Leaders from the book industry and the American Library Association gather next week in New York City. The Association of American Publishers has invited them to share perspectives on a growing controversy over e-book pricing. For the moment, as the diplomats might say, the dialogue is business-like. That could change, though, observes Andrew Albanese of Publishers Weekly.
“As this dialogue began between ALA and publishers, the library community was committed to talking. Less than a year later, those talks have not yielded any progress,” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “As ALA midwinter approaches in a few months, I think you will see a very serious shift in strategy.”
From the weekly review of PW reviews, Rose Fox, who blogs at Genreville, tells of a new non-fiction work from Nobel Prize–winning Nigerian writer and activist Wole Soyinka. In Of Africa, Soyinka sees unique potential for Africa to act as a conduit for peace at a time of global crisis. “Soyinka uses the 2001 Millennium Commission report on Africa spearheaded by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan as a springboard to both assess critical problems and challenges—from high-level corruption to interethnic fighting, famine, disease, religious and racial violence, and postcolonial economic dependency,” says Fox.
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Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.