Clive James, writer, broadcaster and TV critic, dies aged 80
Clive James, the broadcaster, poet and television critic, has died aged 80 after a long illness. The Australian died at his home in Cambridge on Sunday, his agent confirmed. A private funeral attended...
View ArticleJonathan Miller, writer and director, dies aged 85
Sir Jonathan Miller, the writer, theatre and opera director, and member of the Beyond the Fringe comedy team, has died at the age of 85. In a statement his family said Miller died "peacefully at home...
View ArticleTwo Nobel literature prize committee members resign
Two members of the external Nobel literature prize committee have quit – one over the choice of Peter Handke as this year's winner and the other over the slow pace of reforms since the sexual assault...
View Article#CiderMonday: 'The Internet Can't Do That'
Yesterday marked the seventh annual celebration of Cider Monday, the bricks-and-mortar response to Cyber Monday. It was originally launched by Willard Williams, owner of the Toadstool Bookshops in...
View ArticleThe Dirt Hole cleans up to claim the 2019 Diagram Prize
A re-released classic hunting and trapping guide has snared the 41st edition of The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. Charles L Dobbins's self-published The Dirt Hole and its Variations...
View ArticleObituary: Andrew Clements
Prolific children's author Andrew Clements, best known for his popular middle grade novel Frindle, about a fifth-grader's plan to invent a new word, died on November 28 in West Baldwin, Me., following...
View ArticleRobert K. Massie, narrator of russian History, dies aged 90
Robert K. Massie, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who wrote gripping, tautly narrated and immensely popular books on giants of Russian history, died on Monday at his home in Irvington, N.Y. He was...
View ArticleMississippi is leading the way on education
Standardized tests given every two years to measure fourth- and eighth-grade achievement show Mississippi made more progress than any other state. There's no way to know for sure what causes increases...
View ArticleMilan Kundera's Czech citizenship restored after 40 years
After more than 40 years in exile, Milan Kundera, the Czech-born author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has been given back the citizenship of his homeland. Petr Drulák, the Czech Republic's...
View ArticleWhy I started a book club in the Harris County jail
A fascinating article by a lawyer who runs a book club in a high security women's jail. Very much worth reading in full; here is the closing paragraph: "The book clubs Drew and I started demonstrate...
View ArticleTeens in Argentina are leading the charge to eliminate gender in language
Teenagers in Argentina are rewriting the rules of the Spanish language to eliminate gender. In classrooms and daily conversations, young people are changing the way they speak and write — replacing...
View ArticleLibrary loans in England down 43% in 10 years
Latest figures from The Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) show library loans are down 43% in the last decade in England, with libraries still in "a terrible state" as...
View ArticleGeorge R.R. Martin Opens Beastly Books in Santa Fe
On November 30, author George R.R. Martin opened Beastly Books, an independent bookstore in Santa Fe, N.Mex., next door to the Jean Cocteau Cinema, which he had acquired in 2013. One book that it...
View ArticleLanguage is here to serve all of us. Merriam-Webster's word of the year...
The dictionary folk at Merriam-Webster last week named "they" as word of the year, and not simply in its singular sense — Merriam-Webster helpfully noted that the singular "they" has been "used for...
View ArticlePearson sells remaining stake in Penguin Random House to Bertelsmann
Pearson, the U.K. publishing company that merged its Penguin subsidiary with Bertelsmann's Random House in 2012 to create Penguin Random House, is selling its remaining 25% of PRH to Bertelsmann,...
View Article"Fifty Shades of Grey" is bestselling book of the decade
E.L. James's irresistibly salacious novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which morphed from web-published fan fiction into a blockbuster book and movie franchise, is the bestselling book in the U.S. book...
View ArticleIs Trump preparing to order public access to taxpayer funded research?
In a press release this week, the Association of American Publishers shared the concerns of more than 125 scholarly society and research organizations in opposition to a potential Trump administration...
View ArticleDav Pilkey Is PW's Person of the Year for 2019
Over the course of a wildly creative career, Dav Pilkey has written, drawn, and cocreated more than 60 books that have thrilled generations of children with goofy, gross-out humor and genuine empathy....
View ArticleThe long tail of "Where the Crawdads Sing"
In the summer of 2018, Putnam published an unusual debut novel by a retired wildlife biologist named Delia Owens. The book, which had an odd title and didn't fit neatly into any genre, hardly seemed...
View ArticleRacism dispute roils Romance Writers of America
A dispute over a racism accusation and how it was handled have upended the romance writers' community, with best-selling novelists speaking out against the Romance Writers of America and most of the...
View Article