While blog posts and press releases around the world have been full of carping about the proposed settlement of two lawsuits against Google related to their Book Search library project, the judge in the matter had a much simpler response: tentative approval. Judge John Sprizzo’s order was made public yesterday, and he set a June 11 date for a fairness hearing to “decide if the deal is fair, reasonable and adequate.” AP
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Graywolf's Success
St. Paul’s City Pages has an extensive profile of the rise of Graywolf Press, led by their successful publishing of Norwegian novelist Per Petterson, “until recently, little more than an obscure, aging novelist with a tragic past.” Director and publisher Fiona McCrae says of his Out Stealing Horses, “It seems like a quiet book, until you realize it’s stolen your heart and your mind. We really liked it, but we didn’t think it was going to be a big, big book. We’re not that bright.” But they are bright enough, and passionate enough, to have put together a run of […]
How Badly Does Reed Need RBI Sale?
The longer the auction for the Reed Business Information goes on, the more the reported price drops, as the economy continues to slide. The latest rumor in the British media has the offering prices heading below 1 billion pounds, against an initial valuation of at least 1.25 billion pounds. The three bidders left are Bain Capital, TPG and Strauss Zelnick. One person involved in the deal tells the FT, “Reed Elsevier won’t sell at any price but buyers can’t ignore what they are hearing and seeing in the marketplace.” Plus, “Just how much below £1bn remains to be seen.” But […]
Shorts: Follow the Money to Abu Dhabi, Sherry Jones's Next Book; Judge Rejects MISHA Publisher
Abu Dhabi’s long-planned “media zone” has enlisted participation from HarperCollins and Random House, along with the BBC, Financial Times and Thomson Reuters Foundation. The NYT notes, “the campus is intended to be an incubator that will mix Western media companies with billions in Middle Eastern oil money.” Harper “is establishing a presence in Abu Dhabi to capitalize on what the company says is growth in the sale of English-language books in the Middle East.” Spokesperson Eric Crum says they want to “explore the potential of the area and forge relationships.” The press release says that Random House “will be creating […]
Shorts: Trib Review Moves Again; The Stoker Sequel; Faber Moves and More
– The Chicago Tribune’s book review section has suffered another diminishment. After moving from Sunday to Saturday last year, the standalone section has been merged into a run of “books & media” pages that the appear in the Saturday entertainment section of the paper.E&P – With big deals in the US, UK and Canada, the Guardian looks at the making of Dacre Stoker’s sequel DRACULA: The Un-Dead, written with Ian Holt. The book “draws on excised characters, existing character back-stories and plot threads that were cut from Stoker’s original novel, first published 111 years ago.” It was Holt who persuaded […]
Atlas Faces Money Woes
The Observer reports that Atlas & Co. is postponing the publication of their spring 2009 list due to financial problems, and hopes to publish those titles in the fall instead. Founder Jim Atlas says “our chances look good–it’s a postponement, not a cancellation.” The company is issuing this fall’s titles as planned.Observer