Book reviews, new books, publishing news, book giveaways, and author interviews

Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012

book news Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012

RIASS stuff:

A'giveaway of ten (yes, ten) book packs consisting of a copy of'Catch Up with the Sun'and a Book Seat!'(Aussies only, please)

A review of'The Ghost at the Point'by Charlotte Calder'(Rating: star Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012star Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012star Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012blankstar Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012blankstar Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012)

A review of Shelter'by Harlan Coben (Rating: star Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012star Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012halfstar Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012blankstar Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012blankstar Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 18 June 2012)

A guest post and excerpt from Peter Lefcourt

Are you a nerdy type? My husband is looking for a top-notch web developer to join his company.'Details here.

Other bookish stuff:

The Great NatCon Blog Post Round-Up

Digital radio royalties and Amazon music/movie bundling contrast to publisher treatment of e-books: By contrast, as I pointed out in'a Quora answer I wrote this afternoon'about why Amazon hadn't been able to offer bundled paper-plus-e-book packages yet, the major publishers have always insisted that'every single format'of an e-book is tantamount to a separate edition of the book, and since you don't get a free paperback when you buy a hardcover, you shouldn't get a free e-book when you buy a paper book (or even a different DRM-bound format of e-book) either.

An interview with Fran Lebowitz:'No, I'm just intrigued by [children], because, to me, they're like talking animals. Their consciousness is so different from ours that they constitute a different species. They don't have to be particularly interesting children; just the fact that they are children is sufficient. They don't know what anything is, so they have to make it up. No matter how dull they are, they still have to figure things out for themselves. They have a fresh approach.

Is Singapores e-book industry waking up?'According to publisher Philip Tatham, the gradual shift has meant reducing some of the headaches in pushing for titles in a global market, including shipping and warehouse issues. But that doesnt mean cutting costs. Its a fallacy to think e-books are cheap to produce. New costs are introduced for metadata management systems and e-book conversion, he said.

Diana Peterfreund on her recent Jane Austen retelling: Modern retellings of Austen twist themselves up like pretzels trying to formulate a notion of class that makes sense to young American readers, who generally consider class to be fluid (we're all going to grow up to be rich celebrities, right?).'Clueless, for example, recasts the minor class barriers in that story as the cliques of a status-conscious high schooler. In my case, I got to utilise science fiction to make my class divides durable and understandable to my young adult audience.

Patrick Ness and Jim Kay on how they made A Monster Calls'I wouldnt have taken it on if I didnt have complete freedom to go wherever I needed to go with it. If Id felt hampered at all ' again, even for very good reasons ' then that harms the story, I think. And I did this not for egomaniacal reasons, that my decisions were somehow automatically right or some such nonsense, but because I know that this is what Siobhan would have done. She would have set it free, let it grow and change, and so I wasnt trying to guess what she might have written, I was merely following the same process she would have followed, which is a different thing.'(see also our review of A Monster Calls)

Ebooks are the winners in the generation game:'According to market researcher Bowker, while younger peoples ebook consumption is plateauing, in'older age groups it continues to growAn obvious plus is the option to adjust text size and contrastThey are light, which is handy for arthritis sufferers, especially those with poor vision (large-print hardbacks weigh a ton).

How to tell youve been reading too much YA paranormal romance

30 minutes or more: Why web content keeps getting longer

For Bloomsday, the BBC offered a radio dramatisation of Joyces Ulysses

From Fitzgerald to Reagan, 5 Letters of Fatherly Advice from History's Greatest Public Dads

How to talk about books you havent read

HarperCollins Launches 3 Community Sites for YA Readers

Harry Potter as the Antichrist in Alan Moore graphic novel?'

Inside Googles Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever

Well, hello there, beautiful bookshelf

A sneak peek inside Random House:

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