Publishing Company Blog: July 2022

Sunday, July 31, 2022

The fight to save poet Vicente Aleixandre’s house in Madrid

Campaigners want government action to save Velintonia, where the Spanish poet received writers including Federico García Lorca

Wanted: desert island resort in Maldives seeks barefoot bookseller

Passionate about literature, adventurous, outgoing, creative and happy to stay shoeless? Kunfunadhoo has the perfect job

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015

In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention

Trump said sorry to Cruz for 2016 insults, Paul Manafort says in new book

In a memoir obtained by the Guardian, former campaign manager risks embarrassing powerful rivals with description of apology

Friday, July 29, 2022

So, Prince Harry’s memoir is done – but what’s likely to be in it?

Ghost-written book, with interviews conducted mostly during ‘peak rage’, expected to be published by end of year

Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon

In new book, obtained by Guardian, 2016 campaign manager convicted of tax fraud says he was ‘very careful’ to hide advice

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Trump chief of staff ‘shoved’ Ivanka at White House, Kushner book says

John Kelly, who Kushner and wife saw as ‘consistently duplicitous’, ‘showed his true character’ in hallway incident, memoir says

Murdoch told Kushner on election night that Arizona result was ‘not even close’

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser’s new book recounts turmoil caused by Fox News decision to call state for Biden in 2020

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Blake Bailey, biographer accused of harassment and rape, to publish memoir

Bailey’s book on Philip Roth was pulled after former students said he abused them

Margaret Atwood to publish ‘highly personal’ collection of short stories

When it is published next year Old Babes in the Wood will mark the author’s first return to fiction since 2019’s The Testaments

Marcus Rashford guest-edits special edition of Beano comic

Footballer and campaigner says he ‘jumped at chance’ to edit comic, with 20p from each sale donated to free books scheme

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Booker prize longlist of 13 writers aged 20 to 87 announced

List comprises 13 writers of fiction, from Leila Mottley to NoViolet Bulawayo, described as ‘stimulating, surprising, nourishing’ by judging panel

Comment: The Booker longlist is thoughtfully curated and gives Alan Garner overdue recognition

Cate Blanchett and Harry Styles to head to Venice for 2022 edition of film festival

Competition slots for jailed Iranian director Jafar Panahi, Martin McDonagh and Darren Aronofsky, while actors on show range from past winner Blanchett to Bill Nighy and Harry Styles

Monday, July 25, 2022

Diana Kennedy, influential guru of Mexican cuisine, dies at 99

Politicians and chefs pay tribute to the ‘Indiana Jones of food’, who helped preserve and popularise Mexican recipes in the English-speaking world

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Men without women: Florida attorney wins Hemingway Look-Alike crown

Jon Auvil of Dade City is alpha Papa after beating 124 rivals in annual contest held at bar the author frequented

Friday, July 22, 2022

Rare original copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio sells for £2m

400-year-old edition of playwright’s first collected book of plays including Macbeth and Twelfth Night auctioned at Sotheby’s

Hong Kong publishers excluded from book fair over politically sensitive material

At least three booksellers say they were banned from the annual jamboree as the city embarks on ‘new form of censorship’

‘As silly and tacky as possible’: Jennifer Down celebrates Miles Franklin win with family

A handmade sash, plastic red carpet and matching custom T-shirts featured in the literary prize winner’s home award ceremony

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Thursday, July 21, 2022

Michelle Obama announces second book: ‘a toolbox to stay centred’

The Light We Carry, to be published in November, compiles the former first lady’s best strategies for surviving in the face of a ‘rising tide of bigotry and intolerance’

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Shortlist announced for Waterstones debut fiction prize

The ‘dazzling’ finalists include Sequoia Nagamatsu, Eloghosa Osunde, Tara M Stringfellow, Tess Gunty and Louise Kennedy

Quidditch changes name to quadball after JK Rowling’s trans statements

Governing bodies have also cited commercial reasons
Sport was developed from game in Harry Potter series

Jennifer Down wins 2022 Miles Franklin award for Bodies of Light

Book prize judges have praised ‘ethical precision’ of Melburnian’s second novel, a poised unpacking of the horrors of institutional failure

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Monday, July 18, 2022

Caine prize goes to ‘incandescent’ short story by Idza Luhumyo

Five Years Next Sunday, about an ostracised girl who ‘holds the fate of her community in her hair’, wins £10,000 award for African writing in English

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Steve Bannon admitted Trump ‘would lie about anything’, new book says

Bannon, according to Jonathan Lemire’s Big Lie, said Trump lies ‘to win whatever exchange he [is] having at that moment’

Friday, July 15, 2022

Boris Johnson memoir could earn him ‘north of £1m’

Insiders say outgoing prime minister unlikely to write about personal life but book deal possible this autumn

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Claire Keegan wins Orwell prize for novel about 1980s Ireland

Small Things Like These takes the political fiction award, while Sally Hayden’s My Fourth Time, We Drowned takes the matching nonfiction honour

Mark Haddon pledges all future US royalties to abortion rights groups

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time author said his choice was ‘pretty instant’ after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade

Alleged book thief Filippo Bernardini may avoid trial in the US

The Simon & Schuster employee is accused of masterminding a phishing scam to obtain manuscripts from top authors

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Adjoa Andoh, Russell T Davies and Michaela Coel elected to Royal Society of Literature

The Bridgerton actor, Doctor Who writer and I May Destroy You creator are among 60 new fellows appointed to the UK’s charity for the advancement of literature

Booker prize unveils book club challenge

Six groups will be chosen to read a shortlisted book, with the most ‘original and engaging’ readers to be invited to the prize ceremony

Kwame Alexander to present new reality show America’s Next Great Author

Contestants will enter a writers’ retreat and be given 30 days to write a novel while completing ‘live-wire’ challenges

Friday, July 8, 2022

Unpublished Ted Hughes poems about partner Assia Wevill to be sold

The recently found notebook of fragments and finished work has been described as the poet’s ‘most direct’ response to the suicide of his partner and daughter in 1969