A Mind at Peace is a movingly haunting symphony. Set to a backdrop of age-old Ottoman music and verse, it is the story of a country’s struggle to hold onto meaning and philosophic insight gained from centuries of traditions and customs while careening toward the comfort of wealth through acceptance of modern Western economic culture. [...]
Back in September, I made note of the fact that good, old Barney Rosset was to be honored at the National Book Awards ceremony. He was, and now there’s a fantastic article on him in Newsweek. It’s long, and well wroth the read.
This week the publishing industry has been rocked by HMH laying off more staff, Random’s restructuring, and Penguin’s announcement of salary freezes for those earning over $50,000. But I looked outside this morning, and the truth is that the sky is not falling. In fact, I’m beginning to believe the days are dawning more brightly.
Here we go! Sony has revealed that it has sold 300,000 of its digital e-book Reader globally since the device was launched in October 2006 and that it is working on a wireless version of the product to rival Amazon.com’s Kindle. Sony’s unit retails for $300, which, in my opinion, is still too high, but [...]
Last week a Publisher’s Weekly report that Harcourt Houghton Mifflin (HMH) had put a freeze on acquiring new books sent a tremor through the book world. But as the matter has begun to shake out, it seems the report was a bit overblown—or, at least that’s what is being heard from the folks at HMH.
