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News stories from the book world in January 2004

2004

Bad Sex Award

20 December 2004

To the amusement of literary scene watchers (but not presumably of the author, who was the first winner in the award's 12 years to decline the invitation to the ceremony) Tom Wolfe was awarded this year's Bad Sex Award for a passage from I Am Charlotte Simmons.  Read more

Christmas jitters

13 December 2004

The all-important festive season is not currently delivering what booksellers were hoping to get for Christmas. The general trend on Britain’s high street is down, affected by a stalled housing market, high petrol prices, rising utility bills and general uneasiness about what the future holds in store.  Read more

Googling into academia

6 December 2004

The launch of Google Scholar was bound to bring the Internet giant into conflict with publishers who are fighting off the open access threat to their business (see Open access, the way of the future? and Google Print targets books in previous News Review columns).  Read more

'Girl saves the world'

29 November 2004

There are signs that the old-fashioned romance genre is having to refashion itself to appeal to younger readers and to take account of changes in women's lives.  Read more

What price the first World city of Literature?

22 November 2004

No-one was more surprised than the members of the UK delegation who had worked to put in a bid for Edinburgh to become the first UNESCO City of Literature. Just after a grand party in Paris to launch the bid, it was announced that validation would be immediate, rather than there being six months to wait before the decision was made. But Edinburgh is ready.  Read more

Is there a community of writers?

15 November 2004

The American crime writer Sara Paretsky made a powerful appeal to the community of writers last week in a statement read out by her publisher when he collected the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for Blacklist on her behalf. Her words raise important issues about the treatment and role of the writer.   Read more

'Public libraries are on the verge of extinction'

8 November 2004

Last week a fresh attempt to set new standards in UK library provision was attacked by the library pressure group Libri.  Read more

Will authors threaten legal action?

1 November 2004

As everyone in the British book trade knows, Penguin UK's disastrous move to a new warehouse using the latest software system has already cost the company dear in terms of lost sales.  Read more

Man Booker winner 'exciting, brilliantly written'

25 October 2004

This week's Man Booker Prize winner has continued the honourable tradition of overturning expectations of who would win, even though David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was the hottest favourite ever according to the bookmakers' odds. Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty was the first gay novel to win the Prize.  Read more

Google Print targets books

18 October 2004

Google’s recent launch of its Google Print project at the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. will transform the way books are used in the Internet age. Going far beyond Amazon’s Search Inside the Book facility, this ambitious scheme may bring books to Internet prominence but it also raises a host of concerns for publishers and authors.  Read more

Self-publishing booms

11 October 2004

As the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. draws to a close, it seems a good time to look at what other routes to publication exist for writers who feel excluded from the international publishing circus's focus on bestsellers. Self-publishing has become an increasingly viable option, although it requires energy and the ability to get out there and market your book.  Read more

The business of Frankfurt

4 October 2004

This weekend publishing people all over the world are packing their bags for the 2004 Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two., which starts on Wednesday. The largest annual gathering of the book world, the Fair is expected to have 6,648 exhibitors this year. The biggest international contingent will be the Brits, with just under 900 exhibitors, followed by the USA with 750.  Read more