Publishing Company Blog: May 2023

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Crime Writers’ Association appoints Vaseem Khan as its first non-white chair

Khan, author of two crime series set in India, said he aimed to make the CWA ‘a home for all crime writers’

Bloomsbury reports sales surge as people buy books as ‘affordable diversion’

Harry Potter publisher says in challenging economic times books are seen as cheap form of entertainment

Librarians sue Arkansas state over law banning them from giving ‘obscene’ books to children

Move comes as rightwing groups increase pressure to remove books, most written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of colour

‘Mad and offensive’ texts shed light on the role played by minstrels in medieval society

The Heege Manuscript which ‘pokes fun at everyone, high and low’ is among the earliest evidence of the life and work of a real minstrel

Monday, May 29, 2023

Using psychedelics for depression is exciting area, says ex-vaccines chief

Kate Bingham, who chaired UK’s Covid vaccine taskforce, tells Hay festival she hopes mind-altering drugs could treat mental illness

Nobel literature prize fell into my life ‘like a bomb’, says Annie Ernaux

In conversation with Sally Rooney at Charleston festival author says award has hindered her ability to focus on writing

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Rebecca F Kuang rejects idea authors should not write about other races

US novelist talks of ‘weird kind of identity politics in American publishing’ while at Hay festival

Friday, May 26, 2023

Elizabeth I heavily influenced by loss of mother Anne Boleyn at young age

Evidence that both women experienced stress and anxiety, with Elizabeth traumatised by mother’s death and issue of marriage

DeSantis appears to back woman who led Amanda Gorman poem school ban

Florida governor accuses media of creating ‘ridiculous poem hoax’ after complaint targeted verse recited at Biden inauguration

James M Cain: lost story by ‘poet of the tabloid murder’ discovered in Congress library

Strand Magazine will publish Blackmail, a tale of a blind Korean war veteran, found by New York editor Andrew Gulli

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Florida mother behind ban on Amanda Gorman poem has Proud Boys links

Social media posts picture Daily Salinas at Proud Boys events and show she posted antisemitic content online

Travis Alabanza and Danielle Jawando win 2023 Jhalak prizes for writers of colour

Judges described None of the Above, Alabanza’s memoir about being genderqueer, as ‘desperately important’, and said every teenager should read Jawando’s young adult novel When Our Worlds Collided

The Enormous Crocodile among latest Roald Dahl books to be adapted for stage

Roald Dahl Story Company announces new shows, including a large-scale circus and a reading of The Magic Finger

Rishi Sunak reveals his favourite Jilly Cooper novels on This Morning

PM tells ITV show he reads veteran author’s racy books for ‘escapism’

UK politics live – latest updates

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Kenneth Anger, underground film-maker and Hollywood Babylon author, dies aged 96

The pioneering movie-maker had a major influence on queer culture and the 60s counterculture, and is also remembered for authoring the cult film history book

Amanda Gorman ‘gutted’ after Florida school bans Biden inauguration poem

Poet, 25, vows to fight back after single complaint, which wrongly ascribed The Hill We Climb to Oprah Winfrey, prompts removal

Long story: book returned to California library nearly a century late

Benson Lossing’s A History of the United States was checked out in 1927 and returned this month

Monday, May 22, 2023

Caffè Nero launches major book awards

Like the Costa prizes, scrapped in 2022, the Neros will cover children’s books, nonfiction and novels, emphasising ‘commercial’ titles

‘Significantly shocking’: debut author Debra Dank breaks records at NSW premier’s literary awards

The Gudanji/Wakaja writer won four prizes and took home $85,000 for We Come with This Place – a book she never intended to publish

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Sunday, May 21, 2023

‘Stylist extraordinaire’: worlds of literature and politics pay tribute to Martin Amis

Fellow writers including Salman Rushdie express their admiration for British novelist who has died aged 73

Nobel winners demand release of Belarusian peace laureate Ales Bialiatski

Open letter condemning the detention of the human rights activist, who won the 2022 prize, signed by more than 100 laureates including Kazuo Ishiguro and JM Coetzee

Saturday, May 20, 2023

Pete Brown, countercultural poet, singer and Cream lyricist, dies aged 82

British poet who wrote lyrics for Sunshine of Your Love, White Room and many more also had acclaimed solo career

Friday, May 19, 2023

Salman Rushdie uses first public appearance since stabbing to praise 'heroes' who saved him – video

Salman Rushdie gave a surprise speech at the Pen America gala in New York City, his first public appearance since he was attacked on stage last August. Rushdie joked that it was 'nice to be back – as opposed to not being back, which was also an option'. The author, whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and torso as he was about to give a lecture in western New York

Salman Rushdie makes first public appearance since attack, praising ‘heroes’ who saved him

Bloomsbury admits using AI-generated artwork for Sarah J Maas novel

Publisher says cover of House of Earth and Blood was prepared by in-house designers unaware the stock image chosen was not human-made

Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit story originated in African folktales, expert argues

The unacknowledged debt Potter owed to the Brer Rabbit stories told by enslaved Africans deserves to be recognised, says scholar

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Ancient Hebrew Bible sells for $38m in New York auction

1,100-year-old Codex Sassoon, one of world’s oldest surviving biblical manuscripts, will be donated to museum in Israel

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Florida school district sued for violating first amendment rights with book bans

PEN, Random House and parents file lawsuit after rightwing groups seek to ban books that address racism or sexual identity

Johnny Cash lyrics to be collected in book for first time

Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics will include rare and never-before-seen visual material alongside stories and commentary

Naomi Klein investigates ‘conspiracy theory culture’ that has shaken her life

Doppelganger, due out this autumn, examines ‘the wildness of right now’, including personal issues arising from being confused with Naomi Wolf

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Author resigns from PEN America board amid row over Russian writers panel

Masha Gessen stepped down as vice-president as the group acknowledged a ‘misunderstanding’ at an international festival

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to be subject of ‘high-octane’ book by Michael Lewis

The Big Short author was given unlimited access to the notorious cryptocurrency exchange founder for Going Infinite: the Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

Monday, May 15, 2023

US supreme court pursuing rightwing agenda via ‘shadow docket’, book says

Steve Vladeck says conservative majority is bypassing public scrutiny with unsigned orders on religion, abortion and more

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Mem Fox book Guess What? banned in Florida county under Ron DeSantis bill

Agent for bestselling Australian children’s author says she has ‘nothing to say’ about the ban and Duval county ‘is not important’

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Friday, May 12, 2023

Rishi Sunak ‘ranks racy Jilly Cooper novel among his favourite books’

McDonald’s-loving, sliders-wearing, Bublé-listening PM is also a reader of Riders, according to Spectator

Elena Ferrante and Marian Keyes among authors competing in Eurovision book contest

As musicians prepare for the Eurovision song contest on Saturday, entries for its literary counterpart have been announced

Thursday, May 11, 2023

Sorry, Swifties: BTS revealed as authors of mystery book that intrigued the internet

Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS will be out on 9 July, ending feverish speculation that the previously untitled book was a Taylor Swift memoir

Arinze Ifeakandu wins Dylan Thomas prize for ‘kaleidoscopic reflection of queer life in Nigeria’

The writer took the £20,000 award for writers under 39 with his debut short story collection, God’s Children Are Little Broken Things

Tabby McTat: Jodie Whittaker to narrate animated film based on Julia Donaldson’s beloved book

The former Doctor Who star will narrate the BBC’s adaptation, with Rob Brydon playing Fred and Sope Dirisu as his tuneful feline

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Anthony Anaxagorou wins Ondaatje prize for collection of postcolonial poetry

The British-Cypriot poet took the £10,000 award with his third book of poems, which judges described as ‘pushing the confines of form and language’

Martin Luther King’s famous criticism of Malcolm X ‘just not true’, author finds

Published quotes attacking ‘fiery, demagogic oratory’ suggested deep divide but transcript of 1965 interview tells different story

The Taylor Swift effect: why a mystery book is rocketing up US charts – despite no one knowing anything about it

Wild speculation over a book known as ‘4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023’ has seen excited Swifties placing pre-orders. The bad news? It is likely not by her