It’s a fact that authors are not always treated as royalty by their publishers. And yet rarely do you see a case like this, where the publisher binds a takedown letter into the book. (”After 50 Years, Passions Persist Over the Publication of ‘Doctor Zhivago’,” by Peter Finn, Washington Post):

MOSCOW — When Sergio D’Angelo arrived in Moscow this month to promote his new book — “The Pasternak Case: Memoirs of a Witness” — the sprightly 85-year-old Italian was immediately greeted with his first bad review.

“This is a disgraceful farce which follows the tragedy of the poet who has given away to everybody the wealth of his soul,” thundered Yevgeny Pasternak, the 84-year-old son of Boris Pasternak, author of “Doctor Zhivago.”

Pasternak’s broadside was not published in any book review, however. To the consternation of a blindsided D’Angelo, it appeared as a dense 20-page epilogue inside the covers of the Russian edition of his memoir.

(Thanks, Dad!)

I suppose we could call this good news for Booklist–less competition?–but really, it’s a dismal trend that seems to be accelerating (”AP Ends Book Reviews, LA Times Also Makes Book Changes,” by Dermot McEvoy):

In a move that echoed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s decision earlier this year to eliminate its book review editor, the Associated Press, according to Editor & Publisher, has decided to discontinue its book review package. “AP is revamping its lifestyles coverage,” Linda M. Wagner told E&P, “to focus more resources on topics like food and parenting, and as a result we are discontinuing the book-review package that has moved through that department.”

According to Wagner, the AP “remains as committed as ever” to covering books, but will do so with reviews and author features in its arts and entertainments departments.

There’s a great tradition of authors missing deadlines, although usually the publishers don’t take the authors to court. From The New York Sun (”Biographer Brinkley Sued to Repay Advance on Delayed Kerouac Project,” by Sarah Portlock):

In a rare move by a publishing house, the Penguin Group is suing a prolific biographer for the return of a $200,000 advance on the grounds he didn’t deliver a manuscript by the contracted due date. The author, Douglas Brinkley, was commissioned in 1998 to write a biography of the 1950s “Beat” writer Jack Kerouac in time for the 50th anniversary of his breakthrough 1957 novel “On the Road.” Because Mr. Brinkley was unable to complete the manuscript in time, the Penguin Group filed suit this week in state Supreme Court in Manhattan to wrest back the $200,000 they had advanced to Mr. Brinkley and the Kerouac estate.

In The Stranger, Paul Constant offers a nice take on Goodreads (”Facebook for Book Nerds“):

It’s a weird monument to the solitary exhibitionism of reading, and it’s addictive - the online equivalent of the glow you get while reading Anna Karenina on the bus, where strangers can see you reading Anna Karenina on the bus.

All book snobs secretly want to expose their reading habits to the world, and this interface makes that possible; it’s book porn.

I ask: aren’t books porn enough? And Constant replies: yes.

(Thanks, Frank!)

In the Los Angeles Times, Josh Getlin asks a number of people whether more is less (”N.Y. Times creates more bestsellers“):

NEW YORK — It has been criticized for being ingrown and unscientific, a weekly work of fiction that — for all its seeming authoritativeness — is shrouded in mystery. So when the New York Times Book Review announced it would begin splitting its paperback bestseller list into two lists, one reserved for quality paperback fiction, a chorus of voices in publishing began parsing What It All Meant.

Some declared it a long-overdue recognition of the importance of so-called trade paperbacks, the larger, more expensive editions that feature works by critically praised writers. Those books have had to compete for spots on the Times bestseller list with smaller, cheaper, glitzier mass-market paperbacks by brand-name authors like Grisham and Baldacci. But critics said the creation of yet another bestseller list threatened to dilute the meaning of the term. And they said it also threatened to dilute the Book Review itself, which announced that, at least initially, the section would lose a page of copy to make room for expanded book listings.

Booklist reviewer, sometimes Likely Stories contributor, pal o’ mine, and all around great guy Frank Sennett has a new book out: FUNdraising: 50 Proven Strategies for Successful School Fundraisers (Corwin). Oh, and did I mention that he’s a serial blogger? Because he’s starting a new blog to further the ideas in the book:

We’ve seen a backlash in recent years against the old-fashioned product sales that force parents to twist arms at the office until colleagues buy items they don’t want or need in hopes that others will return the favor when their children’s fundraisers roll around. Of course, some school sales drives remain welcome traditions in their communities - and more power to those exceptional exceptions, I say.

But where that backlash exists, it isn’t against schools, or even fundraisers. Some communities, shell-shocked by a never-ending stream of sales, have adopted an annual cash-contribution model instead. This shows that participating school families are still willing to support education; they just don’t want to be harassed in the process.

Wouldn’t it be better, though, if schools entertained and delighted those communities with their fundraisers instead of trading annoying sales for obligatory pledges?

Personally, when I underwrite the construction of a new gymnasium, I don’t need to be entertained first. But then I don’t even ask to have my name on the building, either. I’m different that way.

A good start to Banned Books Week, which begins on Saturday (”Prisons to Restore Purged Religious Books,” by Neela Banerjee, New York Times):

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - Facing pressure from religious groups, civil libertarians and members of Congress, the federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to return religious materials that had been purged from prison chapel libraries because they were not on the bureau’s lists of approved resources.

Another good start to Banned Books Week–if you can’t make it to Chicago, you’ll just have to host your own (Banned Books Week Read-Out!):

You are invited to come and celebrate your freedom to read during the 26th annual celebration of Banned Books Week. Join the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, and the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL at the Pioneer Plaza (on Michigan Ave between the Tribune Tower and the Chicago River) on Saturday, September 29, 2007, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., for the Banned Books Week Read-Out!  Local Chicago Celebrities join several acclaimed authors to read passages from their favorite banned and challenged books.  Admission is FREE.

I don’t usually cover this award, but why not? The shortlist for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year has been released (by the Financial Times, natch):

The Age of Turbulence, by Alan Greenspan (Penguin)

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Random)

Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, by Philippe Legrain (Princeton Univ.)

The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co., by William D. Cohan (Doubleday)

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams (Portfolio)

Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, by Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran (Hachette/Twelve)

Most award lists tend to be populated with books that have been kicking around for at least a month or two, but the fast company at the Financial Times has included one book that’s barely a week old (The Age of Turbulence) and one (Zoom) that will be published next week. And they say businesspeople are obsessed with currency.

From Japan (via the Wall Street Journal), a heartwarming story about how enterprising young people are creating inspiring art using everyday technology–a useful lesson reminding us of the way inspiration flourishes in the most unlikely places. What am I talking about? Cell phone novels, of course (”Ring! Ring! Ring! In Japan, Novelists Find a New Medium,” by Yukari Iwatani Kane):

In Japan, the cellphone is stirring the nation’s staid fiction market. Young amateur writers in their teens and 20s who long ago mastered the art of zapping off emails and blogs on their cellphones, find it a convenient medium in which to loose their creative energies and get their stuff onto the Internet. For readers, mostly teenage girls who use their phones for an increasingly wide range of activities, from writing group diaries to listening to music, the mobile novel, as the genre is called, is the latest form of entertainment on the go.

This sample fills me with the sense of zenlike calm I can usually get only from a particularly well-crafted haiku:

Kin Kon Kan Kon (sound of school bell ringing)
(space)
The school bell rang
(space)
“Sigh. We’re missing class”
(space)
She said with an annoyed expression.

Just kidding. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drown myself in Lake Michigan.

Via Bookninja, the incredibly cool book sculptures of Brian Dettmer.

And also a gimmicky lamp-in-a-book that’s kinda sorta cool.