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Fall 2011 Announcements: Art & Architecture: The Prisms of Art
Much of the human world, both inner and outer, is explored through art. Werner Herzog's recent documentary about cave art in France made the case beautifully. And any preview of a season's art book offerings—either books of art or about artists—does as well. This particular season is full of big books on big artists, as well as probing titles about artists who themselves probed the interiors of themselves or others.
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Appealing to Romance's Passionate Fans
The newest romance imprint on the scene is Montlake Romance, a division of Amazon Publishing that's causing quite a bit of buzz. Amazon Publishing v-p Jeff Belle gave us a sneak peek into Amazon's first venture into the world of genre fiction.
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Romance Pros, Romance Cons: Focus on Romance 2011
Professional gatherings like the annual Romance Writers of America conference have always been a great way for authors to network with editors, publishers, and other writers. Now publishers are using these events to market titles, find out what fans really want, and build brand recognition.
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Give 'em the Business: Business Books 2011
Though the economy is still fragile, its recovery has been greeted with relief across the publishing world—a spot of indisputable good news for an industry where the consequences of even bright spots like the growth in e-book sales are endlessly debated. Nowhere is the economy's return to health more directly relevant than in the business management category.
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'D' Is for Digital: Reference Books 2011
As Houghton Mifflin Harcourt prepared to publish the fifth edition of its American Heritage Dictionary last November, a question arose: should the work go digital, or should the dictionary continue to be made available in print? The publisher enlisted a market research firm to survey 1,200 people about their dictionary usage.
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Art Still for Art's Sake? Photography Books 2011
For the most part, art and photography books exist in a sphere separate from much of publishing. Many of the stores specializing in these categories are affiliated with cultural institutions, and the books they sell are generally pricey. PW asked buyers at seven bookstores specializing in art what's going on in the category.
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I Spy
On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan, standing near the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, pointed a finger at the looming structure behind him and in a booming voice challenged his Russian counterpart with these stirring words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this plot device!"
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PW Fall 2011 Announcements
Welcome to the PW Fall 2011 Title/announcement issue page. We are now collecting listings from publishers in a new way, assisted by our partnership with Above the Treeline and their Edelweiss catalogue tool.
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On the Front Lines: LGBT Publishing 2011
In examining today's LGBT publishing scene from a variety of perspectives, we've asked four industry players—publisher, editor, agent, and advocate—to give us their outlook on this ever-evolving landscape. In the wake of a noted LGBT bookstore's recent closing, we've surveyed retailers whose LGBT stores are going strong; and we take a look at the LGBT publishing scene's 25-year-old awards program.
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Throne of Gains
On April 17, HBO will premiere the first of 10 episodes of Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, and everyone who publishes epic fantasy is looking for a ride on the series' cinematic coattails.
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Science Fiction Reports For Active Duty
The military and genre fiction have a close and complex relationship. Science fiction "is the #1 choice for young men," says Connie Lefever, whose Coronado, Calif., Bay Books store is popular among service members at nearby bases, and young men don't change their reading habits when they join the military. The same is true of military women, Lefever notes, who share their civilian counterparts' fondness for urban fantasy and paranormal romance.
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Large as Life: Large Print Publishing in 2011
The words "large-print publishing" may never conjure visions of high-profile auctions with houses battling over million-dollar deals that set the heart pounding and the eyes gleaming, but most publishers in the category say that's just fine. In fact, the relative stability of the large-print format has traditionally been a major selling point in a tumultuous industry.
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A Classic Leads the Field
Where do our great sports books come from and what are they about? Vivid recreations of great contests? Lives of great figures? Dissections of famous acts, singular feats, or dramatic blunders? That might be the formula for our great military books, political biographies, and works of social science, but the most enduring sports books tap into another level where sport is connected to something else—about human spirit, national character, and belief.
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The Parent Trap
The Wall Street Journal's provocative January 8 headline alone—"Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior"—would have been enough to spark intense discussion. But coupled with a no-nonsense-tolerated excerpt from Amy Chua's parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin Press, Jan.), that sharply contrasts so-called "Eastern" and "Western" styles of parenting, what resulted was nothing less than a firestorm.
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Why I Write: Rick Steves
We all have pastimes. I don't knit or follow sports. I don't do crossword puzzles. I can't play cribbage. But I do write. I journal (just for myself) when I'm going through tough personal times.
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Three Questions for Paul Theroux
In The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), prolific travel writer Paul Theroux collects insights from other writers, sources he deems "real and reliable travelers—not the sort who boast about their sunny experience in Happyland." We spoke with Theroux about his new book.
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Digitizing the World
Travel guides: the canaries in the digital coal mine. While no category of print books is immune to the changes wrought by growth in e-books and apps, books on travel—with their need for constant updating—lend themselves especially well to digital media.
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Ten Travel Treats
The travel category does not lack for quirkiness. Here are our picks for the 10 most intriguing forthcoming travel books.
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The State of (Fair) Play
A cryptic, taunting criminal tells his targets exactly the number they are thinking of, even though they selected the digits randomly. A murderer walks away from a bloody corpse, leaving tracks in the snow that just end, leaving no evidence of how the killer escaped from the scene.
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The Civil War at 150
The Civil War is a perennial staple for publishers of war and military titles and, with the 150th anniversary of the start of that war occurring in April, publishers are gearing up to offer even more books on the topic.
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