Book links roundup: White House disdains The Obamas book, U.K. stamps honour Roald Dahl, and more

• The White House speaks out against New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s new book, The Obamas
• Slideshow: set of 2012 U.K. stamps celebrates Roald Dahl
• Podcast: author Scott Berkun shares his experiences with traditional versus self-publishing
• GalleyCat reports on efforts to create a used ebook market
• Behind the scenes of a medieval manuscript library’s annual deep clean

S&S asks political commentators to “refrain from commenting” on Obama novel

O: A Presidential Novel, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster, has generated a lot of buzz around the identity of its anonymous author – perhaps too much buzz as far as the publisher is concerned.

According to The Cutline, both Joe Klein – the once anonymous author of Primary Colours – and NBC correspondent Chuck Todd were contacted by S&S publisher Jonathan Karp and asked to “refrain from commenting” on the identity of the author (though Klein has already denied writing the book). In an email, Karp wrote:

On January 25, we’ll be publishing a secret novel simply titled O, about President Obama’s campaign for re-election in 2012. The author of the novel wishes to remain anonymous. You may be asked to comment on whether or not you are the author. If so, it would be great if you refrained from commenting, in solidarity with the principle that a book should be judged on its content and not on the perceived ideology of its author.

The author, an individual with integrity and talent, is someone who has been in the room with Barack Obama and knows the political world intimately. In fact, you may know this person, or know of this person — if you are not in fact the author yourself.

Tellingly, his request coincides with the release of an excerpt on the book’s dedicated Web site, where visitors are encouraged to post comments under the heading “Who Do You Think Wrote O?”

Obama, Rumsfeld books set for winter release

Simon & Schuster unveiled the cover for O: A Presidential Novel, an anonymously authored novel about U.S. president Barack Obama. The cover features a gold “O” bookended by a pair of protruding ears against a blue background.

Set during the 2012 presidential election, the book is described by The Washington Post as:

a novel about aspiration and delusion [...] written by an anonymous author who has spent years observing politics and the fraught relationship between public image and self-regard. The novel includes revealing and insightful portraits of many prominent figures in the political world – some invented and some real.

There’s been a flurry of speculation about the identity of the author, someone Simon & Schuster says “has been in the room with Barack Obama and wishes to remain anonymous.”

A blogger at the Wall Street Journal points out the futility of such conjecture:

In addition to the 469 employees of the White House, the president had 616 visitors there in December 2010 alone, according to records released by the administration.

And since we don’t know that this “room” is the Oval Office, we should probably also include everyone who’s attended a party or town hall or fund-raiser or campaign trail event also attended by Mr. Obama, plus his classmates, students and colleagues over the years.

O isn’t the only work of fiction inspired by American political figures published this winter. Donald by Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott is a novel that publisher McSweeney’s says imagines what would happen if former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “was abducted at night from his Maryland home, held without charges in his own prison system, denied a trial, and kept in a place where no one could find him, beyond the reach of the law.”

The novel is set for release Feb. 8, the same day Rumsfeld’s official autobiography, Known and Unknown, is launched by Sentinel. By no coincidence, the covers of both books are similar — though only one features Rumsfeld in an orange jumpsuit.

Daily book biz round-up: Obama’s kids book hits shelves; Chelsea Handler gets own imprint; and more

Today’s book news:

• Barack Obama’s children’s book released while his predecessor faces plagiarism accusations for his own memoir
• Chinese website apologizes for selling pirated e-books
• Grand Central Publishing launches imprint for comedian Chelsea Handler
• The Guardian calls U.K. author’s sentence in Singapore “a disgrace”
• Diarmaid MacCulloch wins McGill University’s history book prize

Daily book biz round-up: book thrown at Obama; Kindle Singles; and more

Today’s book news:

• Paperback thrown at Obama
• Adam Gopnik wonders what literary prizes are for
• Amazon launches Kindle Singles (not to be confused with Kraft Singles)
• Salman Rushdie to write memoir about years in hiding
• Orange Prize organizers drop award for new writers
• Emma Donoghue’s Room bookshelf

Daily book biz round-up: Oprah’s arrow points to Franzen again; Google mangles your literary faves; and more

Today’s book news:

• MobyLives says that Oprah is picking Freedom (We don’t know who to trust anymore!)
• President Obama to write dull-looking children’s book
• Amazon attacks iPad for being too shiny
• David Foster Wallace archive debuts today
• How Google Voice mangles literature’s most famous opening lines

Daily book biz round-up: Obama reads Franzen; Pope to publish second book; and more

• Obama sets off small panic when he acquires an early copy of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom
• Vancouver bookstore gets an espresso machine that makes books instead of coffee
• German Nobel laureate Günter Grass’s new book, on the Brothers Grimm, to be his last
• The Pope is set to become a two-time author when his second book on Jesus of Nazareth hits shelves in March 2011

Free speech advocates defend anthology about teen homosexuality

Egypt is not the only place where authors run afoul of censorship. It also happens with distressing regularity in the so-called Land of the Free to Canada’s south. In the latest instance, the New Jersey chapter of conservative pundit Glenn Beck’s 9.12 Project has succeeded in getting an anthology of writing and art focusing on teen homosexuality removed from Rancocas Valley Regional High School. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, 9.12 member and local grandmother Beverley Marinelli challenged the book Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology for being “pervasively vulgar, obscene, and inappropriate.”

Marinelli might have a fight on her hands. An article in the Guardian claims the issue has galvanized free speech and pro-GLBT organizations, which are rallying in support of Revolutionary Voices and two other books Marinelli’s group is attempting to get banned:

“There are undoubtedly GLBTQ [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning] students at Rancocas Valley High School, regardless of whether they are openly recognised. Removing any of these titles would send a clear message to those students that they are the objects of social disapproval – different, vulnerable, and marginal – whose needs for information of particular relevance to their lives are not respected,” wrote the directors of a collection of organisations to the school’s board. The letter, the signatories to which include the National Coalition Against Censorship, the National Council of Teachers of English, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, and PEN America, added that there was “no question that these books are not obscene.”

Marnielli, who insists that she “is not a homophobe,” is also trying to get Revolutionary Voices removed from the Lenape Regional High School District, New Jersey’s largest high school district.

When not trying to ban books, Marinelli spends her time protesting “indoctrination” of vulnerable American youth. The Philadelphia Inquirer points out that she recently participated in a demonstration at New Jersey’s B. Bernice Young Elementary School after seeing a video of schoolchildren singing a song praising U.S. president Barack Obama.

She told the Philadelphia Daily News: “We did it for the children.”

Should politicians admit to loving Samuel Beckett?

British Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg professed his love for Samuel Beckett in a Guardian column on Friday. He wrote that Beckett’s work seems more and more subversive to him as the years go by. “It’s that willingness to question the things the rest of us take for granted that I admire most about Beckett; the courage to ask questions that are dangerous because, if the traditions and meanings we hold so dear turn out to be false, what do we do then?”

A bit of a risky statement for a politician, no? Maybe less so for a Brit. The column sparked discussion in the blogosphere over whether or not an American politician would be lambasted for admitting to Beckett-induced existential crises. The Guardian’s Michael Tomasky (an American) was impressed with Clegg.

“You British folks understand, don’t you, that if an American presidential candidate said his hero was Samuel Beckett, he’d be finished. I mean totally finished. He couldn’t even get away with an American equivalent…

“Who’s the American Beckett, Eugene O’Neill? You’d immediately have right-wing blogs (because obviously only a Jesus-hating Democrat would ever conceivably say such a thing) combing through every word the guy ever wrote looking for signs of lack of patriotism, sexual mischief and other alien traits.”

American political blogger Matthew Yglesias disagreed.

“I think Tomasky is actually wrong that it would be deadly. Presidential elections are overwhelmingly determined by the fundamentals. I think people used to think that you couldn’t win a presidential election while being a black man named ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ whose autobiography admits to cocaine use and who used to represent Hyde Park in the State Senate while attending a black nationalist church. It just turns out that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our narrow conventional wisdom.”

Daily book biz round-up, March 29

Your book world news for today:

• Contrary to reports out of Italy, Roth and Grisham both heart Obama
• Stephen King hearts Kindle, hates iPad
• Will e-books put wholesalers out of business?
• Diagram Prize winner: Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes
• Jessica Grant wins Winterset Award
• Get ready for TI2: Long John Silver’s Revenge
• James Franco: dull dramatic actor turned funny comedic actor turned bizarro soap star now becomes author
• Captured on film: Obama purchases books at indie bookstore