paper trail

Dec 3, 2012 @ 12:16:00 am

A scene from the 1962 newspaper strike

Amazon’s Larry Kirshbaum has been promoted to head all of the company’s U.S. publishing endeavors, just as the company prepares to launch a new publishing arm in Europe.

The Guardian unveils its list of the year’s top women in publishing, giving props to Hilary Mantel, E.L. James, J.K. Rowling, Amanda Hocking, Julia Donaldson, and Kate Mosse. Nice list, though we have to ask: What about Katherine Boo, Sheila Heti, Lisa Cohen, or Cheryl Strayed?

A down-and-out church in Boston is considering selling a first edition of the first book published in America to pay for the church's upkeep. The Bay Psalm Book was first published in 1640 as a new translation of psalms done by a group of prominent Puritan ministers. It's expected to attract between $10 and $20 million if it goes up for auction.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the infamous 1962 New York City newspaper strike, Vanity Fair revisits the standoff that shut down seven papers, permanently closed four, and helped launch the careers of journalistic icons like Robert Silvers, Nora Ephron, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, and Pete Hamill.

What has happened to unhappy endings? At Salon, Laura Miller argues that they’ve largely disappeared in our “post-tragic age.” Contemporary audiences aren’t interested in art that isn’t affirmative, and “the film and television industries, with a nervous eye on the bottom line, try first and foremost to please the audience, whether or not the audience knows best. Nobody wants Romeo and Juliet to die, after all.”

At the Atlantic, novelist Ann Patchett reflects on how she became the unofficial spokeswoman for independent bookstores after opening her own in Nashville.