Winnie the Pooh sequel

After almost 90 years a sequel to AA Milne's The House at Pooh Corner has been authorised by the trustees of the Pooh Properties. It is scheduled to be published later this year.

In Return to the Hundred Acre Wood author David Benedictus picks up from the ending of the last Pooh book, The House at Pooh Corner, in which Christopher Robin is growing up and heading away to school.

Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner was first published in 1926 and 1928. Milne wrote the books for his son Christopher Robin. Pooh was his teddy bear.

Waterstone's is already drooling over a massive Christmas 2009. Let's hope that it does not turn out to be depressingly lame like the last James Bond by Sebastian Faulks, or The Tales of the Beedle Bard.

A sign of the times

It is official: second-hand book sales are up. According to the Arts Correspondent, Stephen Adams of The Telegraph, second-hand booksellers 'have recorded a bumper year as cost-conscious readers try to save their pounds as the recession bites ...'

The report says that some of Britain's second-hand booksellers have reported "significant" rises in sales while the market for new books has dipped. And it is not just the independents that are benefiting. Amazon.com has reported that 30% of its sales actually come from "third party units". These are items sold through the website by other retailers like independent bookstores and individuals (though this category also includes new books and non-book items).

And in another development Amazon.com has also acquired Abebooks.com, which has over 110 million used, rare and out-of-print books listed from thousands of independent booksellers around the world. This is new respect for old books indeed.

Also on a similar note, Motoko Rich of The New York Times writes in a story, Puttin' Off the Ritz: The New Austerity in Publishing: "For decades the New York publishing world promised a romantic life of fancy lunches, sparkling parties, sophisticated banter and trips to spots like the Caribbean to pitch books to sales representatives. If the salaries were not exactly Wall Street caliber, well, they came with a milieu that mixed cultural swagger with pure Manhattan high life."

So it is possible that sanity finally returning to the book industry after decades of nonsensical hype. This can only be good for serious book people. The rest can go back to selling groceries.

One can only hope.

The Telegraph
The New York Times

Taslima Nasreen to live in Paris?

Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasreen, is under death threat from Islamist extremists who accuse her of blasphemy. She is to take up residence in Paris. Ms Nasreen was made an honorary citizen of Paris in July 2008. She put in an application for housing recently.

Municipal authorities have provided her with a large studio in the east of the French capital, and will initially pay her rent. When she was given honorary citizenship, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said, "You are at home here, in the city where it was proclaimed that men are born and remain free and equal and nobody can be condemned for their beliefs."

A gynaecologist by training, Ms Nasreen was forced to flee her native Bangladesh in 1994 after her novel Lajja (Shame) about the persecution of a Hindu family by Muslims in Bangladesh drew accusations of blasphemy. She spent several years moving between Europe and the United States before settling in Kolkata in 2004. But in September 2007 a movement in West Bengal by Islamic extremists and communist sympathizers demanded her expulsion from India. She has been forced to leave Kolkata and seek refuge in New Delhi where she was kept 'in safe custody' by the government.

As much as she wanted to live in India, Taslima had to finally leave to escape the 'death sentence'. "I get food and necessities, but I don't have freedom even to step out of where I am being confined ...,' she said. So, it was back to Sweden where she was given a free furnished apartment in Uppsala, with living expenses.

So far there has been no comment from her about the 'Paris decision'.

The Telegraph

Year-end roundup

Winnie the Pooh sale sets record

And on a more upbeat note, a BBC report says that a collection of EH Shepard's original drawings for the Winnie-the-Pooh children's books has fetched GBP1.26m at an auction in London.

"He went on tracking, and Piglet... ran after him" was sold for GBP115,250.00 while another drawing, "Bump, bump, bump - going up the stairs", sold for GBP97,250.00 at Sotheby's auction house. Also auctioned were limited edition and signed books by author AA Milne and a first US edition presentation copy of Winnie the Pooh, dated 1926, inscribed by the author to Shepard and including an eight-line verse.

The Man Booker sponsor exposed to rogue trader

The financial services company that sponsors The Man Booker Prize is reported to have about US$360 million in funds linked to Bernard L. Madoff, the rogue Wall Street executive accused of defrauding clients of more than US$50 billion.

Man Group, a publicly traded investment company and hedge fund has been sponsoring the Booker since 2002. But a spokesman for the company has said, "There's absolutely no reason to suggest that there would be any difference to the sponsorship deal we have at the moment."

Suppliers to Borders lose trading cover

As the financial crisis deepens, a leading credit insurer, Euler Hermes, is withdrawing cover for suppliers to Borders UK, Borders Eire, The Book People and Books etc.

Credit insurance in the UK protects suppliers against losses if a company they supply to collapses. Euler Hermes UK says they are taking this line of action due to "challenging" economic conditions in the UK. Following this withdrawal of credit insurance, suppliers could expect better terms from the affected retailers, such as up-front cash payments.

A spokeswoman for Borders in the UK said the move had "absolutely no implications", while The Book People suggested Euler's move was a reflection of the difficulties facing the industry as a whole rather than an indication of problems at the retailer.

Meanwhile, Woolworths, the oldest chain, is expected to close its 600 stores early 2009. Zavvi, the former Virgin Megastore, has gone into administration, as has Whittard of Chelsea and Officers Club, the menswear chain. Another report suggests that as many as 15 retail chains in the UK could go under by the middle of next month due to poor December sales. Analysts expect a profit warning from Marks & Spencer due to a poor Christmas, and advised selling of shares in Carpetright, Debenhams, Topps Tiles, Findel, and Home Retail Group that owns Homebase and Argos.

So what happens to the book industry? Here is something from Shelf Awarness: '... we can only hope that publishers will return to their roots and work with booksellers to enhance backlist opportunities and develop new authors. If that could happen, it would be the best present our industry could wish for during this challenging holiday season.'

Meanwhile in Malaysia, we continue to whistle in the dark. Happy New Year.

Plans to hit books by criminals

From a Guardian report.

The plan is, apparently, pretty simple: commit a massively heinous crime, go through a highly publicised trial, and then write a book about it and sell it for a huge advance from an international publisher. Or so it seemed with the government in the UK planning to introduce a new legislation to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes.

Publishers' response have been that the plan is unfeasible and that it is an attack on free speech. There are no details on the form the said legislation would take, except that it would be an "introduction of a UK-wide civil scheme for the recovery of profits from criminal memoirs."

Reportedly this would not affect serial hostage-taker, Charlie Bronson, convicted Northern Ireland terrorist 'Mad Dog' Jonny Adair, (reformed) armed robber, John McVicar, and (former) drug smuggler Howard Marks, with the last two becoming respected authors, because Ministry of Justice has said 'that the scheme would be unlikely to attempt to retrieve profits retrospectively'.

Publishers have accused the government of imposing "... another squeeze on freedom of expression" adding that, "... the truth is that many people who have committed a crime have been rehabilitated by being able to write" and that it would "set a highly dangerous precedent for state control of publishing..."

Simon Juden, chief executive of the Publisher's Association, says "Clearly no one wants really bad people to make lots of money from their crimes, but equally it is helpful for society to understand criminality and criminal behaviour. The second point is that some of the most potentially offensive stuff wouldn't come from people convicted of something. For example, Nelson Mandela couldn't publish stuff because he was convicted of a crime, but OJ Simpson could, because he wasn't. It's possibly targeting the wrong people."

The Guardian