were routinized, that its players followed rules, and that its dynamics could be predicted by the scientific methods of economists. The defense presented it as a casino full of hippies gambling unlimited piles of money generously provided to them by multinational corporations happy […]