2013 has seen a drastic rise in requests to ban books - especially those about race or sexuality - from schools. The Kids' Right to Read Project (KRRP), which is part of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), says that, in the past year, it has investigated 49 book bannings or removals of books from shelves in 29 states, a 53 percent increase from the year before.
Alice Walker
Banned and challenged books get a lot of press during Banned Books Week, but I think it's important to discuss issues like censorship year round and not just for one week at the end of September.
Since most challenges involve material read in schools or marketed to young adults and librarians who serve teen patrons are often at the center of these issues, I thought an overview of books that were challenged in 2013 would be of interest to Hub readers. Of course, this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list,
In May 2010, Open Road published its first ebook from its first author, William Styron. Today, we publish and copublish just over four thousand ebooks from more than five hundred authors.
In just three short years, we have launched our marketing platform and grown our catalog. We began as an epublisher of literary fiction from authors such as Pat Conroy, Alice Walker, Iris Murdoch, Michael Chabon, and James Jones. From that strong foundation, we have expanded to verticals and genres and are now the digital home of a number of titles from a wide variety of writers.When the former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman cofounded Open Road Media in 2009, the publisher was one of the first of its kind: The idea was that it would mine the backlist for books that had never been available as ebooks, snap up the digital rights and publish the ebooks for the first time, thus introducing authors like William Styron and Alice Walker to new audiences.
Nearly four years and 3,000 titles later (with an additional 1,000 titles under contract), the company is still focused around acquiring and marketing backlist titles.
Open Road Integrated Media (www.openroadmedia.com), a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today that Betsy Mitchell will serve as Strategic Advisor for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Mitchell, who has more than 30 years of publishing experience, will spearhead Open Road's acquisition and publishing of backlist science fiction and fantasy titles for its Author Brand Program.
An Open Road/BookMovement survey of BookMovement’s 32,000 book clubs and their e-book reading habits revealed that book clubs are ahead of the e-book curve.
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