Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:
Bloomsday, the annual celebration of "the raunchy, transcendent Dublin day recounted in James Joyce's Ulysses," is nearly upon us—June 16—and New York City has planned a host of festivities to mark the occasion. Stephen Colbert will play Odysseus in a staged reading of scenes from the novel for Bloomsday on Broadway, while "the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of the City of Brooklyn, a social club, is marking its one hundred fiftieth anniversary by organizing one of Brooklyn’s first large-scale Bloomsday-inspired events." (New York Times [2]) Check out all the details at Bloomsdaynyc.com [3].
Amazon [4] will soon launch a Kindle app for Android phones.
The Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest [5] takes place in the windy city this weekend with panel discussions, readings, author signings, and events for kids.
Bucknell University [6]'s bookstore is moving to a new downtown location in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, next week.
Apparently it's going to be a long summer: The Los Angeles Times [7] book editors have selected a summer reading list of sixty forthcoming titles.
IREX, a Dutch electronics firm, filed for bankruptcy "in what looks to be an early casualty of the e-reading device wars." IREX had agreements to sell its e-reader through Barnes & Noble, but unfortunately "the device faced several delays in reaching the market and missed the 2009 Christmas shopping season." (Publishers Weekly [8])
Forbes [9] posits five things the book publishing industry should learn from "the media that survived the first wave of the distribution revolution: movies and music."
The author of the popular Artemis Fowl children's series, Eoin Colfer, will publish his first book for adults next year, a noir crime-thriller titled Plugged. (Bookseller [10])
The World Cup kicks off today in South Africa and Flavorwire [11] has compiled "the ultimate World Cup reading list" in honor of the occasion. The Guardian [12] asked legendary sports writer Mihir Bose to compile a list of the top ten football (er, soccer) books.