“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who like me and those who can go to Hell.”
-Tommy “The Nightmare” Smith, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
How Do You Even Sell a Book Anymore?
As sales slump, the labour of trying to bottle hype is largely left to writers
“After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
–Philip Pullman
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
–Lois Lowry
How to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans about crossing cold rivers
'Werther's World'-exhibit
2024 will be the 250th anniversary of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, and at the Deutsches Romantik-Museum they'll have a twelve-part exhibit on Werthers Welt -- Werther's World; see also the Börsenblatt report.
I wonder how they'll deal with the 'Werther effect' issue (see e.g.) ...
History is written by the victors, but it's victims who write the memoirs.
Bestselling memoir
Guinness World Records have announced that Kuroyanagi Tetsuko's Totto-chan has now set the record for 'Most copies published for an autobiographical memoir by a single author' -- 25,113,862 copies through 1 September of this year; see also, for example, the Kyodo News report and the Kodansha press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !)..
See also the Kodansha US publicity page for Totto-chan.
The January-February 2024 issue of World Literature Today is now available online, with a spotlight on 'The NSK Neustadt Prize: Gene Luen Yang', as well as the usual variety of good material -- including, of course, the extensive book review section.