Year in Review

The Great Gatsby Nintendo game and the Borders bankruptcy topped our headlines in February.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on the bad news. Visit our Year in Review link as the series unfolds.

1. Top 10 Pirated eBooks at The Pirate Bay
2. Borders Will Close 200 Stores
3. The Great Gatsby Nintendo Game
4. 6 Reasons Why Borders Went Bankrupt
5. Powell’s Books Lays Off 31 Employees

In January 2011, book handbags, bestseller birth years and Chinese mothers dominated our headlines.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on the bad news. Visit our Year in Review link as the series unfolds.

1. How To Turn Your Book into a Handbag
2. Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 Coming 10/25 in Single Volume
3. ‘Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior’ Generates Thousands of Comments
4. Richard Grayson Self-Publishes ‘The Hipster HUCKLEBERRY FINN’
5. What Books Topped Bestseller Lists the Week You Were Born?

The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its annual report on journalists killed while working in 2011–a sad list of writers, photographers and videographers who died to bring us stories.

The group has also published a searchable database of those killed. Remember these fallen storytellers this holiday season.

Here is an excerpt: “The 19 murders recorded in 2011 were the lowest total since 2002. Targeted murders—which historically account for nearly three-quarters of journalist deaths—constituted less than half of the 2011 toll. But murders were reported in both Russia and the Philippines, two countries long plagued by deadly, anti-press violence. In the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, an assassin waited outside the offices of the critical independent newspaper Chernovik and gunned down its founder, Gadzhimurad Kamalov. In the Philippines, CPJ documented the work-related murders of two radio commentators. One of them, Romeo Olea, was shot in the back while riding his motorcycle to work.”

USA Today released its “Top 100 Books for 2010″ list this week, a bestseller list composed of 77 percent fiction. Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium series dominated the top three spots and George W. Bush‘s Decision Points occupied fourth place.

The newspaper also noted: “Stephenie Meyer‘s popularity began to cool off. She accounted for 4% of best sellers the list tracked, down from 11% in 2009. The vampire and paranormal craze among readers isn’t dead, but it’s fading, accounting for just 9% of best sellers, down from 17% in 2009.”

The article also noted that books with movie adaptations do particularly well. It’ll be interesting to see if adaptations (like Kathryn Stockett‘s The Help) will boost sales next year.

The Guardian reports today that Stephanie Meyer has joined the ranks of authors whose books get the most requests to be banned form libraries. The Twilight series debuts at fifth, after To Kill a Mockingbird and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, among others.

The American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom compiles the list by the year and the decade. From their press release yesterday: “A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed or restricted because of content or appropriateness. In 2009, OIF received 460 reports on efforts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.”

The reasons suggested for banning Twilight are cited as “Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group,” remarkably similar to The Catcher in the Rye, which comes in sixth for “Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group.” Seven titles were dropped from the list this year, including Gossip Girl and The Kite Runner.

Read the full list after the jump.

Read more

In August, GalleyCat went Thomas Pynchon crazy, creating that video and uncovering the fact that Pynchon narrated his own book trailer.

William Morris Endeavor made headlines by telling their clients to avoid the controversial Google Books settlement. Author and Journalist Robert Novak passed away.

Sony revealed a brand-new “Daily Edition,” the company’s 3G wireless digital reader–it wouldn’t ship until Christmas. Finally, Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment in $4 billion deal that put hundreds of imaginary characters under one roof.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on our bad news after a long, challenging year for the industry. Visit our Year in Review link to read all about what happened to publishing in 2009. Include your favorite headlines in the comments section…

On Bastille Day in July, author Matt Stewart published his entire novel, “The French Revolution,” on Twitter in a burst of 3,700 tweets. He later landed a book deal with Soft Skull.

At a book party, Salman Rushdie (pictured, via) told GalleyCat about his dinner with Thomas Pynchon. Amazon made headlines when they remotely deleted copies of books on Kindle e-readers.

Finally, Nancy Drew reader and federal judge Sonia Sotomayor received a 13-6 endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

June 2009 began with that special GalleyCat video of Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison defending books against censorship at an intimate Free Speech Leadership Council event.

In sad news, Ann Arbor’s Shaman Drum Bookshop closed in June. Chris Anderson’s admitted to lifting Wikipedia passages in his book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.”

In lighter news, two college kids scored a book deal for “Twitterature.” Finally, we looked at books by the late, great Michael Jackson.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on our bad news after a long, challenging year for the industry. Visit our Year in Review link to read all about what happened to publishing in 2009. Include your favorite headlines in the comments section…

In May’s biggest headline, a blogger spotted similarities between one paragraph of NY Times columnist and author Maureen Dowd‘s weekend column and a post by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Dowd corrected the mistake, and no disciplinary action was taken.

Novelist John Wray unveiled his tattoo of book reviewer Michiko Kakutani at a reading. GalleyCat went to Puerto Rico with the Hunter S. Thompson Travel Agency.

The literary blogosphere buzzed about a sequel to J.D. Salinger‘s famous novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” but GalleyCat had some doubts. Finally, Alice Munro (pictured, via) won the £60,000 Man Booker International Prize.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on our bad news after a long, challenging year for the industry. Visit our Year in Review link to read all about what happened to publishing in 2009. Include your favorite headlines in the comments section…

Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight series scored the biggest headline of April 2009, as the series ruled the top four bestselling books for the first quarter of 2009–16 percent of all books sold during that period.

That same month, Amazon.com bought Lexcycle, the company that made the Stanza Digital Reader AppAIn addition, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced. Creating endless anxiety for publishers, Amazon eBook customers begin to boycott books priced over $9.99. In a calculated response to #queryfail day, hundreds of writers pooled agent complaints in a #agentfail day. Finally, GalleyCat landed in The Wall Street Journal.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on our bad news after a long, challenging year for the industry. Visit our Year in Review link to read all about what happened to publishing in 2009. Include your favorite headlines in the comments section…