Apparently, the Heene family has cribbed a page from Edgar Allan Poe. Though the family recently created a media circus with the false claim that their son had floated away in a helium balloon, the idea of a balloon hoax is not original. According to The Guardian, the April 13, 1844 issue of the New York Sun reported an exclusive account of the balloon “Victoria” crossing the Atlantic Ocean in just 75 hours. The newspaper published excerpts from the diary of the balloon’s navigators, and the story culminated with their “sighting” near the South Carolina coast. But, the entire account was revealed as a hoax a couple days later, with Edgar Allan Poe named as the perpetrator. (A real balloon would not make the transatlantic trip until 1919, when the British dirigible R-34 arrived in New York after a 108 hour voyage.) Always the master storyteller, Poe loved a good hoax, and the balloon story was just one of five hoaxes that he contrived through out his life. Like the Heenes, he was thrilled at all the public attention surrounding his fabrication: “. . . I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper.” Poe beat the Heenes to the punch by 165 years, though it seems unlikely that the family knew about the original hoax. At least no one has cause to call child protective services on Poe.

Read more…

Retail giants Walmart, Amazon and Target have come under fire recently for starting a price war on new hardcover titles, and pricing mom & pop bookstores out of the market. Walmart fired the first shot earlier in the month by offering online customers the chance to pre-order 10 of the holiday season’s hottest new books, including titles from Stephen King, John Grisham and Sarah Palin, for only $10. Amazon and Target then entered the fray and the pre-order price was whittled down to just $8.98. In the aftermath, The American Booksellers Association, which represents independent bookstores, wrote a letter to the Justice Department calling for an investigation of this “predatory pricing”. The ABA’s letter accused the mammoth retailers of selling the books at a loss in order to “win control of the market for hardcover best sellers.” Target, Amazon and Walmart are able to offset these losses, but independent booksellers operate on much slimmer profit margins and do not have this luxury. These price wars could not have come at a worse time for small bookstores, since the weakened economy and the rise in e-book popularity have steadily eaten away at their profits.

Read more…

Barnes & Noble debuted Nook on Tuesday evening, and announced the new eBook reader will be shipping in November. Nook offers several advantages over Amazon’s Kindle 2, most notably the 3.5″ color touch screen at the bottom of the E-ink display. The touch screen utilizes technology similar to the iPhone, and can be used to navigate content, purchase eBooks, or browse downloaded tiles by book cover. Nook can connect through AT&T’s 3G network, or through free Wi-Fi at all Barnes & Noble retail stores. While in store, users can browse any complete book for free, just as they would a real book. This feature is another key advantage over the Kindle 2, since Amazon has no brick and mortar storefronts and is unable to provide content in this way. One of the drawbacks of eBook readers has been that titles cannot be shared or loaned for free. Barnes & Noble has addressed this issue by allowing certain titles to be lent to friends for free for up to two weeks. eBook borrowers will not need a Nook to read titles, they can be viewed using an iPhone, Blackberry, Mac or PC. This borrowing option is up to the publisher, so Barnes & Noble is currently working with the major publishing houses to enable this feature on more titles.

Read more…

"Dark Carnival" by Ray Bradbury ©1948

Literary icon Ray Bradbury will unveil a different kind of artistry next week, with his first public showing of a new giclée print at the Santa Monica gallery Every Picture Tells a Story. The author best known for the acclaimed books The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 has been painting since the 1930′s, and often depicts subject matter inspired by his writing. Such is the case with his new print, made from a darkly ominous oil painting completed in 1948, un-offically titled Dark Carnival after his collection of short stories with the same name. In an interview with “Hero Complex” columnist Geoff Boucher, Bradbury explains the inspiration for this piece: “I didn’t like the original cover that was on the book when it came out so I designed my own. I made this painting and hoped that someone would use it as the cover in the future.” Several decades later, Bradbury’s hope became reality when Gauntlet Press printed a Dark Carnival special edition in 2001, which featured his painting on the cover.

Read more…

David Garrick as Richard III (detail) by William Hogarth

Did history and literature give Richard III a bad rap? Shakespeare immortalized the English king as a Machiavellian tyrant, and history has branded him as a hunched-backed villain, rumored to have murdered two princes in order to secure his ascension to the thrown. But according to author Philippa Gregory, Richard III may have just been misunderstood. In a recent interview with the LA Times, she discusses her new historical novel The White Queen (Touchstone, 432pgs), and her surprising take on this controversial figure. “It’s an act of historical recovery,” she says, “…history, of course, gets told by the victors. That’s what Shakespeare tapped into in his play about Richard — that and a medieval belief that a malformed mind led to a malformed body.” Gregory argues that there is historical evidence that supports a case for Richard’s innocence and for the guilt of the Tudor family, who eventually took Richard’s life and his thrown during the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

Read more…

Concept cover (left) and final cover (right). ©2009 Scribner

Almost everyone judges a book by its cover. A compelling cover design helps cut through the media clutter; even book covers for today’s best selling authors have become more creative and elaborate. When designing the cover art for Jeannette Walls’ latest novel Half Broke Horses (Scribner, 270pgs), designers at Scribner explored several different cover concepts before finding the right fit. Walls’ family memoir The Glass Castle topped the best sellers list in 2005, and Half Broke Horses is a follow up of sorts. The “true-life novel” recounts the experiences of her larger-than-life grandmother, Lily Casey Smith.

Read more…

Grammy winner David Byrne is best known as the lead singer and founder of the iconic group Talking Heads. Recently, the singer/songwriter has changed creative gears, and written a new book about his bike riding travels around the world: Bicycle Diaries (Viking, 304pgs). An avid cyclist for more than 20 years, Byrne rides his bike almost everyday at home in New York City, and often takes a portable bike with him on tour. Byrne feels that hitting the streets on two wheels is a unique way to experience the pulse of a city. “On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one’s own town.”

Read more…

Stephen King fans can’t wait to see what’s Under the Dome. Over the past couple weeks, the cover artwork for his new book Under the Dome has been revealed in stages at: stephenkingunderthedome.com. The final reveal will be on Monday, October 5. King conceived the idea for the cover, and Scribner art director Rex Bonomelli worked with artists in the U.S. and abroad to realize the vision. The artists used a combination of illustrations, 3D renderings and photographs to bring the cover to life.

©2009 Simon & Schuster

Read more…

Amid the nation’s economic woes, the publishing industry has enjoyed a boom this September. With the debut of Dan Brown’s new blockbuster The Lost Symbol, Ted Kennedy’s autobiography True Compass, and a little help from Oprah, book sales have soared past comparative totals from last September. Let’s hope this surge in sales instills the public with a lasting interest in reading good, old-fashioned books.

Read NPR Article

Did you know that To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye and The Bible have all been banned books? The American Library Association is celebrating the freedom to read during Banned Books Week (Sept. 26−Oct. 3, 2009). Check out one of the titles on ALA’s banned book list, and exercise your First Amendment right to intellectual freedom.

Learn more about Banned Books Week.