Book biz roundup: zombie Salinger still publicity-shy, Nabokov was right about butterflies, TED gets into e-books, and more

• A year after his death, J.D. Salinger is still shunning the spotlight
• Vladimir Nabokov’s theory about a particular species of butterfly gets confirmed by scientists
• TED, the ongoing lecture series (conference? symposium? smartypantsium?) is starting an e-book line
• Ukrainian poet and playwright Anna Yablonskaya among the victims of Monday’s bombing in Moscow
• Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood gets yet another ending
• U.S. senator Scott Brown seeks to combine book tour and re-election campaign

Daily book biz round-up: Oprah likes Dickens; Atwood likes Wilkie Collins; and more

Today’s book news:

• Oprah chooses two Dickens classics for her book club
• PW names the notable newsmakers of 2010
• Borders may take over Barnes & Noble
• Margaret Atwood likes Wilkie Collins
• A new web hub for teenage authors is launched
• Natalie Portman wears Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a handbag

Vladimir Nabokov’s letters to be published

During 52 years of marriage, Vladimir Nabokov penned numerous letters to his wife, Vera. Next year, Knopf will release about 300 of these mostly unpublished missives under the title Letters to Vera. According to the RT, a Russian news channel for English speakers, the letters describe Nabokov’s author acquaintances, address the Russian-American novelist’s living conditions, and foreshadow some of the ideas and scenes present in his later works.

Here is the full interview:

Nabokov backlist gets a face lift

The Original of Laura, Vladimir Nabokov’s final work, has just been released. To coincide with its publication, Vintage has commissioned new cover designs for the 21 Nabokov backlist titles to which it owns rights.

Of course, publishers do this kind of repackaging all the time. (HarperCollins Canada recently did likewise for a couple of Douglas Coupland titles.) What makes this particular instance interesting is the way the covers were created. According to print magazine, John Gall, Vintage’s art director, commissioned a number of well-known designers, but told them they had to work within certain parameters:

Gall gave the designers one stipulation: each cover would be a photograph of a specimen box, a nod to Nabokov’s passion for butterfly collecting. Within the framework of the box, and using layers of paper and insect pins, the designers were free to create more or less what they wished. The new versions have been rolled out as existing back stock of old editions are depleted. “I thought that using the different designers would be a way to keep people interested in what was coming,” Gall says. “People stop paying attention after the major books are issued. I wanted them all to be important. So many backlist redesigns just slip themselves onto the bookshelves barely noticed.”

The article contains examples of the resulting work, including the covers for the novels Glory and Despair, and the memoir Speak, Memory. One of Quillblog’s favourites is the redesign of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, which features a stark red, white, and black colour scheme, with an open book “pinned” inside the box.

On the print site, designer Sam Potts explains the rationale behind the cover:

The specimen box was daunting because it’s such a great idea as a frame for the whole series that I was intimidated to come up with something that would serve the series well. The idea of the small book came directly from the novel itself – it’s the story of the narrator’s pursuit of another author, who is his brother. So the book-within-a-book is embedded in the story itself. Luckily, John liked the idea and we went ahead with it. Hopefully people will see the connection between the splayed book and the way butterflies are splayed in specimen boxes.

Bookmarks: historical vampires, Nabokov’s last work, and forgotten Pulitzers

Sundry links from around the Web:

• The New York Times looks at established authors who write well into old age.
• The co-author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies announces his next book: Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter.
• The Wall Street Journal shines a light on the battle against the Comic Sans Serif font. Oddly, while the article provides excellent examples of the detractors’ ire, it doesn’t really establish why they hate the font so much. (Besides, we all know that if it weren’t for Comic, Ransom would take over.)
• Coming soon from Random House: the e-book equivalent of DVD special features.
• Vladimir Nabokov’s final book to be published in November.
• Proving the seven-figure book deal isn’t dead – in Asia, at least – a debut novelist receives a sizable advance from Penguin India.
• The top-ten forgotten Pulitzer-prize winners.

Saving Vladimir Nabokov

A literary ethical dilemma involving the unpublished writings of Vladimir Nabokov is discussed at length by journalist Ron Rosenbaum over at Slate. It seems that Nabokov’s sole remaining unpublished work – a manuscript titled The Original of Laura – is mouldering away somewhere in a Swiss bank vault, unread. But Nabokov’s sole surviving heir – his 73-year-old son Dmitri – is torn about what he should do with it. Should he destroy it, as his father specifically requested, or ignore those wishes and unveil it to the world?

For the past two years I’ve involved myself in this question in print and in e-mail correspondence with Dmitri Nabokov, but a recent communication from Dmitri to me suggests that a decision may be near.

[...]

Dmitri’s predicament goes beyond Laura. It’s one that raises the difficult issue of who “owns” a work of art, particularly an unfinished work of art by a dead author who did not want anything but his finished work to become public. Who controls its fate? The dead hand from the grave? Or the eager, perhaps overeager, readers, scholars, and biographers who want to get their hands on it no matter what state it’s in?

To burn or not to burn? It’s not a question we can argue over forever. Time is running out, and the stakes are high: Dmitri’s past pronouncements suggest that Laura is not merely another scrap of paper. At one point he called it “the most concentrated distillation of [my father's] creativity.”

So, to burn or not to burn? What say you, gentle readers?