There has been much written about the passing of André Brink in the media and we at Bookmark feel for those in the industry who were touched by this great man. We mark his passing with some heartfelt comments from industry players on how André made a difference in South Africa.
Print book sales for General Trade for the Christmas 2014 season had booksellers worldwide rejoicing, with headlines like “Print is back” and “Death of books greatly exaggerated” leaving physical bookstore owners in a frenzy of delight such as they haven’t known since 2009. Foyles, the UK bookselling chain, said physical book sales had risen 8% over Christmas while Waterstones revealed a 5% increase in December. But closer inspection reveals a more complex interpretation of the surge in sales of print books. Nicolene Finlayson zoomed in for some details.
For the first-time ever, The South African Book Fair 2015 (SABF) will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa’s industrial and cultural centre. It promises to bring to Jozi a literary festival like no other, and will be held at the beautiful and historic Turbine Hall in Newtown on 31 July – 2 August 2015. We would like to invite you to submit ideas and suggestions for the events programme.
Give the gift of reading this April with World Book Day 2015. Organised by the SA Booksellers Association, you will be able to donate childrens’ books for only R15 from participating SA Bookseller members.
Only weeks after Harper Lee announced that To Kill a Mockingbird’s sequel will be published, it is announced that a brand new, previously unpublished Dr. Seuss book has been discovered, and will arrive in bookstores on July 28th!
There’s a revolution going on in publishing. Commercial publishers in South Africa are reluctant to take risks on new authors and new subjects. Vanity publishers are making a killing. But that won’t last forever. There’s a lot of space opening up between these two poles, and it’s in this widening terrain that the independent publishing revolution is taking place.
The recent success of the enhanced ebook edition of American Sniper–which has reportedly sold over 166,000 copies, besting its unenhanced analog in the iBooks Store–has some asking whether a winning formula has been found at last.
Read more on Publishers Weekly
For the first-time ever, the SABF will be held in Johannesburg in 2015. The Fair is for publishers, authors, speakers, book shops and book distributors, librarians and literary agents, and the general public. Be sure to save the date for what promises to be the best fair yet on 31 July – 2 August.
People who read regularly for pleasure have greater levels of self-esteem, are less stressed, and can cope better with difficult situations than lapsed or non-readers, new research for Galaxy Quick Reads has found.
André Brink, one of South Africa’s foremost writers and the author of more than 60 books, has died aged 79. Besides being a beloved teacher for nearly six decades, Brink was something of a literary powerhouse, writes Shaun de Waal about André Brink for the Mail and Guardian.
