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Medical researchers in Asia, Europe and the United States are working around the clock on ways to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, hunting for clues and crunching data from decades of studies on pathogens similar to the new coronavirus. The importance of that research was stressed on Friday when science authorities from 12 countries, including the US, Italy, and South Korea, released a statement urging corporate publishers of academic papers to make all relevant information openly and quickly available. “[We] urge publishers to voluntarily agree to make their Covid-19 and coronavirus-related publications, and the available data supporting them, immediately accessible,” it...

Chapters and worse With all his merchandising ventures — steaks, vodka, clothes, deodorant — why didn't Donald Trump ever start a book-of-the-month club? Though he's not much of a reader himself, the Trump name is showing Oprah Winfrey-like power in the publishing world. Even with a million copies printed, Simon & Schuster is struggling to keep up with demand for Bob Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House." Amazon ran out of hardcover copies after Tuesday's first day of sale. Now Stormy Daniels has announced she will have a book out on Oct. 2 that will include details of her...

James Woods probably won’t be happy about this. The outspoken conservative actor this spring led outcry over the fact that Vogue magazine and other leading women’s magazines have failed to put Melania Trump on their covers since her husband became president. Now comes news that Vogue, the nation’s premier fashion magazine, will serve up a high-gloss spread (though not cover shot) of Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who claims she had a sexual encounter with future President Donald Trump in July 2006, a few months after Melania Trump gave birth to their son Barron. The Huffington Post reported that...

The billionaire owner of hyperlocal news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist shut them down Thursday — just a week after staffers voted to join a union. Joe Ricketts, a supporter of President Trump who made billions as the founder of TD Ameritrade, yanked the sites at 5 p.m. and sent an email to employees to let them know they lost their jobs. “I’ve made the difficult decision to begin the orderly wind down of the DNAinfo/Gothamist business,” Ricketts wrote. “Reaching this decision wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t one I made lightly,” he said in the email, most of which was also...

Chelsea Clinton ripped off an upstate author when she published her best-selling feminist kids book, “She Persisted,” a federal lawsuit claims. Christopher Janes Kimberley, 56, of Albany, is suing the former first daughter and Penguin Random House for copyright infringement, seeking up to $150,000, according to the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Southern District of New York court. “I did months of painstaking research on my book. Her version looks like a ninth-grade homework assignment,” he vented to The Post. “I am in disbelief.”

If there’s any doubt left that we live in divisive political times, know this: Some fans of Harry Potter are burning their copies of the books to protest author J.K. Rowling’s views of the U.S. president. And she’s fighting back on Twitter, insulting those very fans. That’s right, one of the most beloved series of books in modern history has now become a political prop. Is nothing safe? (TWEETS-AT-LINK) Rowling has been vocal about her feelings concerning President Trump for some time. She has mostly used Trump’s favorite platform, Twitter, to share her criticisms....

As the finale of the 2016 USA presidential election looms closer Donald Trump is easily beating Hillary Clinton amongst printing executives. A total of 62 per cent of printing executives in the USA are throwing their support behind Trump, while Clinton only managed to win just 28 per cent of respondents. According to a survey directed at industry executives, out of the four major industries polled, Trump managed to score the most votes from printers. In a white male-dominated industry, it is not surprising the majority of American printers have joined the Trump camp. Male voters are a crucial pillar...

Although few talk about it publicly, I continue to be astonished by the rotten fruit in the Christian book publishing industry. I feel almost forced to say this at the outset: There are still good publishers. There are still good authors. There is still some good material being produced. It’s just not mostly in the popular categories/circles (makers). Checking out Christian retailing online the other day was a real downer. Among the top-selling books/authors making their rounds through evangelical circles: "Jesus Calling," "The Power of I Am" (Joel Osteen), Thom Rainer, Rick Warren, Jen Hatmaker, Steven Furtick and "Half Truths"...

Soldier of Fortune magazine to stop publishing after 40 years Long the beacon in the newsstand for those who yearned to meet interesting people in far off lands- and maybe get into a firefight with them, will fade away to digital only starting in April. Founded by renowned international man of mystery, Vietnam-era Green Beret Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, "The Journal of Professional Adventurers" based in Boulder, Colorado will no longer appear in print form moving forward

I would like to tell you about the biggest lie in book publishing. It appears in the biographies and social media profiles of almost every working "author" today. It’s the word "best seller." This isn’t about how The New York Times list is biased (though it is). This isn’t about how authors buy their way onto various national best-seller lists by buying their own books in bulk (though they do). No, this is about the far more insidious title of "Amazon Bestseller"-and how it’s complete and utter nonsense. Here's what happened in the book industry over the last few years:...

Real-estate tycoon Donald Trump has a new book coming out: "Crippled America." The Republican presidential candidate discussed how he named the book at a Wednesday campaign rally in Iowa. "I was going to say the 'Make America Great Again Book.' Eh, it's too nice, because our country's in trouble," Trump recalled thinking. "Then I was going to say 'Greatness in America.' Then I said, 'It's too nice.'" But then the business mogul said an angry photo of himself inspired a harsher title. "Then I had a photographer come up. Then I said, 'Do you think I should be smiling?'" Trump...

Classified U.S. government information was found in the cells of high-value detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison that houses the world’s most dangerous terrorists, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic. Here’s the problem everybody should be talking about. The media was up in arms yesterday at news of Murdoch's high-profile acquisition. Here's what you should know. The news that National Geographic has now been placed in the hands of Rupert Murdoch prompted a predictable outcry, roughly akin to what happens in the movies when the clearly evil tycoon takes the orphans away. A bastion of popular science is now controlled by a very prominent climate change denier who, despite his company’s assurances of editorial integrity, has spent decades interfering with the independence of his...

The latest New York Times bestseller list has Ted Cruz's A Time for Truth at number 8. Just above him is former President Jimmy Carter's A Full Life, coming in at 7. The strange thing, however, is that Cruz sold almost 60 percent more copies of his book last week than Carter. According to Bookscan, which tracks the number of books sold, Cruz sold 8,814 last week. Carter sold only 5,147. The New York Times list does not indicate either author's books were purchased in bulk orders. Cruz was left off the list the first week his book came out...

Homophobic Everyone knew that the Supremes’ obscene gay marriage decree would lead to churches being sued for not betraying their faith with sacrilegious parodies of wedding ceremonies. But this enterprising homofascist decided to cut to the chase and go right after the Bible: A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress. According to the Christian Post, ex-con turned author Bradley LaShawn Fowler filed the federal suit in the...

"....The controversy over the Hugo Awards contains elements of a good dystopian science fiction story. Unfortunately, the media brat-fit over the successful effort to rescue escapist fantasy literature from its political pursuers comes not from the pages of Brave New World but from Slate,Salon, and Entertainment Weekly.Like sports, video games, and cake baking, science fiction strangely finds itself in the crosshairs of ideological killjoys. Perhaps it was only a matter of time and space before the genre obsessed with time and space became a culture-war battlefield.“To many of the people involved in this industry, politics and message trump entertainment or...

Oxford University Press Bans Use Of Pig, Sausage Or Pork-Related Words To Avoid Offending Muslims 14 Jan 2015 The Oxford University Press has warned its writers not to mention pigs, sausages or pork-related words in children's books, in an apparent bid to avoid offending Jews and Muslims. The existence of the publisher's guidelines emerged after a radio discussion on free speech in the wake of the Paris attacks. Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, presenter Jim Naughtie said: "I've got a letter here that was sent out by OUP to an author doing something for young people. "Among the things...

Michel Houellebecq, who first stirred controversy with sex novel Atomised, makes waves with book describing country after Islamist becomes president. Put France’s literary enfant terrible together with Europe’s most combustible political talking point, and sparks were always going to fly. Michel Houellebecq, whose tale of sex, mother-hatred and cloning Atomised was the French literary scandal of the Nineties, is turning his attention to “Islamisation”. His new novel Soumission (Submission), will not be published until January 7 but has already triggered a flurry of accusations that he is pandering to the growing Islamophobia gripping France. It is set in 2022 and...

By the time John Kennedy Toole won the Pulitzer Prize for his great American novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, he had been dead for 12 years. Toole reportedly killed himself in part due to years of frustration over unsuccessful attempts to get his outrageously funny book about New Orleans published. It was only after his mother browbeat author Walker Percy into taking up the cause that Louisiana State University Press published the book in 1980. The following year, it won the Pulitzer for fiction. It went from being considered a cult classic to a must-read: More than 1.5 million copies...

Book Publishing Needs Socialism to Save It Let me just state up front that I love America and wouldn’t live anywhere else but, I also believe there’s room for a blend of socialism and capitalism to exist in a democratic society, and when it comes to how books are sold or treated, I prefer what the French and other advanced nations do. They protect books and the printed word. I applaud them—and so should you. Here in the U.S., thanks largely to Amazon, books have become commoditized. You can buy clothes based on price—or a desk or the hotel you...