Hearing Set for Google Settlement, Nabokov Covers Redesigned, and More

by
Adrian Versteegh
11.20.09

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

District Court judge Denny Chin has given his preliminary approval to the revised Google Book Search settlement and scheduled a “fairness hearing” for February 18 (Publishers Weekly).

Concerns about a lack of privacy protections in the new Google deal have been raised by law professor Pamela Samuelson and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (Library Journal).

Meanwhile, the nonprofit Copyright Clearance Center is holding an online seminar on December 10 to bring rightsholders up to speed on the revised book-scanning settlement and its new deadlines.

The nominees for this year’s Bad Sex in Fiction award—which will be presented on November 30 by Britain’s Literary Review—include Nick Cave, Jonathan Littell, and Pulitzer-winner Philip Roth (Guardian).

FiledBy, a directory of author Web sites, has incorporated document-sharing technology from online publishing platform Scribd (Publishers Weekly).

The Singapore Writers Festival—which wrapped up earlier this month—included panels on translation and digital publishing, the country’s first week-long literary retreat, and the launch of the most lucrative English-language fiction prize in Asia (Publishing Perspectives).

The magazine of the American Library Association is soliciting submissions for its Library Design Showcase, an annual look at the best new and recently renovated libraries around the country (American Libraries).

To mark the posthumous publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished final work, The Original of Laura, Vintage is re-releasing the author’s back catalogue with newly designed, lepidopterology-inspired covers (Wall Street Journal).