The Guardian reports that the British Government has stopped sales of The Terrorist Hunters, a book detailing the fight against Islamic extremism. The book’s author is Britain’s former head of counter-terrorism, and retired Scotland Yard assistant commissioner, Andy Hayman.
Hayman, gives a behind-the-scenes account of the 7 July attacks, the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the fight against terror.
The Telegraph reports that two American students have been commissioned by Penguin to write a compilation called Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less.
The book will be made up of classic novels, abridged in the style of Tweets. (For those not familiar with the lingo, Tweets are short messages sent via the social networking site Twitter.)
At this time, it’s not known what literary masterpieces will be dramitically pared down but the book is expected to be released this autumn.
Alastair Reynolds made a deal that’s out-of-this world. The science fiction author whose latest novel House of Suns was shortlisted for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke prize, has signed a 10-year, 10-book deal with Gollancz. For Reynolds, it’s a £1 million paycheque.
Born in south Wales, Reynolds spent 16 years as an astronomer with the European Space Agency in the Netherlands, also wrote short stories. In 2000, while working as an astrophysicist, he gained literary success with his debut novel, Revelation Space. In 2004, Reynolds switched career paths and took up writing full time.
According to Maxim Jakubowski, a science fiction expert, editor and writer, over the past decade there hasn’t been a deal with a science fiction writer of such sizable proportions. “A ten-book deal is almost unheard of, and is a real expression of faith,” he said. “He’s certainly in the top 10 of UK science fiction writers, if not the top five, and those I’ve read [of his] are absolutely wonderful.”
A First British Edition of Stride Towards Freedom by Martin Luther King. Available for $35.00
Four books written by Martin Luther King Jr. that have been out-of-print for quite some time will be published again reports The Associated Press.
Martin Luther King’s son Dexter says, “Beacon Press will be a dedicated public outlet for his work and will help bring his urgently needed teachings of nonviolence and human dignity, and his dream of freedom and equality to a new global audience.”
The books which are scheduled to be released on what would have been King’s 80th birthday, January 18, 2010 include:
It would appear that JK Rowling is facing not one but two accusations of plagarism.
John Buechler, director of the film Troll claims that Rowling used a script from the film to create her Harry Potter series. Buechler says the film is based on the experiences of a young wizard and wants to prove to Warner Bros that Troll was actually the beginning of Harry Potter.
Secondly, the family of late English writer Adrian Jacobs is suing Rowling and her publisher for £500million. They claim that Harry Potter was copied from Jacobs’ Willy the Wizard. The manuscript for Willy was sent to Bloomsbury Publishing’s literary agent Christopher Little who later represented Rowling, but the book was rejected. The book was published by a smaller company under the name The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard No 1: Livid Land. Jacobs died in 1997, before the success of Harry Potter played out but now his estate which includes his son and grandson, claim that Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire was plagarised.
Now doesn’t this also mean that John Buechler should be suing Jacobs’ estate and vice-versa?!
Bonkbusters aren’t as good as they used to be. I don’t know what to say.
I love this story from Book Expo America about Paul Auster, who discovered that his 1999 novel, Timbuktu, had also been turned into a children’s book by his publisher - yet his publisher had never told him about it.
There’s two possible takes on this 1) Publishers can’t be trusted further than you can throw them 2) Publishers can very, very stupid.
The children’s version has a friendly fluffy dog while the adult version has a rather more threatening canine.
Lucy Mangan, from the Guardian, visits the Puffin archive. AbeBooks has 163,000 Puffin books for sale by the way. My six-year-old and I are reading a Puffin book right now - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis. It’s the 1975 paperback - the edition I read as a child. We’re steadily ploughing through the Narnia books at a rate of knots.
Daddy, what does honour mean?
Daddy, what’s a centaur?
Daddy, what’s an archer?
Daddy, how can I get into Narnia?
Fans of the late David Foster Wallace can take solace that one more work of Wallace’s will come to light. The Guardian reports that the unfinished novel, The Pale King will be released by a UK publisher after a fierce auction that came down to six British publishers.
The book is about the monotonous, humdrum daily lives of IRS employees, and is said to be as good as Foster Wallace’s most famous work, Infinite Jest. Foster Wallace even went to work for the IRS for a time as research.
While detailed structural outlines were recovered along with the partial manuscript, Simon Prosser, the publishing director of Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton (who had the successful bid for the rights) is resolute that the manuscript will be published as is, rather than anyone attempting to ‘finish’ it.
“You’ll get literally 50 pages of a perfect section, then a note to himself saying ‘insert X here’. In a lot of cases, the X exists, but there will be some parts that don’t. The challenge will be to remain as true as possible to what is there,” he said. “Personally I think that if ‘notes to self’ are included, it’ll be fine. We’ll obviously present it as an unfinished novel – he himself thought he hadn’t finished it. What’s so tragic is that he didn’t realise how close he was.”
David Foster Wallace committed suicide in September 2008 after years of struggling with depression.
By David Foster Wallace:
Novels:
The Broom of the System
Infinite Jest
Short stories and collections:
Girl with Curious Hair
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Oblivion
Nonfiction works:
Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race In the Urban Present (with Mark Costello)
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity
Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays
Penguin just posted an awsome covers collage of a number of their science fiction titles ranging from their classic orange covers to some really funky designs. With just a brief scan you can see Penguin’s reach when it comes to publishing: Cat’s Cradle, The War of the Worlds, Clockwork Orange, The Chrysalids, and more..
You can see the whole collage here
Publisher HarperCollins has decided to cancel the publication of J.G. Ballard’s final book. Ballard died from prostate cancer on April 19. The book which was to be titled Conversations was to be a recounting of the author’s conversations with his doctor, Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College, London.
Ballard’s autobiography, Miracles of Life is now officially his last published work.
Nicholas Clee has an interesting article in The New Statesman about how celebrities saved and then killed the British publishing industry.
In the midst of the Argentine economic crisis, those desperate for money began collecting paper and cardboard from municipal waste to sell for recycling. These people are became known as “cartoneros”.
From this crisis, creativity was born. In 2003, Eloisa Cartonera was established, breathing new life into the cartoneros community. Eloisa Cartonera publishes the works of new and classic Latin American writers such Cesar Aira and Alejandro Lopez and purchases cardboard used in the books from the cartoneros. The cartoneros also paint and decorate the books.
The authors help by giving up their copyrights. These donations have made it possible for Eloisa Cartonera to publish 5,000 books a year and to pay the cartoneros five times as much as they’d receive from garbage processors.
Eloisa Cartonera is located in Buenos Aires but the concept has spread throughout Latin America. 
The books are inexpensive (one newspaper article reports that an Italian distributor bought 70 copies for three euros) and offer a promising return for foreign distributors as the books can be marketed outside of the country as a cultural and social project, not to mention unique pieces of art. It seems as if it’s a winning proposition for all involved.
Eloisa Cartonera has a website where you can see some of their work.
Apparently, men don’t read as much as women do and one Guardian blogger says “publishers need to ‘re-masculate’ books if they want to get more men reading“.
Even male author Ian McEwan abandons his gender stating, “when women stop reading, the novel will be dead“.
What gives credence to these observations is the results of a recent UK survey on reading habits. 48% of women surveyed fell into an Avid Reader category compared to only 26% of men. Not to be insulting but 32% of men were classed as “Slow Worms” while only 18% of women were catagorized this way. (Slow Worms are people who read only one or two books a year but do so thoroughly.)
How can publishers attract more male readership? The Guardian blogger suggests one way may be to follow the example of the culinary world with its promotion of male chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.