The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| ‘Girls’ creator Lena Dunham signs advice book deal Posted: 09 Oct 2012 12:42 AM PDT  Dunham arrives at HBO's post award reception following the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards in West Hollywood, California. — Reuters pic Publisher Random House said yesterday it was "thrilled" to sign Dunham's collection of essays entitled Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned, but declined to comment on financial details. The New York Times, citing unnamed publishing sources, said Random House paid more than US$3.5 million (RM10.7 million) for the 26-year-old's first book after a fierce bidding war. Random House editor-in-chief Susan Kamil described Dunham in a statement as "fresh, wise, so assured. She is that rare literary talent that will only grow from strength, to strength and we look forward to helping her build a long career as an author". According to a description from the publishing company, Dunham's book will "offer frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling to work" and is expected to follow in the footsteps of late filmmaker and author Nora Ephron and former Cosmopolitan magazine editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown. Dunham, who broke out as a actor-writer-director with her debut film "Tiny Furniture" in 2010, has become a rising star with her raunchy television series "Girls", which got four Emmy Award nominations earlier this year. Random House is a unit of European media group Bertlesmann. — Reuters |
| Book fair to look to future via today’s children Posted: 08 Oct 2012 11:49 PM PDT BERLIN, Oct 9 — The Frankfurt Book Fair will spotlight child and youth literature and its role at the avant-garde of the publishing world with playful apps for smartphones and tablet computers as well as interactive games. The media world for children and youngsters breaks new ground for publishers in the digital age by pushing the boundaries far beyond the printed book, say organisers of the world's biggest book fair, which opens tomorrow. Electronics giant Sony and Nintendo, the titan in electronic games, will be among about 7,400 exhibitors at the five-day fair, reflecting innovations in an industry where "content is king", the fair's director said. "Children's and youth media are a prototype for what is happening in the publishing industry but also for what is happening at the moment socially," Juergen Boos told reporters.  Sony will showcase its new Wonderbook device, which under the guise of a classic book links up to a PlayStation console to display 3D images on screen for its young user. — AFP pic As well as homing in on which trends may evolve into universal standards, industry movers and shakers will ponder whether new technology limits the imagination, or encourages it to expand. "In order to keep up with the changing reading and learning habits of future generations, we need to constantly create new formats and develop and expand popular topics and trends," Boos said. He said around 1,500 publishers who deal exclusively with the children and youth market were due to attend the Frankfurt fair, describing the sector as a growth area. The fair not only acts as a kind of "scout" and "navigation system" but is also a forum for bringing together different multimedia representatives to get a project off the ground, said Katja Boehne, the fair's spokeswoman. "When someone has a children's book, they look for musicians, they look for technology companies, they also look for computer games experts and then together a children's book is initiated." Dealing with the development of offshoot products from a book has become a trend at the Frankfurt event, she added. Technological innovation however is not the only way in which children's literature has changed, with content moving away from being either "moral" in style or purely entertaining. "Demanding children's and youth literature, which we now have, has basically also become more entertaining," Boos said, highlighting a children's book about a dysfunctional family by New Zealand writer Kate De Goldi. Education is another major theme at this year's fair which will display a "classroom of the future" offering an insight into how tomorrow's students will learn with interactive or digitised aids. While the book fair has long come to terms with the advent of electronic books and what they mean for their bound rivals, the share of ebooks in the entertainment literature market in Germany remains less than two per cent. "It's not to do with the range, the ebooks are there... it's more a social phenomenon," Boos said of a general attachment in Europe to the physical presence of the printed book as well as its value as an cultural object. New Zealand will this year be in the limelight as guest of honour, bringing around 68 authors and 100 artists to mix with the publishers, writers, agents and sellers from more than 100 countries. With several debt-wracked eurozone countries feeling the pinch, Boehne said they had been pleasantly surprised that attendance figures had remained steady and saw it as a "symptom of the crisis" that exhibitors felt the need to keep in touch with business partners. — AFP-Relaxnews |
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