Barnes & Noble’s Nook ereader is out of stock, according to the company’s website. They expect to ship it to customers who pre-order the device on the week of January 4th, and Nook gift certificates are available.
From Independent.ie:
Plans by Google in the US to scan millions of books into a giant digital archive have prompted fresh opposition from authors and publishers ahead of a court battle.
Opponents and supporters of the internet giant’s scheme are lining up for a legal fight over a complex deal agreed last year to fix royalty payments to authors.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York will decide in October whether the payment offer made by Google is fair.
The article goes on to note that Google has already scanned seven million out-of-print books. Full story here.
The 2009 Hugo Award winners were just announced:
From The Guardian:
A book looted from a US library during the American civil war has finally been returned, almost 145 years overdue.
The only stipulation of the Illinois handball coach who returned the title – the first in WFP Napier’s four-volume History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France – was that he didn’t have to pay the $52,858 fine.
UK publishing companies are hoping to boost their businesses by creating an online presence via the social networking site Twitter. The site has seen the number of small, independent publishers surge in the last two weeks, as companies are using the service to interact with their market.
The Daily Telegraph has the full story.
The New York Times has a story today that mentions, among other things, the recently cancelled plans for a $5 million expansion to Powell’s Books.
An architect had already prepared the drawings. His bankers had signaled that financing was available. But the project no longer looked prudent, Mr. Powell concluded — not with sales down nearly 5 percent, stock markets extinguishing savings, home prices plunging and jobs disappearing.
Full article here. It’s only the first few paragraphs that talk about Powell’s, but it’s still worth a read for anyone who’s visited the bookstore or has an interest in it.
The Guardian books blog notes that the movie trailer for Where the Wild Things Are is out. The film is based on the classic children’s book by the same name (Wikipedia article on it is here) and will be released on October 16th.
From The Guardian:
The Vatican looks likely to call for a boycott of Angels and Demons, the prequel to the blockbuster film adaptation of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
Official Vatican newspaper Avvenire reported on Friday that it “cannot approve” of Ron Howard’s film, which is based on the eponymous book by Brown and opens worldwide on 15 May. The report prompted suspicions that the church is gearing up to call for a new boycott, after urging Catholics not to see the first film.
…except they are reputedly worried that a boycott could backfire and drive additional sales to the film. Full story here.
