Plastic Logic Releases E-reader Details, Euro Publishers Want Out of Google Deal, and More

by
Adrian Versteegh
10.19.09

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:

British electronics firm Plastic Logic has announced a January 7 launch for their much-speculated-upon “QUE” e-reader (Gadgetell).

Following last week’s news that David Davidar will helm the new Penguin International, Nicole Winstanley has been tapped to replace him as publisher of Penguin Canada (Quill & Quire).

In discussions with the Association of American Publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Federation of European Publishers has requested that European works be omitted from the still-unresolved Google Book Search settlement (Bookseller).

A contentious panel event last Friday pointed up one of the principal differences between U.S. and European approaches to the book-scanning controversy: “moral rights” (Publishers Weekly).

French publishers are trying to hold their own against Google and Amazon with homegrown responses to digital book distribution (New York Times).

In yet more Frankfurt news, exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer has criticized the international book fair for featuring China as this year’s guest of honor (Reuters).

Best-selling author Kinky Friedman is running—as a Democrat, this time—for governor of Texas in 2010 (Daily Beast).

Life of Pi author Yann Martel has spent the last two years sending unsolicited reading suggestions to Canadian PM Stephen Harper. Sixty-six books later, the fruits of this mostly one-sided literary conversation have been collected in What is Stephen Harper Reading?, out this month from Random House (National Post).