With the Olympic Games well underway in Beijing, the NYT’s Charles McGrath checks in with China’s publishing industry and finds the summer blues are affecting them as well. “Publishing is always a little slow in the summer,” remarks Jo Lusby, the manager of Penguin China. “But there’s also a feeling that right now nobody is paying any attention to books. Some publishing people have just left town.” The Olympics also affected the timing and scheduling of the annual Beijing Book Fair, pushed back to September and moved to Tianjin, an hour away – resulting in “a lot less interest” in […]
International News
Fewer Novels for France
The French publishing industry still releases the bulk of their fiction lists between mid-August and the end of October (“la rentrée littéraire”) but this year’s crop of 676 novels will be 7 percent smaller than last year’s batch of 727 titles, according to magazine Livres Hebdos. Part of it, however, is that “French publishers looking to spread their publishing output throughout the year.” The magazine’s Vincy Thomas says: “These books are fairly dark, very depressing – a bit like France. There is a ‘grande malaise’, a sort of depression, in France at the moment. This is not a joyful country; […]
Europe Develops e-Readers
Germany’s Spiegel reports that Deutsche Telecom is developing its own e-reading device to compete with the likes of Kindle and the Sony Reader (neither is currently sold in Germany). One engineer says their device is likely to be larger and have a flexible display. France Telecom’s Orange also has an electronic reading device in development.Story translated/summarized in Bookseller
New Random UK Imprint
Random House UK’s CHA division will start Windmill Books, a literary paperback line drawing from the Heinemann and Hutchinson hardcover programs. Like the Arrow paperback line, the new imprint will be under publishing director Kate Elton, and aims to issue about 20 titles a year, comprising both nonfiction and fiction. Authors already published through CHA’s Vintage and Arrow will stay with their existing imprint. But CHA managing director Susan Sandon calls the new line “a key plank in CHA’s growth strategy.”B2B
Rushdie Threat Buys a Week
We scoffed, but UK publisher John Blake is postponing publication of ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE until August 11 so that Salman Rushdie can read the book. Founder John Blake tells the Bookseller, “We are hoping when he reads it, and sees that it’s fair, he will withdraw his objections. When he reads the whole thing, I’m sure he’ll feel it’s a great book . . . he’ll probably have a chuckle.” We’ll take that bet.Bookseller
Rushdie Takes the Bait; Threatens to Sue
File it under smart people who do dumb things. Instead of ignoring, or laughing off, the book ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE by Ron Evans, who guarded Rushdie when he was in hiding, the knighted author is threatening to sue–which doesn’t really invalidate the book’s assertions. Rushdie tells the Guardian, “He is portraying me as mean, nasty, tight-fisted, arrogant and extremely unpleasant. In my humble opinion I am none of those things.” He gives them paragraphs of quotes and denials, culminating in this: “This is not a free speech issue, this is libel – there is a difference between those two […]