Category Archives: Book News

US non-profit literacy agency Worldreader has beta-launched an app for non-smartphones in order to distribute free e-books into sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. The Worldreader app uses cloud-based data compression technology to enable any Java-enabled “feature” phone (non-smartphone) to download e-books and access news websites and Facebook over an ordinary mobile … Continue reading

A Thai cookbook has won this year’s Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the year. Cooking With Poo is written by Bangkok chef Saiyuud Diwong whose nickname is Poo – which is Thai for “crab”. Diwong runs a cookery school for locals and tourists in the city’s largest slum, alongside the charitable organization that … Continue reading

The bad news came to McFarland & Co. in an email from Amazon. Starting Jan. 1, 2012 – then only 19 days away – Amazon would buy the publisher’s books at 45 percent off the cover price, roughly double its current price break. For McFarland, an independent publisher of scholarly books situated in the mountains … Continue reading

The Association of American Publishers reports a gain in net sales of 11.5% in January 2012 versus the previous year. The AAP said that publishers attributed “the near-total across-the-board percentage increases in both print and digital formats to general economic improvement, particularly evident during the holiday season and for brick-and-mortar booksellers. This period also saw … Continue reading

Poet Adrienne Rich has died aged 82. In its obituary, The New York Times describes Rich as “a poet of towering reputation and towering rage, whose work – distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity – brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse and kept … Continue reading

Last Friday, Chuck Palahniuk was hit by a semi trailer while sitting in his car parked in a driveway off Washington state highway. Both car and trailer were written off but the drivers were uninjured, except for Palahniuk who reported a stiff neck. Read more on bookbrowse.com

After many delays, ebook editions of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series are now available for sale from Pottermore. The first three books in the series are priced at US$7.99 and the final four books are US$9.99. The ebooks are not currently available for direct transfer to iBooks (or other services such as Kobo) because Pottermore … Continue reading

The Hunger Games movie, the first in a planned trilogy based on the book trilogy of the same name by author Suzanne Collins, has already presold 1 million tickets ahead of its opening this Friday. Read more on bookbrowse.com

The Publishers Association in the UK is calling for the government to abolish the 20% VAT rate on e-books, putting pressure on chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne ahead of the Budget today to match the zero-rating on print books for digital editions. Read more on bookbrowse.com

Someone mailed more than eleven pounds of marijuana to the offices of St. Martin’s Press at the Flatiron Building in Manhattan today. Bound for an apparently fictitious employee named Karen Wright, the shipments had a potential street value of $70,000. Read more on bookbrowse.com