Book Trade and Publishing
Why the Penguin Random House Merger Is Also About Amazon
Amazon isn’t on trial in a big books lawsuit. But its power is. The U.S. government is suing to stop the book publisher Penguin Random House from buying a competitor, Simon & Schuster. The government says that the merger, which will shrink the number of large American publishers of mass-market books from five to four, […]
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Dana Canedy, Publisher of Simon & Schuster’s Flagship Imprint, Has Left the Job
Ms. Canedy and Jonathan Karp, Simon & Schuster’s chief executive, stood by the acquisition of Mr. Pence’s book as a crucial account of the Trump presidency, and maintained that publishers should acquire books from across the political spectrum. Ms. Canedy said she would continue to work on titles by Mr. Pence, Mr. Robinson and Ms. […]
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The Upside of a Lockdown
This article is part of our latest Design special report, about new creative pathways shaped by the pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted many lives. But for some people, the disruption has been positive, offering the opportunity to take their skills in a new direction. For the New York architect and designer Marc Thorpe, this […]
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This Spanish Village Has More Booksellers Than School Pupils
URUEÑA, Spain — Standing on a hilltop in northwestern Spain, Urueña overlooks a vast and windswept landscape of sunflower and barley fields, as well as a famous winery. The walls of some shops are built directly into the 12th-century ramparts of the village. Despite its rugged beauty, Urueña, like many villages in the Spanish countryside, […]
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Oh, Brother: The Not-Quite-Tell-All Books by Presidential Sisters
In her 1921 biography about her brother Theodore Roosevelt, Corrine Roosevelt Robinson saw no harm in sharing “almost confidential personal recollections” about the late president. “There is no sacrilege in sharing such memories, with the people who have loved him, and whom he loved so well,” she wrote. If I published “almost confidential personal recollections” […]
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She Took the White House Photos. Trump Moved to Take the Profit.
WASHINGTON — As President Donald J. Trump’s tenure came to an end, the chief White House photographer, who had traveled the world with him and spent countless hours inside the White House snapping pictures, notified Mr. Trump’s aides that she intended to publish a book collecting some of her most memorable images. This was hardly […]
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Do Russian Oligarchs Have a Secret Weapon in London’s Libel Lawyers?
The government attempted to rebalance the scales with the passage of the Defamation Act of 2013. It required plaintiffs to show a connection to the country in order to file in it, and stipulated that plaintiffs demonstrate they suffered “serious harm.” If this was supposed to embolden the media, it did not work, said Andrew […]
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Black Authors Shake Up Brazil’s Literary Scene
RIO DE JANEIRO — Itamar Vieira Júnior, whose day job working for the Brazilian government on land reform took him deep into the impoverished countryside, knew next to nothing about the mainstream publishing industry when he put the final touches on a novel he had been writing on and off for decades. On a whim, […]
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Reveling in the Joys of Books, and Reading, at a Baghdad Book Fair
BAGHDAD — Protesters in Baghdad hold a sit-in demanding that U.S. troops leave Iraq. Counterterrorism troops patrol streets. A federal court ponders whether to certify results of parliamentary elections two months ago. But at the Baghdad International Fair grounds, almost no one cares about all that. Inside is the Baghdad International Book Fair. It’s not […]
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