Book Trade and Publishing

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares42 Views

    How a Booker Prize-Winning Work From India Redefined Translation

    by

    An extraordinary author-translator collaboration produced a book, “Heart Lamp,” that was lauded for enriching the English language.Banu Mushtaq’s book “Heart Lamp” last week became the first story collection to win the International Booker Prize. It was also the first work translated from Kannada, a southern Indian language, to receive the award.But “Heart Lamp” is unusual for another reason. It is not a translation of an existing book. Instead, Ms. Mushtaq’s translator, Deepa Bhasthi, selected the stories that make up “Heart Lamp” from among Ms. Mushtaq’s oeuvre of more than 60 stories written over three decades and first published in Kannada-language journals.The collaboration that won the two women the world’s most prestigious award for fiction translated into English represents an extraordinary empowerment of Ms. Bhasthi in the author-translator relationship.It also shows the evolution of literary translation in India as a growing number of works in the country’s many languages are being translated into English. That has brought Indian voices to new readers and enriched the English language.“I myself have broken all kinds of stereotypes, and now my book has also broken all stereotypes,” Ms. Mushtaq said in a phone interview.Ms. Mushtaq, 77, is an author, lawyer and activist whose life epitomizes the fight of a woman from a minority community against social injustice and patriarchy. The stories in “Heart Lamp” are feminist stories, based on the everyday lives of ordinary women, many of them Muslim.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares122 Views

      in Elections

      Is It Ethical to Buy Used Books and Music?

      by

      The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on what consumers owe to artists.Is it ethical to buy used books and music instead of new copies that will financially reward the author or artist? What do consumers owe to producers of art? — Gerald BarkerFrom the Ethicist:There’s actually a lot to be said for buying used and sustaining the low-cost democracy of art’s second life. For one thing, there are environmental advantages in the practice: Physical media are designed to endure and be shared beyond the first owner. And artists can benefit from secondary markets in real, if less tangible, ways. Works that circulate widely can enhance the artist’s reputation, whether it’s a book read and passed along, a record rediscovered in a thrift shop or a painting resold at auction. Enthusiastic new audiences, prominent displays and word-of-mouth appreciation can all contribute to a creator’s stature. (Notice that this situation is very different from music-streaming platforms, where artists are basically meant to be paid for each listen, but the recompense is often a pittance.)What artists, especially the good ones, are owed is not a cut of every encounter we have with their work but a system that gives them a real opportunity to sell their work, to build a career, to find a public. After that, their creations rightly become part of the wider cultural world, as with books in a library or paintings in a museum, where countless people can enjoy them freely across the generations.Used-book stores or vintage-record shops, where hidden gems lurk like geodes waiting to be split open, play a role, too. Such venues don’t just preserve art; they bring enthusiasts together, spark conversations and cultivate new audiences. In Michael Chabon’s novel “Telegraph Avenue,” a vintage-record shop is both a community hub and a battlefront for cultural preservation; in Helene Hanff’s book “84, Charing Cross Road,” treasured titles help sustain a human connection across an ocean. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I stumbled across both in used-book stores, providing their authors no royalties but plenty of affection. This setup isn’t a failure of fairness; it’s part of how creative work gains cultural traction.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares115 Views

      in Elections

      MrBeast and James Patterson Are Writing a Novel Together

      by

      Jimmy Donaldson, known to his social media fans as MrBeast, is teaming up with the mega-best-selling thriller author.Jimmy Donaldson — better known to his hundreds of millions of online followers as MrBeast — has leveraged his vast social media audience to sell everything from Beast-branded burgers, snack packs and chocolate bars to water bottles, toys, basketballs and $65 hoodies.Now, he’s aiming to sell his followers an unlikely new product: a novel.Donaldson is teaming up with the mega-best-selling author James Patterson on a thriller, which will be published by HarperCollins in 2026, with a simultaneous global release in 15 languages. The plot sounds like an over-the-top version of one of MrBeast’s viral YouTube videos, competitions that often offer enormous sums of cash to contestants who can prevail in absurd challenges (“Survive 100 Days Trapped, Win $500,000”).The novel will center on an extreme global contest, in which 100 players compete to prove their leadership skills by surviving life-threatening tests in dangerous locations around the world. In a battle to win the billion-dollar prize, participants form relationships and betray one another as they struggle to avoid elimination, or death.The fight to land the project also turned into an intense competition among publishers, who were tantalized by the viral marketing possibilities of signing a social media star with 500 million followers. News of the collaboration began circulating in March, with reports of a heated bidding war with offers in the eight-figure range. HarperCollins did not disclose the financial details of the deal, which was negotiated by Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell of Williams & Connolly on behalf of Patterson, and by Byrd Leavell and Albert Lee at United Talent Agency representing MrBeast.It’s unclear whether MrBeast’s massive online audience will translate into book sales. Publishers have tried for decades to harness the marketing power of social media stars, with varying success. But MrBeast is a star of a different magnitude.“He’s such a smart operator in understanding the social media algorithms, what drives engagement, what drives activation,” said Brian Murray, president and chief executive of HarperCollins. “One of the challenges we have in publishing is there’s so much noise out there in the media and entertainment landscape, and trying to break through with books can be difficult.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Trump-Allied Prosecutor Sends Letters to Medical Journals Alleging Bias

      by

      An interim U.S. attorney is demanding information about the selection of research articles and the role of N.I.H. Experts worry this will have a chilling effect on publications.A federal prosecutor has sent letters to at least three medical journals accusing them of political bias and asking a series of probing questions suggesting that the journals mislead readers, suppress opposing viewpoints and are inappropriately swayed by their funders.The letters were signed by Edward Martin Jr., a Republican activist serving as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. He has been criticized for using his office to target opponents of President Trump.Some scientists and doctors said they viewed the letters as a threat from the Trump administration that could have a chilling effect on what journals publish. The health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has said he wants to prosecute medical journals, accusing them of lying to the public and colluding with pharmaceutical companies.One of the letters was sent to the journal Chest, published by the American College of Chest Physicians. The New York Times obtained a copy of the letter.The Times confirmed that at least two other publishers had received nearly identically worded letters, but those publishers would not speak publicly because they feared retribution from the Trump administration.In the letter to Chest, dated Monday, Mr. Martin wrote, “It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Liz Moore on ‘Long Bright River’ and the Slow Burn of Success

      by

      Suddenly Liz Moore blazed, comet-like, onto small screens and best-seller lists. But her writing career has been a slow burn.No matter how you slice it, Liz Moore has arrived.This month, an adaptation of her blockbuster novel “Long Bright River” started streaming on Peacock. And her next book, “The God of the Woods,” now on the best-seller list for 36 weeks (and counting), will soon hit the million mark in sales — a distinction normally reserved for celebrities and novelists recognizable by last name alone.Moore isn’t one of those authors. But, over the past two decades, she’s proved to be “a writer who can do anything,” as her editor Sarah McGrath put it.Moore taps into an elusive sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction, populating vividly drawn settings with characters who seem to live, breathe and make terrible mistakes along with the rest of us. Her novels can be enjoyed by, say, a teenage girl and her 50-something father, defying genre and categorization to such an extent that, from one to the next, a reader might not register that they’re written by the same person.“I get messages saying, I loved your new book. Do you have any others?” Moore, 41, said during an interview at a cafe in Philadelphia. “Or they’ll call ‘The God of the Woods’ my second book because ‘Long Bright River’ was my first that broke out.”In fact, “The God of the Woods,” a mystery about siblings who disappear 14 years apart, is Moore’s fifth book. She wrote her first, “The Words of Every Song,” while she was a student at Barnard College. Shortly after she graduated in 2005, she signed on with an agent who’d come to campus for a panel on the publishing industry.“I reached out and said, ‘I have this manuscript of interconnected stories about the music industry. Would you be interested in looking at it?’ She said yes,” Moore recalled. “Only in retrospect do I realize what a lucky break that was.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      At 83, Anne Tyler Has a New Novel. She’d Rather Talk About Anything Else.

      by

      While many of her contemporaries are playing canasta, she’s releasing her 25th book. There’s no mystery to it, Tyler says: Start on Page 1, then keep writing.Anne Tyler and I sat facing one another on a couch overlooking a man-made pond at her retirement community outside of Baltimore. She moved there in 2022 and likes the place well enough, with its woodsy walking trails, salt water pool and art studio.But when I asked Tyler, who is 83, what clubs or activities she’s joined at the sprawling facility, her answer was an apologetic “Nothing?”Tyler is too busy writing books. Her 25th novel, “Three Days in June,” comes out on Feb. 11, and she’s already percolating another.“I absolutely have to pick up a pen every weekday morning,” she said, opening a drawer to show her collection of Uni-Ball Signos in black ink. “They’re non-friction. I used to wear a Band-Aid on my finger, and now I don’t need one.”This is what passes for a revelation from Tyler, who rarely gives interviews and gracefully dodges questions about work. It’s not that she’s secretive or superstitious about her “craft” (a word she’d never use in this context). She just doesn’t understand what the hoopla is about: She established a writing routine and stuck with it, simple as that.Tyler has now been a fixture of the literary world for more than 60 years.When her first book, “If Morning Ever Comes” was published in 1964, the Times’s critic described it as “an exceedingly good novel, so mature, so gently wise and so brightly amusing that, if it weren’t printed right there on the jacket, few readers would suspect that Mrs. Tyler was only 22.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Books About Everyone, for Everyone

      by

      This is part of an Opinion series on The New York Times Communities Fund, which assists nonprofits that provide direct support to people and communities facing hardship. Donate to the fund here. .g-goldbergseriesinfo a { text-decoration: underline; color: inherit; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-underline-offset: 2px; } .g-goldbergseriesinfo{ position: relative; display: flex; overflow: hidden; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1.125rem […] More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      What to Know About Supreme Court Justices’ Book Deals

      by

      For the justices, selling books remains one of the few ways to earn income outside the court.For Supreme Court justices, books deals have become a highly lucrative way to shape the public narrative of their lives and legacies.The money brought in by those deals, one of the few ways that they can supplement their income, often far eclipses their salaries, roughly $300,000.A majority of the current justices have published books, most recently Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Her memoir, “Lovely One,” which traces the arc of her family from the segregated Jim Crow South to her rise to the Supreme Court, was released this week and shot up Amazon’s best-seller list.Here’s a closer look.Which justices have written books?Six of the nine justices have written books or currently have book deals.Justice Jackson joins Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas in publishing moving accounts of their childhoods and paths to the court. Justice Sotomayor has also written several children’s books.Justice Neil M. Gorsuch has focused on the law, publishing books describing the ethical and legal issues raised by assisted suicide and euthanasia. His most recent, published this summer, is a series of stories drawn from court cases that he uses to argue that administrative overreach and the increasing number of laws have harmed ordinary Americans.Two of the newest justices — Amy Coney Barrett and Brett M. Kavanaugh — have book deals in place. Justice Barrett’s book has been described as her views about keeping personal feelings out of judicial rulings. Justice Kavanaugh’s is expected to be a legal memoir that is likely to touch on his bruising confirmation fight.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Reagan Arthur Returns to Hachette

      by

      Arthur, the former publisher of Knopf, is joining Hachette Book Group to start and run a new imprint.Reagan Arthur, the former publisher of Knopf, is joining Hachette Book Group to start and run a new imprint, Hachette said Thursday.Her appointment comes weeks after Arthur was let go from her position as publisher of Knopf, one of the most prestigious imprints at Penguin Random House, a move that surprised many in the publishing industry.At Hachette, Arthur will launch and oversee a new publishing line within Grand Central Publishing Group, and will also edit prominent authors at other imprints. Arthur’s own imprint, as yet unnamed, will release between four and six books a year.In an interview, Arthur said she envisioned her new imprint as a place to further develop the kinds of books she’s long published, putting out a selective list of literary and commercial fiction and narrative nonfiction.“I get to build something that will have a lot of care and focus,” she said. “I’m excited about bringing in new voices as well as writers that I’ve admired for a long time.”Arthur is known for her keen commercial instincts. Before moving to Knopf, she was the publisher of Little, Brown, a Hachette imprint, where she edited and published a string of best-selling and award-winning works, including books by Elin Hilderbrand, Michael Connelly, Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson, Kate Atkinson, Eleanor Catton and David Sedaris.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More