Random House Pledges To Use More Recycled Paper
Random House recently announced that it will raise the amount of recycled paper it uses to print its books from 3 percent to 30 percent over the next four years.
Daily News from Poets & Writers
$25,000 Bellwether Prize Goes to Hillary Jordan
Best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver recently announced that Hillary Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction for her unpublished novel “Mudbound.”
Mailer, Miller, and Roth Make Playboy's Sexiest Novels List
Playboy recently named the twenty-five sexiest novels ever written. The list of works “famous for being dirty books for decades” includes Norman Mailer’s An American Dream (Dial Press, 1965).
Beloved Named Best Work of American Fiction From the Last Twenty-five Years
Toni Morrison’s Beloved (Knopf, 1987) was recently named “the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years,” according to a survey of several hundred writers, critics, and editors conducted by New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus.
New Study Shows Decline in U.S. Book Production
Book production in the U.S. last year totaled 172,000 titles, a decrease from 2004 of 18,000 titles, or nearly ten percent, according to a recent study by R. R. Bowker, the publisher of the Books in Print database and the official agency for assigning ISBNs in the United States.
Literary Blog Cooperative Recommends Fourth Title in the Read This! Program
The Litblog Co-op, an online cooperative of twenty-one literary blogs created in 2005 to promote books of contemporary fiction, recently chose Television (Dalkey Archive Press, 2004), a novel by French writer Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated by Jordan Stump, as the Spring 2006 selection for its Read This! program.
Who Says Poets Aren't Rock Stars? Prizewinner to Appear on Music Channel
Turn up the music, put down the air guitar, and start writing some poetry about rock and roll. That seems to be the message that the sponsors of a new poetry prize are trying to relay.
Fight Club, Lolita, and 1984 Among Top Film Adaptations
The Guardian, the British newspaper founded in 1821, recently compiled a list of the top fifty film adaptations of books.
Fifteen Authors in the Running for Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
The finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were recently announced. Given for books published in the previous year, the annual prizes are worth $1,000 each.
Writer Malachy Mccourt to Run for New York Governor
Malachy McCourt, the creative nonfiction writer, actor, and brother of Angela’s Ashes author Frank McCourt, recently announced that he is seeking the Green Party nomination to run for governor of New York.
Bidart, Auster, and Moore Inducted Into American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters recently inducted poet Frank Bidart and fiction writers Paul Auster and Lorrie Moore into the 250-member organization.
Annual Tournament of Books Offers Different Kind of Literary Competition
The NCAA college basketball tournament recently ended, but the second annual Tournament of Books—a literary showdown between sixteen novels sponsored by the Morning News and Powells.com—is still going strong.
Tower Records Opens Online Bookstore
Readers who prefer to buy books from the big online stores—Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble—now have another option.
French Conglomerate Announces New Name for Time Warner Book Group
Lagardère SCA, the French conglomerate that in February purchased the Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner, Inc. for $537.5 million, recently announced that the U.S. book division’s new name is Hachette Book Group USA.
Winners of the Kiriyama Prize Announced
Luis Alberto Urrea and Piers Vitebsky were recently named winners of the 2006 Kiriyama Prize. Urrea won in fiction for his novel The Hummingbird’s Daughter (Little, Brown) and Vitebsky won in creative nonfiction for his book The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia (Houghton Mifflin). The winners split the $30,000 award.
New York City Designates April 7 as John Ashbery Day
Led by council speaker Christine Quinn, members of the New York City Council recently honored poet John Ashbery for his “literary and cultural contributions” by designating April 7 as “John Ashbery Day” in the city.
VQR and McSweeney's Among Finalists for Coveted National Magazine Awards
The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) recently announced the
finalists for the 2006 National Magazine Awards, which honor both print
and online magazines for "superior execution of stated editorial
objectives, innovative editorial techniques, noteworthy journalistic
enterprise, and imagination and vigor in layout and design."
Los Angeles Named Best City For Artists
Last month Businessweek, the Web site of the weekly business magazine, published a list of the ten best cities in the United States for artists, including creative writers. Los Angeles topped the list, followed by Santa Fe, New Mexico; Carson City, Nevada; New York City; Kingston, New York; Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, and Ventura, California; Nashville; Boulder, Colorado; San Francisco; and Nassau and Suffolk Counties in New York.
Harper Lee Among Writers Inducted Into American Academy of Arts and Letters
Fiction writers Deborah Eisenberg, Mary Gordon, Allan Gurganus, Jim Harrison, Harper Lee, and Annie Proulx were recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The 250-member organization was founded in 1898 to "foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts."
Grolier, Oldest Continuously Run Poetry Bookstore in the U.S., Sold
The Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the oldest continuously run poetry bookstore in the United States, was recently sold by owner Louisa Solano.
They Can't Go On, They'll Go On: Events Mark the Centennial of Samuel Beckett's Birth
During the next several months, a number of festivals, exhibitions, and publications will mark the centennial of Samuel Beckett’s birth. Beckett, the poet, novelist, and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, was born in Dublin on April 13, 1906.
Chernow Succeeds Rushdie as President of PEN American Center
The PEN American Center recently named biographer Ron Chernow as its
new president. He succeeds novelist Salman Rushdie, who served a
two-year term. Chernow, who joined PEN in 1990, won the National Book
Award for his biography of J.P. Morgan, The House of Morgan (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990). His biographies Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (Random House, 1998) and Alexander Hamilton (Penguin, 2004) were both nominees for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Kosotova's The Historian Named Book Sense Book of the Year
The Historian (Little, Brown) by Elizabeth Kostova was recently
named a Book Sense Book of the Year in the adult fiction category. The
annual award, sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, is
given for the book that independent bookstore owners and their staff
most enjoyed selling in the previous year. The award is also given in
the categories of adult nonfiction, children’s literature, and
children’s illustrated.
Margaret Atwood Unveils Mechanical Device for Long-distance Book Signings
At this year’s London Book Fair, which was held in early March, novelist Margaret Atwood introduced the LongPen, a device she designed that allows authors to sign books for readers who are hundreds or even thousands of miles away.