Publishing saw upheaval in 2020, but 'books are resilient'
(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)NEW YORK โ Book publishing in 2020 was a story of how much an industry can change and how much it can, or wants to, remain the same. To its benefit and to its dismay, publishing was drawn into the events of the moment. Penguin Random House, among other initiatives, asked all employees to read Ibram X. Kendiโs โHow To Be an Anti-Racist.โ Kendi later presided over a company town hall. Macmillan CEO Don Weisberg, who cited a wide range of diversity programs at the publishing house that began before โAmerican Dirt,โ said he โunderstands the skepticism." The CEO of Penguin Random House U.S., Madeline McIntosh, noted how well book publishing could meet the public's needs during the pandemic and other events of 2020.
Virus-hit Paris bookshop Shakespeare & Co appeals for help
A man walks by the closed English and American literature Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 05, 2020. Since sending the email appeal, Whitman says she has been โoverwhelmedโ by the offers of help Shakespeare and Company has received. Founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, Shakespeare & Company became a creative hub for expatriate writers including Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Sylvia Whitman looked to the past for a solution to her new problem. A lot of expats had to leave Paris, as it was too expensive, so she and her friends set up a Friends of Shakespeare and Company,โ Whitman said.
Everyone invited: `Great Gatsby' copyright to end in 2021
NEW YORK, N.Y. โ For decades, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan and other characters from โThe Great Gatsbyโ have been as real to millions of readers as people in their own lives, exemplars and victims of the American pursuit of wealth and status. No longer will you need to permission to write a sequel, a prequel, a Jay Gatsby detective novel or a Gatsby narrative populated with Zombies. It was published in 1925 by Scribner and remains a Scribner book, though now part of Simon & Schuster. She called Fitzgerald's novel โincredibly visual," and was struck by his sense of detail, whether describing cars, emotions or economic status. Fitzgerald's novel has been used in other art forms.