By Hannah Bennett
Several big announcements and interesting articles caught my eye this week, necessitating another roundup! In case you missed your publishing industry news this week, here are some great articles to catch up on.
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Let’s start big, with the announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Acclaimed Chinese novelist Mo Yan won the 2012 Prize, making him the first Chinese citizen to win for Literature. The GalleyCat article “Mo Yan Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature,” written by Jason Boog and published on October 11th, is a great resource for learning more about Yan and his work. The article links to information on his career and free samples of some of his books, which are known for merging history and folk tales, fantasy and reality.
Next, a court decision this week could have a major impact on the publishing industry. Federal Judge Harold Baer dismissed a suit against HathiTrust, ruling that their book-scanning operation was in fact fair use. The Authors Guild had filed a copyright infringement suit against HathiTrust, much like the suit they filed against Google. In the October 11th Publishers Weekly article “Google Scanning Is Fair Use Says Judge,” Andrew Albanese explains how the precedent set in this lawsuit could affect the long-awaited verdict on Google’s book-scanning practices.
The National Book Award finalists were also announced this week! On Wednesday, 20 finalists were announced for the National Book Awards in fiction, nonfiction, young people’s literature, and poetry. Some of the finalists include Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, and Patricia McCormick. For more information about this year’s awards, check out the Washington Post article “National Book Award Finalists Annouced,” written by Ron Charles and published on October 10th.
Yesterday’s post by Susannah Greenberg, Where Are the Women CEOs in the Book Industry?, highlighted the extremely important issue of gender inequality in the workplace. But my final featured article, published by the Huffington Post on October 1st, looks at how women are shaping the industry regardless. While women may not be well represented in the upper echelons, the editorial “When A Woman’s World is Gold: How Women Are Redefining the Publishing World” by Daleen Berry focuses on the influence women have over the publishing industry, and the new doors that are opening.
