The ebook reader wars are heating up. Sony is planning on releasing a new version of its ebook which will include WiFi access. The device is reportedly being released in September just before the Kindle is launched in the U.K.

Publishers spoken to by The Bookseller refused to talk publicly because of non-disclosure agreements in advance of the launch.
A flurry of reports about a possible new device has also broken out online, after a US chain store manager revealed that a new Reader was being planned for autumn release with “wifi, [a] bigger screen, and more memory”.



Sony refused to confirm or deny the reports when contacted by The Bookseller.
The Bookseller reported last week that a UK version of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader is now widely expected this autumn. Publishers suggested that the US-based retailer was actively planning an October launch for the device.

The Financial Times reported that Apple is launching a new tablet in early 2010, which will compete with the Kindle and that Apple is readying its own online bookstore inside iTunes.



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog

Yann Martel, author of the bestselling Life of Pi has signed a multimillion dollar book discount for a new novel.

The new novel, as yet untitled, was snapped up for a reported $3m (1.8m pounds) in the US following a heated auction, with Canongate landing UK rights last week. Like Life of Pi, it will be an allegory involving animals - this time tackling the Holocaust via the medium of a donkey and a howling monkey. Jamie Byng, who will publish the book at Canongate in 2010, said it was “one of the most ingenious, heart-breaking and strangely gorgeous books” he had read in years. “The absorbing pair of relationships that lie at the book’s heart, one between a donkey and a howling monkey and the other between a writer and an elderly taxidermist, also make this one of the most original books I have ever read,” Byng added.



The book will also, Byng said, discount with the very issue Martel himself is facing: the challenge of how to write another book when you’ve had a success “as unexpected and huge” as Life of Pi. Martel told the New York Times that he decided to tackle the Holocaust in this new novel because he felt that there was a paucity of metaphorical, or imaginative, works produced about it. “I’ve noticed over the years of reading books on the Holocaust and seeing movies that it’s always represented in the same way, which is historical or social realism. I was thinking that it was interesting that you don’t have many imaginative takes on it like George Orwell’s Animal Farm and its take on Stalinism,” he said. “My novel is an attempt to get a distillation on it, and see if there is a way of talking about the Holocaust without talking about it literally.”

Life of Pi has sold more than seven million copies worldwide since it was published in 2002. The publisher has recently released a new edition in the UK, which substitutes the original paintings used in the book for a photographic illustrations. That version is not available in the U.S. yet, but the gorgeous illustrated deluxe version with the original paintings is available at Amazon.com.



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog

The judges for the 2009 Man Booker Prize have announced the longlist of 13 titles - also known as the Man Booker Dozen.

• AS Byatt, The Children’s Book (Random House - Chatto and Windus)
  
• Coetzee, J M, Summertime (Random House - Harvill Secker)
  
• Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze (Random House - Jonathan Cape)
  
• Sarah Hall, How to paint a dead man (Faber and Faber)
  
• Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness (Random House - Jonathan Cape)
  
• James Lever, Me Cheeta (HarperCollins - Fourth Estate)
  
• Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (HarperCollins - Fourth Estate)
  
• Simon Mawer, The Glass Room (Little, Brown)
  
• Ed O’Loughlin, Not Untrue & Not Unkind (Penguin - Ireland)
  
• JamesScudamore, Heliopolis (Random House - Harvill Secker)
  
• Colm Toibin, Brooklyn (Penguin - Viking)
  
• William Trevor, Love and Summer (Penguin - Viking)
  
• Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger (Little, Brown - Virago)
  

The chair of judges, James Naughtie, said, “The five Man Booker judges have settled on thirteen novels as the longlist for this year’s prize. We believe it to be one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly wealthy fictional mix.”



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog

Jeff Bezos has issued an apology for deleting Kindle users’ copies of two George Orwell’s books, 1984 and Animal Farm. Amazon.com had a good reason to pull the books from its own site (the third party seller didn’t have the rights to them), but the company should not have reached into customers’ Kindle databases remotely and removed them.

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful error to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.



With deep apology to our customers,



Jeff Bezos

Founder & CEO

Amazon.com

The backlash over the incident has been huge. So long as Amazon.com stops its practice of deleting content it has alalert sold (even if it refunds the money), we think it’s a acceptable apology. Sony and Apple better be paying attention.



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog

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