The Langam Charitable Trust has issued a statement deploring Random House's cancellation of Sherry Jones's novel. They feel so strongly about it, they have decided that "until The Jewel of Medina is actually published, [we] will not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates."
So bang go the prospects of Random House authors for the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Historical Fiction and the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Legal History or Biography.
It seems more than a little unfair that innocent authors should be penalized for what was basically a tactical decision, rather than outright censorship. As Stanley Fish observed in The New York Times, Jones is free to have the book published elsewhere. Considering the amount of free publicity Medina has received, that seems an absolute certainty.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Peter Jackson involved in yet another film project
Brussels' Herge Studios confused the world yesterday by announcing that Peter Jackson would direct the first film in a planned Tintin trilogy for Dreamworks.
A representative for Steven Spielberg said that he still intends to direct the film, and a representative for Jackson agreed. Jackson will be a producer on the first film and intends to direct the second one.
Meantime, he somehow has to complete Lovely Bones (in post-production) and write scripts for the two Hobbit movies. (And mow the lawn in his spare time?)
The first Tintin is based on two books, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, with a screenplay by "Doctor Who" writer Stephen Moffat.
A representative for Steven Spielberg said that he still intends to direct the film, and a representative for Jackson agreed. Jackson will be a producer on the first film and intends to direct the second one.
Meantime, he somehow has to complete Lovely Bones (in post-production) and write scripts for the two Hobbit movies. (And mow the lawn in his spare time?)
The first Tintin is based on two books, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, with a screenplay by "Doctor Who" writer Stephen Moffat.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Biden book rushed into paperback
Random House will have a 100,000-copy first printing of a new paperback edition of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joseph Biden's book Promises To Keep: On Life and Politics arriving in stores by Thursday, August 28. (The hardcover appeared on the NYT bestseller list for one week at No. 15 last August.)
As the publishers describe it, the book "shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life--the obligation to work to make people's lives better, to honor family and faith, to get up and do the right thing no matter how hard you've been knocked down, to be honest and straightforward, and, above all, to keep your promises--are the foundations on which he has based his life's work."
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Recent amazing sales
From auction and elsewhere.
Copy of the Magna Carta, made 1297, signed by King Edward: $21,000,000
Pom.com, domain name: $9,500,000
Letter written by Abraham Lincoln, dated April 5, 1864: $3,400,000
Civil War surrender document, signed by Robert E. Lee: $537,750
American pilot chart book, 1794: $408,250
Two-page meditation on God by Albert Einstein: $405,000
Photographic volume of Michelangelo sculptures: $155,000
The Arctic Regions, by William Bradford, illustrated with 141 albumen prints, 1873: $144,000
First edition of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein: $122,000
Original drawing for Peanuts comic: $113,525
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, signed pre-publication copy, 1952: $96,000
Inquiry into Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith: $90,000
First Marvel comic, 1939: $89,625
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Lafayette: $84,000
Life of Napoleon (4 vv.), by William M. Sloane, 1896: $50,400
Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (first edition): $33,460
The Heart of the Antarctic, by Ernest Shackleton (first edition), 1909: $31,200
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (first edition), 1851: $17,925
Dracula, by Bram Stoker (first edition) 1897: $14,690
Voyage to the Pacific, by Capt. James Cook (first edition) 1784: $14,000
A cornflake shaped like the State of Illinois: $1,350
Copy of the Magna Carta, made 1297, signed by King Edward: $21,000,000
Pom.com, domain name: $9,500,000
Letter written by Abraham Lincoln, dated April 5, 1864: $3,400,000
Civil War surrender document, signed by Robert E. Lee: $537,750
American pilot chart book, 1794: $408,250
Two-page meditation on God by Albert Einstein: $405,000
Photographic volume of Michelangelo sculptures: $155,000
The Arctic Regions, by William Bradford, illustrated with 141 albumen prints, 1873: $144,000
First edition of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein: $122,000
Original drawing for Peanuts comic: $113,525
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, signed pre-publication copy, 1952: $96,000
Inquiry into Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith: $90,000
First Marvel comic, 1939: $89,625
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Lafayette: $84,000
Life of Napoleon (4 vv.), by William M. Sloane, 1896: $50,400
Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (first edition): $33,460
The Heart of the Antarctic, by Ernest Shackleton (first edition), 1909: $31,200
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (first edition), 1851: $17,925
Dracula, by Bram Stoker (first edition) 1897: $14,690
Voyage to the Pacific, by Capt. James Cook (first edition) 1784: $14,000
A cornflake shaped like the State of Illinois: $1,350
Medina to be published in Denmark
Danish publishers association Trykkeselskabet has approved the publication of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel Of Medina in Denmark.
A spokesperson told a Danish newspaper, "Fear or threats should not keep a book from being published. It would be principally and entirely a renewal of all that Denmark has already been through with the Mohammed cartoon affair."
Jones's agent Natasha Kern wrote to the society, "When you consider what's happened in your country, I admire your readiness to ensure that freedom of expression is not obstructed."
A spokesperson told a Danish newspaper, "Fear or threats should not keep a book from being published. It would be principally and entirely a renewal of all that Denmark has already been through with the Mohammed cartoon affair."
Jones's agent Natasha Kern wrote to the society, "When you consider what's happened in your country, I admire your readiness to ensure that freedom of expression is not obstructed."
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Leaders seeking readers
Mark Lawson meditates in The Guardian that with candidates posting videos on YouTube and Barack Obama pledging to tell supporters his vice-presidential choice by text, Campaign 2008 has been a new-tech election. But one piece of old technology has proved an unexpectedly powerful player: the book.
Obama is the first candidate to have had two bestselling books - not manifestos, but memoirs, which he seems to have written himself - before even gaining the nomination. Unfortunately, the phenomenon has proved to have a nasty aftermath. Currently the top non-fiction slot he held is filled by Obama Nation, a title that is meant to be spat out fast, sounding like"Abomination".
In Britain, the busy schedule of a prime minister has not prevented Gordon Brown from a rate of publication that would have impressed Agatha Christie - Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Bravery in World War II, due in the autumn, is his third book in little over a year, a successor to Courage: Eight Portraits, and Britain's Everyday Heroes.
As Lawson pithily comments, the fact that Brown has chosen to publish an entire trilogy about guts and courage is typical of this new brand of political literature. John F Kennedy's Portraits in Courage - calculated to establish cold warrior credentials before the 1960 race - remains the model for leaders in search of readers, even though it is now established that JFK did not actually set pen to paper.
McCain has just put out his own effort to entice Soldier of Fortune-reading voters -- Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People: Heroes Who Made Tough Decisions.
Grubby as the ploy might be, it is curiously touching that aspirants to power should wish to garnish their campaigns with nothing less than a good oldfashioned book.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/politics.gordonbrown
Obama is the first candidate to have had two bestselling books - not manifestos, but memoirs, which he seems to have written himself - before even gaining the nomination. Unfortunately, the phenomenon has proved to have a nasty aftermath. Currently the top non-fiction slot he held is filled by Obama Nation, a title that is meant to be spat out fast, sounding like"Abomination".
In Britain, the busy schedule of a prime minister has not prevented Gordon Brown from a rate of publication that would have impressed Agatha Christie - Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Bravery in World War II, due in the autumn, is his third book in little over a year, a successor to Courage: Eight Portraits, and Britain's Everyday Heroes.
As Lawson pithily comments, the fact that Brown has chosen to publish an entire trilogy about guts and courage is typical of this new brand of political literature. John F Kennedy's Portraits in Courage - calculated to establish cold warrior credentials before the 1960 race - remains the model for leaders in search of readers, even though it is now established that JFK did not actually set pen to paper.
McCain has just put out his own effort to entice Soldier of Fortune-reading voters -- Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People: Heroes Who Made Tough Decisions.
Grubby as the ploy might be, it is curiously touching that aspirants to power should wish to garnish their campaigns with nothing less than a good oldfashioned book.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/politics.gordonbrown
Friday, August 22, 2008
It was a dark and stormy night
Writing in The Guardian, Alison Flood reports that the great-great-great grandson of the much-maligned author Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton is to take part in a debate to defend his ancestor's writing.
The Honourable Henry Lytton Cobbold, of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, is travelling to Bulwer-Lytton's namesake, the town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, to take on the founder of the International Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, Professor Scott Rice, in a public debate on August 30.
Bulwer-Lytton has been ridiculed by the contest since 1982, when Rice came up with the idea for a competition to compose the opening sentence to the worst possible novel, inspired by Bulwer-Lytton's notorious "It was a dark and stormy night".
"I come to bury Lytton, not to praise him," said Rice. "The evil that men do lives after them, in Lytton's case in 27 novels whose perfervid turgidity I intend to expose, denude, and generally make visible."
"I'm off to defend his honour," Lytton Cobbold said. "Bulwer-Lytton was a remarkable man and it's rather unfair that Professor Rice decided to name the competition after him for entirely the wrong reasons. He was a great champion of the arts."
It won't be a "dark and stormy night." The debate is at 3 PM.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/19/2
(I had to look up "perfervid." It is a real word. Apparently it means "very fervid.")
The Honourable Henry Lytton Cobbold, of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, is travelling to Bulwer-Lytton's namesake, the town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, to take on the founder of the International Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, Professor Scott Rice, in a public debate on August 30.
Bulwer-Lytton has been ridiculed by the contest since 1982, when Rice came up with the idea for a competition to compose the opening sentence to the worst possible novel, inspired by Bulwer-Lytton's notorious "It was a dark and stormy night".
"I come to bury Lytton, not to praise him," said Rice. "The evil that men do lives after them, in Lytton's case in 27 novels whose perfervid turgidity I intend to expose, denude, and generally make visible."
"I'm off to defend his honour," Lytton Cobbold said. "Bulwer-Lytton was a remarkable man and it's rather unfair that Professor Rice decided to name the competition after him for entirely the wrong reasons. He was a great champion of the arts."
It won't be a "dark and stormy night." The debate is at 3 PM.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/19/2
(I had to look up "perfervid." It is a real word. Apparently it means "very fervid.")
Are you moral enough to write books for young adults?
Apparently, Random House UK includes a morality clause in contracts with children's book authors. Guardian blogger Sian Pettenden drew attention to the insertion, which caused an alert to be distributed by a UK-based support group for writers and illustrators.
The clause reads:
"If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished ... we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement."
There is no evidence that any other branch of Random House is demanding that their children's authors should have a pure and unsullied reputation. As an unnamed New York agent observed, "there's a lot of strange language that goes into UK contracts that has little bearing on the American market."
http://www.mediabistro.com:80/galleycat/publishing/are_you_pure_enough_to_write_ya_92241.asp
The clause reads:
"If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished ... we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement."
There is no evidence that any other branch of Random House is demanding that their children's authors should have a pure and unsullied reputation. As an unnamed New York agent observed, "there's a lot of strange language that goes into UK contracts that has little bearing on the American market."
http://www.mediabistro.com:80/galleycat/publishing/are_you_pure_enough_to_write_ya_92241.asp
Book sales fall in the US
Barnes & Noble report falling sales, with actual bookstores the hardest hit.
Even with the success of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, David Wroblewski's Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, the lack of a mega-seller on the scale of Harry Potter took a toll on Barnes & Noble's second quarter earnings.
Total sales for Barnes & Noble declined 2% to $1.22 billion, with bookstores suffering the most, their sales falling by 4.7%. Predictions for the full year were correspondingly pessimistic. The company will open 30 to 35 stores this year, but said that this is unlikely to keep on happening. Not only are sales falling, but developers are cancelling the construction of new malls.
Even with the success of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, David Wroblewski's Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, the lack of a mega-seller on the scale of Harry Potter took a toll on Barnes & Noble's second quarter earnings.
Total sales for Barnes & Noble declined 2% to $1.22 billion, with bookstores suffering the most, their sales falling by 4.7%. Predictions for the full year were correspondingly pessimistic. The company will open 30 to 35 stores this year, but said that this is unlikely to keep on happening. Not only are sales falling, but developers are cancelling the construction of new malls.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA
Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists, compiled by Veronika Meduna & Rebecca Priestley. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2008. ISBN 978-1-86941-954-7
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of sighting an advance copy of this book at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, as Rebecca was carrying it under her arm. Now I have the even greater privilege of owning a copy.
The work was first devised as an accompaniment to an exhibition, Butterflies, Boffins, & Black Smokers: two centuries of science in New Zealand, which was staged at the National Library in September 2006. This original framework has been greatly augmented, with 30 more biographical profiles. There is also a timely emphasis on nuclear and earth sciences, Antarctic science, genetics and medicine, impelled by the personal enthusiasms of the two women who co-curated the exhibit, and who worked together to compile the book.
Ranging from the first European explorers to today's top young scientists, Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA conveys solid basic information as well as intriguing details of academic quibbles and personal foibles -- a favorite of mine is the fellow who wore pink woolen longjohns on field trips. Predictably, there are many more men than women, but it is laudable that all the women are interesting and worthy, and not just added to the collection in an attempt at gender balance.
Beautifully illustrated and handsomely produced, the book is a credit to the compilers, the editors, the designers, the publishers, and the contributors. Rebecca tells me that it is aimed at a young adult audience. It certainly should find a place in all school libraries, but it deserves a prominent place on home bookshelves, too.
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