In response to protests from writers, artists and scholars, the New York Public Library has altered plans on the $300 million renovation of the flagship Fifth Avenue branch. Rather than move millions of volumes into the library into off-site storage in New Jersey, an $8 million donation has made it possible to build enough storage space in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building to keep 3.3 of the library’s 4.5 million books in the building, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Film producer Scott Rudin, publishing veteran Frances Coady, and IAC chairman Barry Diller have formed a partnership with the startup company Atavist to form a new publishing venture. They will start off with a line of e-books.
Despite what British betting organization Ladbrooke’s thinks, literary insiders are guessing that Bob Dylan will probably not win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Apropos of Michael Chabon’s new novel, Slate wonders whether white authors can write effectively about black characters.
Meanwhile, Carolyn Kellogg at the Los Angeles Times wonders whether writing improves when it’s done in the buff.
Four months before Amanda Knox’s memoir is expected to hit shelves, ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito has released his own book about the murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher while the girls were studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. According to the Guardian, the book “makes a slew of new claims about what he says was sloppy police work leading up to his conviction and what actually happened that night,” including several that contradict Knox’s.
