By Salina Christmas Oxford launches bid for World Book Capital 2014; Nook gets Microsoft’s US$300m backing; US DoJ sues big five publishers and Apple; big three publishers sue e-textbook startup; Kindle authors make money; London Book Fair 2012; Tor says DRM no more. And that’s a week (and more) in book news. We made it … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Vook enters the ebook fray; Amazon dodges UK tax; Nook tells London: shop online in the US; Mag+ design competition; more book covers delight; Spanish books go underground in Arizona; PayPal won’t service ‘obscene’ titles; Unicorn Cookbook and Cooking With Poo. And that’s a week (and more) in book news. Is it … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Google axes ebook affiliates and Android Market, then launches Google Play; Amazon to publishers: ‘Drop ebook prices or else’; Picador redesigns 12 classics; soft sell and hard-ons – web promo the Mills & Boon way. And that’s a Week In Book News. Mills & Boon lunchtime read sizzles “Sweat broke out on … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Using social media such as video virals, Google +, Skype, blogs and also Twitter, educators, authors and publishers around the world have come together to celebrate the World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) on 7 March 2012 in an effort to raise awareness of children literacy. This year, LitWorld, the non-profit organisation which … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes First edition “Les Fleurs du Mal” was sold for over US$5,000 despite glaring typos; indie publishers boycott Amazon; Paolo Coelho pirates his own books; Oklahoma romance writing competition welcomes vampire genre but says no to “same-sex” entries. And that’s a Week in Book News. It’s February, and the world of books is only … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes More condemnation on ebooks by doomsayers; Penguin Classics commissions artist Yayoi Kusama for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; the unstoppable rise of Kindle Fire and iBooks; Vladimir Putin tells Russian kids what books to read. And that’s a Week in Book News. Just like last week, books continue to stir up the publishing world. Book … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes Luddites shake fists at Apple iBook 2; Birds of America sold for US$8m; Rushdie kept out of Jaipur book festival by police; Waterstones’s apostrophe sends a postcard from retirement. And that’s a Week in Book News. It’s only January and there isn’t a dull moment in the book world this week. Antiquarian … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Pornography and its online formats almost killed the erotica fiction genre. Kindle and the ebook, however, resurrected the craft again, says George Pappas, author of “Monogamy Sucks”, published on Kindle in 2010. The romance genre and its sub-categories which include erotica are now driving the adoption of smartphones and tablets for ebook. … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes. Literary research by Salina Christmas. The heart of a global warming sceptic would thaw out at the sight of Simon Harsent‘s award-winning portraiture of the diminishing Arctic icebergs. He speaks to Zarina Holmes about the D&AD 2010 winner, “Melt – Portrait of an iceberg”, and the recent WWF ad campaign which combines … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas REPORT: “Whatever is to become of books?” at London Design Festival 2011. The video presentation by Dr Ernesto Priego of the Comics Grid at our event, “Whatever is to become of books?”, last week was certainly unconventional. It took a while for us to realise that many of the effects used in … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Five Minutes Interview at London Design Festival: “Novels, romances to the fore, have taken the step from codex to ebook without a hitch.” Paul Duguid, author of “The Social Life of Information” and adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, on what’s to become of books. … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes Five Minutes Interview at London Design Festival: “Books are alive and well. The debate has moved on from the death of the book.” Angus Phillips is Director of Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies at Oxford Brookes University. He is also editor-in-chief of publishing journal, Logo, and author of the Future of … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Five Minutes Interview at London Design Festival: “They have a book scanner at home and don’t even realise that”. Juliano Spyer, MSc Digital Anthropology, is one-half of the duo that will be presenting “Homer”, a prototype book scanner made of everyday objects and open source software at the event. Currently, he is … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas “I’d advocate PDF. It’s amazingly flexible and an open standard”. Dr Lane DeNicola, Lecturer in Digital Anthropology at University College London, on his favourite book format. An expert on earth observation technology and geomedia, he also lectures on the Anthropology of Games and Simulation. He’s a mean data scraper and also does … Continue reading »
