The copyright wars are set to continue, with the government releasing a Productivity Commission report arguing for a relaxation of intellectual property laws.
When you borrow a paper book from a library, authors get a small royalty, which is their second most important source of income. Yet if you borrowed an e-book tomorrow, the author would get nothing.
Shirley Hazzard, who passed away this week, was one of the great prose stylists of the last 50 years. A deeply intellectual autodidact, she championed the public duty of writers and the pleasure of reading.
Scorn has a long and humorous history. But a new book on the subject, featuring quotes from Kanye West, Christopher Hitchens and of course, Donald Trump, rather lacks contemporary wit.
If the government decides to remove regional trade protections on the book industry, it should compensate Australian authors. But given how unlikely new funding would be, the best option – for everyone – is to leave well enough alone.
Montaigne anticipated much of modern thought, and was profoundly shaped by the classics. His Essays, so personal yet so urbane, continue to challenge and charm readers.
E-book sales are falling, even though many said they would “kill” print books. Computers and television were also supposed to spell the book’s demise. At one point, people even feared the phonograph.
Behind every place name is a story. A new book catalogues the adventures, mistakes and history behind Australia’s weirdest, from Bungle Bungle to Spanker Knob.
Writers, over the last decade, have been waxing lyrical about the rise of the present tense in English fiction. But this morning I read something entirely new – for me, at least. I read a manuscript written…