Hot Titles and Trends

Fifty Shades of Grey pulled from Florida libraries

Literary agent charges that the Department of Justice has a “bizarre misunderstanding of ebooks”

The most read books in the world

Here’s a new take in reality TV: America’s next top writer!

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are using their smartphones for “just in time” information

Illiteracy in America

Fictional characters and their influence on “real life”

Thank goodness for the Internet when it comes to book reviewing

Marvel has a new X-Men product in the works

Are you ready for the “new Bing”?

Reading the ending first

Library and Bookstore News

A new model for library ebook buying? (Meanwhile, Houston Libraries are experiencing explosive ebook use growth)

A new role for libraries: genius bars?

How much does the library save its users?

ALA offers new service to text advocacy alerts to librarians

MobyLives investigates the reinvention of libraries

Some big names are not best pleased about the New York Public Library revamp

A closer look at bookstore book blogs

Fly the friendly skies: Tattered Cover may be opening bookstores in the Denver Airport

Publishing and EBook Headlines

New trends in publishing: agile methodology

Revenues are down at Harlequin

Simon & Schuster relaunches imprint dedicated to ebooks

Fodor’s updates its City Guides for iPhones and iPads

Ebooks as credit card loyalty rewards

Marvel opens new Digital Comics
Shop

Christian literary agency to launch own e-publishing concern

Amazon’s creative global ebook pricing

App publishing

Sourcebooks has had a good year

Facebook now in the app-selling business

Amazon getting ready to release color Kindle?

Harry Potter books to be included in Amazon’s Kindle Lending program

Ebooks are going strong in Russia

Will Amazon grow bored with publishing?

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is restructuring its debt

Call for papers: Internet Reference Services Quarterly

RUSA Webinars: Proposals sought

PLA will host three preconferences for public librarians at ALA Annual

The Avengers hits a billion dollars at the box office

Chelsea Cain’s books may soon be coming to a TV near you

On the Road movie scheduled for this fall

The top 10 grossing comic book movies of all time

Ender’s Game launches film blog

Sean Bean: a man who likes appearing in literary adaptations

Ondaatje Prize: Shortlist

Children’s Choice 2012 Awards

Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction: Shortlist

National Magazine Awards: Winners

2012 James Beard Awards: Winners

Best Translated Book Award for Fiction winner: Wieslaw Mysliwski

Wolfson History Prizes: Winners

Blogging the 2012 Caine Prize: bloggers read through the shortlist

Midland Authors Awards: Winners

Macmillan Prize to incorporate digital category

The New York Times tries to award its own Pulitzer for fiction

Memoirist Angelica Garnett: Obituary

Maurice Sendak: Obituary (and you can watch uncensored clips from his last Colbert Report interview‘ visit The Millions page about remembering Sendak)

Jacquelyn Mitchard to head new young adult fiction imprint

New title expected from Bernhard Schlink

Erotica author E. L. James is enjoying her newfound success

Read the first chapter of Ed Falco’s Godfather prequel at Publishers’ Weekly

Glenn Beck launches ebook series

James Joyce’s handwritten manuscripts now available online

Rick Riordan to work on new series about the Norse gods

Max Allan Collins defines “hardboiled” for you

Ann Coulter will have a new book out in October

May audiobook release roundup

Look inside Toni Morrison’s 10 novels

Maurice Sendak: Essential quotes

Ten books that should be challenged instead of Fifty Shades of Grey

The Summer 2012 Kids’ Indie list

Want to know who’s reading what, where, right now?

Advice columns from famous authors that we’d love to read

Extremely silly photos of extremely serious authors

Hot Titles and Trends

Just finding the book can land you in shades of grey: meet the book being mistaken for the erotica phenomenon

How young is too young for the Hunger Games?

DC Comics debuts “Second Wave”

Books-A-Million chairman and family owners make a bid to buy up all the public stock in the company

The New York Times wants you to get young readers into reading nonfiction

What the death of print newspapers means for writers

Amazon to develop original TV programming

The public library as community center

Newspaper paywalls are starting to pay off

Where are today’s literary nomads?

When cover design includes ads

Is “trust the new black” when it comes to regulating social networks?

May is Short Story Month

Ebook and Publishing News

Microsoft’s investment in the Nook, by the numbers (or this one: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/04/barnes-noble-spins-off-nook-ereader-300-million-from-microsoft.html)

Sesame Street ebook subscription service for libraries now available from Ingram

Tablets: more popular than e-readers?

Another content source for ebooks: screenplays

Storytime app an e-bookstore for kids?

Amazon’s latest petty salvo in the war on ebook pricing

A new look for Ebsco’s ebook platform

Rising ebook sales make up for lagging paperback sales

Frommer to offer interactive travel ebooks

Target at odds with Amazon over Kindle

Ebook borrowing surging in Florida libraries

Library tries to reason with publishers…through its website

Everyone wants in on the e-publishing action: Booktango service offers authors 100% of the royalties on books they publish before July 4

Now being offered to schools: Nooks loaded with educational content

New romance ebook portal

Google vs. Authors Guild

Pottermore on track to have a $60 million year

Are ebooks driving revenue for print books?

The newest ebook market set to boom: Taiwan

Free library continuing education resources, in a list provided by the Texas State Library

Free webcast: Christian Fiction Spring Book Buzz (Thursday, May 10)

Mediabistro to host literary festival: entirely online!

Going to BEA? Consider speed dating for book club picks

Going to ALA Annual? Consider joining Nancy Pearl for the Andrew Carnegie Medal Awards Ceremony

Booklist is looking for crime fiction book reviewers

Call for authors: for book titled Time Organization for Librarians

Call for authors: for book titled Handling Job Stress: Tips By Librarians

HBO has passed on a small-screen adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections

Literary adaptations did well in the MTV Movie Award nominations

Amazing Spider-Man: Trailer

The Wolf of Wall Street: more casting news

The Avengers has a record-breaking opening weekend

Caine Prize: Shortlist

Elizabeth Longford Prize winner: Frances Wilson (for her book How to Survive the Titanic or The Sinking of Bruce J. Ismay)

Ben Lerner: wins the Believer Book Award

The Comedy Awards 2012

Neal Wyatt: wins the Monroe Award for Adult Library Services!

David Graeber wins the 2012 Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing

Arthur C. Clarke Award winner: Jane Rogers

Are book awards important?

Kansas City librarians step up to fill the Pulitzer Prize for fiction void

Horror author Michael Louis Calvillo: Obituary

Norman Fruman (biographer of Samuel Taylor Coleridge): Obituary

Journalist and novelist Bill Granger: Obituary

Perseus Books Founder Frank Pearl: Obituary

Journalist and novelist Tom Wicker: Obituary

Harper Lee: gets Harper Lee Award

His charity got some money back, but his readers won’t: judge dismisses civil lawsuit against Greg Mortenson

Stephen King okay with taxing the rich, himself included (and, he’s got a few words–some of them swear words–to say on the subject in an essay at The Daily Beast)

Jeanette Winterson: on the Bat Segundo show

Sale on Paulo Coelho! Many of his ebooks now priced at .99

Neil Gaiman shares his reading habits

Who are the newest members of the author’s Millionaire’s Club?

Jim Davis talks Garfield

25 books for a child’s library

Books written by celebrity animals

Ten of the best memoirs about mothers

Top ten graphic memoirs

Five award-winning mystery novels for young adults

New York Times: Editors’ Choices for the week

A beginner’s guide to crime fiction

Literary favorites illustrated, Muppet-style!

Ellen Degeneres reads 50 Shades of Grey

How to write a Booker Prize-winning novel

Ebook and Publishing News

DOJ copycat lawsuits (Summary of the case thus far)

What does it really cost to make an ebook?

Ebooks and apps a big part of tablet business

Ebooks in libraries

When old meets new: Historical romance trending in ebooks

Can’t wait for your new Barnes and Noble “Read in the Dark” Nook? You won’t have to; they’re shipping early

Publisher Tor/Forge plunging ahead and publishing ebooks by July that do not have Digital Rights Management

Foreign language Harry Potter ebooks now for sale

Best of apps and enhanced books: April edition

How many Brits own ebooks?

Can literary fiction survive the ebook age?

New erotic romance ebook imprint coming from Harper Collins

A Few Amazon News Snippets

Is Amazon morally wrong but legally right?

Consumers’ favorite book recommender: Amazon?

How books will survive Amazon

Trends and Talking Points

Open content and school libraries

Teach the books, touch the heart

Even the Internet is getting its own novel book deal

Titanic anniversary is driving book sales

Mein Kampf being published in Germany…seventy years after it first appeared there

Trending: social reading

New York Public Library changes

Are novels today gutless?

Coming in May: books by celebrities galore!

Anniversaries

Little, Brown turns 175!

Spider-Man turns fifty

ALA asks librarians to oppose CISPA

Leverage yourself as an expert using social media

Pinterest Webinar (from the Ohio Library Council) to be held on May 22

ARRT program on ebook RA

Hemingway and Gellhorn trailer (to air on HBO May 28)

Think Like a Man (based on Steve Harvey’s book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man), knocks Hunger Games out of top money-earning spot

Charlie Kaufman to adapt new “Hunger Games-esque” films

True Blood Season 5: teaser trailer

Lawless, based on the novel The Wettest Country in the World: Trailer

Baz Luhrman’s cinematic take on The Great Gatsby

Report from CinemaCon: Will Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit be disappointing?

The Avengers does well overseas

Agatha Award Winners 2012

Free samples of the LA Times Book Award winners

Irma Black Award winner

Orwell Prize: Shortlist

Commonwealth Book Prize: Shortlist

Did fiction NOT winning a Pulitzer help book sales?

CrimeFest Awards: Shortlist

2012 Edgar Awards: Winners

Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards (Australia): to cease in 2012

Children’s author Leila Berg: Obituary

Ernest “Chick” Callenbach: Obituary

Biographer Virginia Spencer Carr: Obituary

Science fiction author Kathy (“K.D.”) Wentworth: Obituary

Scottish crime writer Shona MacLean becomes S.G. MacLean–to appeal more to men readers

Jonah Lehrer: On the Bat Segundo Show

A Henry David Thoreau video game? There’s a grant for that

How do you get to know Edgar Allan Poe? Read his stuff

What is Dave Eggers up to now?

Tom Hanks to narrate Stephen Colbert audiobook

Alison Bechdel: Interview (with Maud Newton)

Maya Angelou: named Presidential Medal of Freedom Honoree

Milan Kundera: fifteen new audiobooks to be published

Larry McMurtry: hosting a book auction this August at his bookstore

Indie Science Fiction and Fantasy bestseller list

Ten great books about young women

Read everything by Roberto Bolano? Consider ” Other Great Latino Authors”

Ten books starring cities

Ten best self-help books of all time

67 books every geek should read to their kid

Ten grumpiest living writers

Is that a poem in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Ten gorgeous buildings made out of books

Ebook and Publishing News

The Department of Justice (DOJ) ebook/price-fixing story continues: how involved was Amazon in the instigation of the suit? (Elsewhere, MobyLives wonders, is Amazon a monopoly?)

Still not quite sure what the DOJ/ebook price-fixing/lawsuit story is all about? MobyLives recaps for you

Confused about all the ebook pricing debates? So are consumers

Ebook pricing lawsuit mania strikes Canada!

In other Amazon ebook news, the company might have an ebook impostor problem

How is cutting off Amazon working out for EDC?

Amazon acquires rights to Ian Fleming’s Bond books; will release them as ebooks this summer–what will Barnes and Noble do about it?

What is the Amazon recommendation engine really suggesting?

What’s the ceiling on ebook adoption?

Is distributing books through libraries good for sales? ebrary says yes

Technology and Reading

For parents who want to know what their kids are reading: there’s an app for that!

Read It Later app now called Pocket

What city buys the most Kindles?

Trends and Talking Points

New site for LA Review of Books

New York Public Library director is taking reader questions

Do all bestsellers share twelve attributes?

Worldly titles for book groups

Fifty Shades of Grey is officially mainstream

Volunteers are getting ready for World Book Night (April 23)

American poets on forever stamps

What makes a book a book?

Take part in public library ebook research (in conjunction with Pew Internet)!

Check out the Historical Novel Society’s new website!

Webinars and books and reviews, oh my! May is Mystery Books Month at Booklist Online

The Hunger Games sequel has found a director!

James Patterson’s “Private” series coming soon to a television near you

Film version of “The Wolf of Wall Street” to star Leonardo DiCaprio

Novelist sues video game company

Wow, a busy (and somewhat contentious) week in award news.

Big news: no Pulitzer is awarded for fiction this year (Here, The Morning News weighs in on the “Great Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Brouhaha of 2012″)

Speaking of, here’s the full list of 2012 Pulitzer Prize winners (for books); (The Huffington Post has won its first Pulitzer Prize)

Independent Foreign Fiction Award: shortlist

2012 Hugo nominee short stories: available online!

Orange Prize: shortlist

Orion Book Award: Finalists

Spring 2012 New Voices titles announced

New young person’s book award sponsored by The Guardian

Going to ALA in June? Stop in to see the new Andrew Carnegie Awards awarded for fiction and nonfiction

Vote for your favorite book bloggers!

Doris Betts: Obituary

Lewis Nordan: Obituary

Dora Saint (Miss Read): Obituary

J.K. Rowling’s next project: a Harry Potter encyclopedia

Metallica is getting a two-volume biography!

The Girl with the Dragon Tatto: the graphic novel!

Pippa Middleton’s book is coming out in October (will it be #1 with a bullet?–couldn’t resist)

Pseudonymous Bosch lands new book deal

A match made in literary heaven? Dickens descendant reads audio version of story by Tolkien descendant

E.L. James makes Time 100 list

New novel coming from Jonathan Safran Foer

Greg Mortenson’s legal troubles aren’t over yet

“S*** Girls Say” gets book deal

Stephenie Meyer: film producer

Cassandra Clare and Holly Black to collaborate on new series

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) to write novel

Ten of the most hilarious memoirs you’ll ever read

Ten great books to read aloud

The 25 most beautiful public libraries in the world

Book sculpting

Book jewelry business

Star in your favorite novel! (For a mere $24.95.)

Bookmobiles from around the world

Ebook and Publishing News

The big news of the week, of course, is about the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple and several publishers, charging them with fixing the prices of ebooks. For an introduction to the story, read this informative summary. The Melville House blog discusses how indie booksellers are against the suit, which the author argues is pro-Amazon. At the Wall Street Journal, the antitrust suit’s outcome on Barnes and Noble is discussed; publishers and the ABA weigh in on the case as well. And now: states are getting in on the action too.

But what does the above all mean for consumers? Considerably more than chump change

And what is Amazon doing during all this? The company’s ebook pricing strategy

Librarians and authors to start discussions of their own about ebook lending; is it true that publishers and libraries just don’t understand each other? Also: does lack of ebook lending put all free access to information at risk?

Baker and Taylor to provide audio digital books to libraries

Amazon’s digital sales up 29% in 2012 first quarter

Coming soon: Amazon Appstore

New features on Barnes and Noble’s latest Nook

Trends and Talking Points

ALA releases list of most challenged books of 2011

Pottermore is open for business!

Amazon exposed!

Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass factory: Barnes and Noble won’t say much about working conditions in its Nook factories

A new role for librarians? Help your patrons do a digital detox!

Want to peruse an original Gutenberg Bible? Soon you’ll be able to, online!

Not a big fan of profanity in picture books? Go the F–k to Sleep gets a new title

New York Times debuts new “By the Book” feature

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans rejoice: new graphic novel series featuring Spike and Willow to be released

Magazines still in a slump

Keeping track of your reading

Social media news: Facebook acquires photo-sharing service Instagram

YouTube partners with Hearst Magazines for more “professional content”

PLA Ebooks 101 Webinar (April 17)

Check out all of PLA’s upcoming webinars, focusing on ebooks

PLA 2012 wrap-up

The social job search

Doing Readers’ Advisory for ebooks

If you can’t wait to see Ender’s Game, this will be bad news: movie pushed back until November 2013

Game of Thrones picked up for third season

Hunger Games sequel will need a new director

AMC developing a new show based on a comic from Walking Dead author Robert Kirkman

The Hunger Games is tops at the box office for the fourth straight week

Maggie Smith is ready to be done with Downton Abbey

Eisner Award: Nominees

Hugo Awards: Finalists

Best Translated Book Awards: Finalists

2012 IMPAC Award: shortlist

2012 Audie Awards: Finalists

2012 Guggenheim Fellows list

BookRiot asks: which book award has the best backlist?

Christine Brooke-Rose: Obituary

Historian Kenneth Libo: Obituary

Katherine Russell Rich, author of well-known cancer memoir: Obituary

Author and publisher Nick Webb (who helped bring about Douglas Adams’s novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has died

Former poet laureate Reed Whittemore: Obituary

J.K. Rowling’s book for adults, A Casual Vacancy, due out Sep. 27. Here’s the plot summary.

Twilight director Chris Weitz to write YA novels

New book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Herman Wouk coming

The last of William Manchester’s books on Winston Churchill to be published…eight years after Manchester’s death

Jules Feiffer to write graphic novel

A real-life Downton Abbey memoir on the way?

Novelist William Boyd to pen next 007 title

Stephen King’s newest release: a Southern gothic musical?

Ten of the most “bad-ass contemporary American poets”

Dr. Phil’s diet plan

Ten contemporary Southern authors you should be reading

Best books on Abraham Lincoln

Titanic Reads (at RA for All); and a list of helpful Titanic resource sites

Celebrate April as National Poetry Month: 10 Poems You Can Memorize Today

Seven degrees of Michiko Kakutani

Most frequently shoplifted books

The most commonly misunderstood fantasy creatures