Books
Rakuten Kobo announces its latest step towards the perfect reading device with the launch of Kobo Aura ONE
TORONTO, ON, 2016-Aug-22 — /EPR Retail News/ — For many, reading is not just a pastime, but an identity. Inspired by that insight, Rakuten Kobo today announces Kobo Aura ONE, which was designed with the help of its best customers and reflects Kobo’s latest step towards the perfect reading device. A team of nine of Kobo’s top customers challenged the Kobo design team to push the limits on all aspects of hardware and software. Months of collaboration resulted in an eReader with a screen size that fits more words to a page, front-light technology that allows for nighttime reading with no impact on sleep, and an interface offering customized book recommendations to suit each and every reader.
Kobo Aura ONE makes its debut with a singular goal—to offer a reading experience like no other. It will be available in soft black and will retail for $249.99 CAD (MSRP) in Canada exclusively at www.kobo.com and with Indigo in-store and online at www.indigo.ca from August 30 to September 29 (pre-order from August 30 to September 5; September 6 in-store availability); the device will be available at Best Buy beginning September 30; and as of September 6 in the US, the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Japan, and Turkey; October/November in Australia, New Zealand and Mexico; and March 2017 in Brazil.
Welcome to the reader-centric Kobo Aura ONE experience
Get Lost in a Story with a Book-Sized Touchscreen: Those who like the size of a hardcover book with spacious pages will enjoy reading on the largest premium Carta E Ink touchscreen currently available on the market, with 300 ppi for print-quality resolution. Housed within the device’s thin, lightweight design (195.1 x 138.5 x 6.9 mm; 230g), the edge-to-edge 7.8” screen allows for an enjoyable reading experience with more words to a page, which means fewer page turns.
Bedtime Readers Rejoice with ComfortLight PRO: Experts have cautioned that devices in bed, and specifically the blue light from screens, can affect sleep quality. By reducing blue light exposure, Kobo Aura ONE’s enhanced front-light technology lets people enjoy nighttime reading without impacting their sleep. An ambient light sensor automatically detects current light levels to emit the optimal brightness based on the time of day; by setting a bedtime hour, the hue of the light mimics the sun’s natural progression. Readers can also manually choose their own light settings based on personal preference.
“Getting the right amount of sleep is extremely important, and is just as valuable to your health as a balanced diet and daily exercise routine”, says Colleen Carney, Associate Professor and Director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory at Ryerson University. “A lot of people find it hard to wind-down at the end of the day, and falling asleep with a racing mind doesn’t make it easy. Doing something relaxing like meditation, yoga or reading for 20 minutes before hitting the pillow can help, but we’ve all heard that reading on an electronic device can hinder a restful night’s sleep due to the activating effects of blue spectrum light. We require red spectrum light to stimulate melatonin, a hormone that regulates our body clock. This device pays attention to the timing of blue and red spectrum light to protect sleep quality.”
She said a lot of people troubled by insomnia or sleeplessness give up their reading devices. “That’s the last thing I want you to do,” says Carney. “Depending on what kind of bedside light you have, I’d prefer you to read on a device, and one that eliminates blue light is excellent. It’s especially important for teens who are much more photo sensitive than adults.”
Borrowing eBooks has Never Been Easier: Readers can easily connect to their local public libraries right from their Kobo Aura ONE with built-in, one-touch OverDrive library lending access*. Set-up is free with a library card from any OverDrive-powered library, and through an integrated catalogue, booklovers can search for the title they want, and depending on the title, choose to either borrow or buy.
Waterproof for the ultimate escape: Sink into a good read while in the bath or take it poolside without worry. Advancing from the breakthrough Kobo Aura H2O waterproof device, Kobo Aura ONE now has HZO Protection™, making it waterproof** for reading in places where other devices might not survive. The coating technology applied to the device’s interior allows it to be fully submerged without the need for port covers. Now relax, draw a bath and start reading.
Read your way: As no two booklovers are alike, Kobo offers a reading experience to suit any reader’s taste. TypeGenius offers customizable font options, which include exclusive weight and sharpness settings, with the choice of 50 font sizes and 11 font types. In addition, readers can adjust margins, highlight passages, write notes, and look up words with the built-in dictionary. With a world-class catalogue of more than 5 million titles available at Kobo.com, ranging from romance to thrillers, biographies and memoirs to business books, non-fiction to literary fiction—there are options for everyone—available directly from the device with a Wifi connection.
Carry an entire library in the palm of your hand: Not sure which book to take on vacation or on the bus to work? Take them all. With 8GB of storage, Kobo Aura ONE stores up to 6,000 eBooks. What’s more, the device’s battery life of up to one month allows booklovers to enjoy a full book before needing a charge. Reading is a breeze with 512 MB of RAM and the Solo Lite processor—making page turns fast and seamless.
“As we build new devices, we are trying to keep the reader’s entire reading life in mind – where and when do they read, how can we make things easier, how can we combine beautiful design with pushing the envelope of what technology can do. Everything we do is for the reader,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo. “The insights and feedback gleaned from working closely with some of our top customers were instrumental in the design of this new device. The result is an eReader that offers our biggest, thinnest screen yet, a revolutionary light that adapts to day and night—and it’s waterproof, which means it can go virtually anywhere you do. In the end, we want to make people’s reading lives better, and with the help of our most passionate customers, we created Kobo Aura ONE to do just that.”
Kobo Aura Edition 2—a refreshed version of a beloved classic
The new Kobo Aura encourages readers to lose themselves in their favourite stories on its 6” Carta E Ink touchscreen (1024 x 768 resolution; 212 ppi). The device’s lightweight and comfortable design makes it easy and comfortable to hold for hours of reading, and offers access to millions of books 24/7 through a Wifi connection. With a print-on-paper look (11 font types and 40 font sizes), booklovers can read in direct sunlight without glare; battery life of up to 2 months; 4 GB of memory of on-board memory to store up to 3,000 eBooks; and with the built-in, adjustable ComfortLight, reading is made easy regardless of lighting conditions. Starting September 6, Kobo Aura will be available in Canada, the US, the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Turkey; October/November in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and the Philippines; in 2017 – Japan and Brazil; it will be available in black and retail for $129.99 CAD (MSRP).
For more information, please visit www.kobo.com.
*Dependent on library participation, available through most public libraries in North America, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. eBook availability varies based on library.
**Meets requirements of IPX8 rating. Waterproof for up to 60 minutes in up to 2 metres of water.
Source: Rakuten
Perth, Australia, 2018-Sep-20 — /EPR Retail News/ — Mick Colliss has delivered his poems all over the world. From Centre Court at Rod Laver Arena, to Olympic athlete functions, to audiences in the United States.
Now the author, poet, guest speaker, commentator and former vice-captain of the Australian Sudoku team has released a new collection of verse – his third.
His poems are dry, funny, occasionally moving and uniquely Australian.
Titled What Rhymes with George? his book contains over 40 different poems written over the past 10 years and covers a range of sports, occasions and anecdotes as well as tributes to individuals including Dennis Commetti, former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe and events like the San Jose copper mine rescue and the devastating Queensland flood.
“In 2003 the West Coast Eagles asked me to write a poem to commemorate Glen Jakovich’s 250th game,” Colliss said. “My first thought was: what rhymes with Jakovich?”, which became the title of my first book. I took it in to Radio 6PR in Perth and gave a copy to the legendary broadcaster, George Grljusich. He looked at the title and answered “Grljusich”.
“I thought of calling this book What Rhymes with Grljusich? in honour of the great man but thought it would be too hard to find on Google, so called it What Rhymes with George? instead.
“It’s much easier to spell.”
Colliss has been writing his unique form of poetry for many years and his work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sunday Times, Australian Rugby News and The West Australian. He has written on request for organisations including the West Coast Eagles, the WA Olympic Committee, the WACA, Western Force, Fremantle Dockers and Ronald McDonald House.
The foreword of What Rhymes with George? has been written by Basil Zempilas, most notably of Channel 7 and Radio 6PR.
Mick’s most recent commissioning was to write a poem for Tennis Australia, which he performed on centre court at Rod Laver Arena – with luminaries such as Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Frank Sedgman and Laver himself standing alongside – during the 2018 Australian Tennis Open.
What Rhymes with George? is available at selected outlets and online at https://www.whatrhymeswithgeorge.com
Colliss is available for all media and interviews. Contact Mick Colliss on 0409 090 290 or by email at mick@mickcolliss.com
- Barnes & Noble Announces Finalists for the 27th Annual Discover Awards
- Winners to Be Announced at a Special Ceremony in New York City on Wednesday, March 7
- Prize Pool for Winning Writers and Finalists Is More Than $100,000 with Winners Receiving a Year of Promotion from Barnes & Noble
New York, NY, 2018-Feb-03 — /EPR Retail News/ — Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest retail bookseller, today (February 1, 2018) announced the six finalists for its prestigious 2017 Discover Awards.
The finalists for the 2017 Discover Great New Writers Awards are:
Fiction:
The End We Start From by Megan Hunter (Grove/Atlantic) – A haunting and poetic parable about change and renewal, chaos and survival.
The Leavers by Lisa Ko (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill) – The bonds between parents and children are tested in all directions in this timely and beautiful exploration of love and loyalty.
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell (McSweeney’s) – A darkly comic and unforgettable story about a young woman trying to make sense of her place in the world.
Nonfiction:
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael Twitty (Amistad Press/HarperCollins) – A culinary historian traces his family’s roots and the politics that surround the origins of Southern cuisine in this unique memoir.
Down City: A Daughter’s Story of Love, Memory, and Murder by Leah Carroll (Grand Central Publishing) – A brave and wrenching memoir of a broken family and a portrait of gritty, 1980s Providence, Rhode Island.
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder (Norton, W.W. & Company) – An insightful and heartbreaking narrative that follows a growing community of itinerant workers: older Americans.
Books by the finalists can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store, online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/discover) or instantly downloaded on any NOOK® eReader or tablet.
The Judges
Two panels of distinguished judges selected the finalists and will also select the winners.
Serving as this year’s fiction judges are:
Lauren Groff is the author of four books, including Fates and Furies, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her fifth book, Florida, is forthcoming in June 2018. Her short fiction has won the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/O. Henry award, has been in journals including the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Tin House, and has appeared five times in the Best American Short Stories anthology. In 2017, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists.
Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, an NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship among other prizes and fellowships. An Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University, she is spending the 2017-18 academic year as the Shearing Fellow for Distinguished Writers at the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
David L. Ulin is the author or editor of 10 books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he spent 10 years as book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times, and is assistant professor of English at the University of Southern California.
This year’s nonfiction judges are:
Dana Goodyear is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of two collections of poetry, “Honey and Junk” and “The Oracle of Hollywood Boulevard,” both of which were published by W.W. Norton. Her food writing has twice been honored by the James Beard Foundation, and she is the author of Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters and the Making of a New American Food Culture, a 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection.
Darin Strauss is the bestselling author of the novels Chang & Eng (a 2000 Discover Great New Writers selection), The Real McCoy, More Than It Hurts You and the memoir Half a Life. His books have been named New York Times Notable Books, Entertainment Weekly Must-Read Books of the Year, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and NPR Best Books of the Year, among others. He is a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s creative writing program and a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship among other honors and awards. His next novel, The Queen of Tuesday, is forthcoming.
Rob Sheffield is a columnist for Rolling Stone, where he has been writing about music, TV, and pop culture since 1997. He is bestselling author of five books, including Love Is A Mix Tape (A 2007 Discover Great New Writers selection), Talking To Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut, and Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke. His most recent books are On Bowie and Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World.
Books by the judges can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store, online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/discover) or instantly downloaded on any NOOK® eReader or tablet.
The Discover Awards
Since 1990, the Discover Great New Writers program has connected readers with incredible, unforgettable stories which they may have otherwise missed. In addition to helping customers find their next great read, the program has helped many emerging authors find their audience.
The Discover program’s selection committee is comprised of Barnes & Noble booksellers from across the company and around the country. They are voracious readers who meet weekly throughout the year to look for compelling voices, extraordinary writing and indelible stories from literary talents at the start of their careers.
Forty-two books were handpicked for the program in 2016 from the 1,000+ submissions from publishers of all sizes, and from these, the judges select the shortlist and the winners of the Discover Awards.
Past winners of the annual Discover Great New Writers Award include: Matthew Desmond for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City and Abby Geni for The Lightkeepers (both 2016); Mia Alvar for In the Country: Stories and Jill Leovy for Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (both 2015); Evie Wyld for All the Birds, Singing (2014); Anthony Marra for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Justin St. Germain for Son of a Gun (both 2013); Cheryl Strayed for Wild and Amanda Coplin for The Orchardist (both 2012); Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End (2007); Ben Fountain for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (2006); Alison Smith for Name All the Animals (2004); Anthony Doerr for The Shell Collector (2002); Hampton Sides for Ghost Soldiers (2001); Elizabeth McCracken for The Giant’s House (1996); and Chang-rae Lee for Native Speaker (1995).
For more information on the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program, please visit www.bn.com/discover or ask one of the knowledgeable booksellers at any of Barnes & Noble’s 632 stores nationwide.
About Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is the world’s largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 632 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store®. The NOOK Store features more than 4.5 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com), plus periodicals and comics, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS® and Windows®.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company’s corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
Barnes & Noble®, Barnes & Noble Booksellers® and Barnes & Noble.com® are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. or its affiliates. NOOK® and the NOOK logos are trademarks of Nook Digital, LLC or its affiliates.
For more information on Barnes & Noble, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat (bnsnaps), and like us on Facebook. For more information on NOOK, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
All Contacts:
Mary Ellen Keating
Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
(212) 633-3323
mkeating@bn.com
Alex Ortolani
Director, Corporate Communications
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
(212) 633-3379
aortolani@bn.com
Source: Barnes & Noble, Inc.
London, 2018-Feb-03 — /EPR Retail News/ — Inside the Wave by the late poet and author Helen Dunmore has been named winner of the 2017 Costa Book of the Year. The collection, Dunmore’s tenth, explores the borderline between the living and the dead – the underworld and the human living world – and the exquisitely intense being of both, and includes her final poem, ‘Hold out your arms’, written shortly before her death in June 2017, aged 64.
Dunmore is the second writer to take the overall prize posthumously in the Award’s 46-year history. Ted Hughes posthumously won the Poetry Award and Book of the Year in 1998 for Birthday Letters.
The announcement was made this evening (Tuesday 30th January) at an awards ceremony held at Quaglino’s in central London where Dunmore’s son, Patrick Charnley, accepted a cheque for £30,000, from Dominic Paul, Managing Director of Costa.
Wendy Holden, Chair of the final judges, said: “We all felt this is a modern classic; a fantastic collection, life-affirming and uplifting. The poems carry powerful messages that speak to all of us.”
Holden chaired a final judging panel that included Contributing Editor to British Vogue, Laura Bailey; author and presenter, Fern Britton; actor Art Malik; BBC presenter and journalist Sophie Raworth; writers Piers Torday, Freya North and Simon Garfield; and poet Moniza Alvi.
Inside the Wave, published by Bloodaxe Books, is the eighth collection of poetry to take the overall prize. Poetry has a strong record in the Costa Book Awards, often winning the overall prize several times in a row. Most recently, Christopher Reid won in 2009 with A Scattering, followed by Jo Shapcott with Of Mutabilitya year later in 2010. The 2016 Costa Book of the Year was Days Without End by Sebastian Barry, the first novelist ever to win the Book of the Year twice.
Inside the Wave beat the bookmakers’ favourite, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by bestselling debut novelist Gail Honeyman, family memoir, In the Days of Rain by author and academic Rebecca Stott, Reservoir 13 by novelist Jon McGregor and The Explorer by children’s author Katherine Rundell for to win the overall prize and a cheque for £30,000 at the awards ceremony.
The Costa Book Awards is the only major UK book prize that is open solely to authors resident in the UK and Ireland and also, uniquely, recognises the most enjoyable books across five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book – published in the last year.
Originally established in 1971 by Whitbread Plc, Costa announced its takeover of the sponsorship of the UK’s most prestigious book prize in 2006. 2017 marks the 46th year of the Book Awards.
Since the introduction of the Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won twelve times by a novel, five times by a first novel, six times by a biography, eight times by a collection of poetry and twice by a children’s book.
Luan Goldie wins 2017 Costa Short Story Award
Also announced at the ceremony was the winner of the Costa Short Story Award. Primary school teacher and former business journalist, Luan Goldie from Newham in East London, won the public vote and £3,500 for her story, Two Steak Bakes and Two Chelsea Buns. Two runners-up, civil servant Chris Hunter from Teddington in South-West London and poet and short story writer, Frances Ainslie from Dunblane, Perthshire, received £1,000 and £500 respectively.
Established in 2012, this Award – run in association with the Costa Book Awards but judged independently of the main five-category system – is judged anonymously (ie without the name of the author being known throughout the process). It is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words written in English by an author aged 18 years or over, and is open to both published and unpublished writers.
A shortlist of three stories was selected by a panel of judges – Sarah Franklin, Joe Haddow, Adele Parks, Simon Trewin and Kit de Waal – and then made available on the Costa Book Awards website for the public to download and vote for their favourite. Costa Managing Director, Dominic Paul, announced the winner and runners-up and presented them with their cheques.
For more information please visit www.costabookawards.com.
Notes for Editors:
About the Costa Book Awards:
The Costa Book Awards, formerly the Whitbread Book Awards, were established in 1971 to encourage, promote and celebrate the best contemporary British writing.
The total prize fund for the Costa Book Awards – including the Costa Short Story Award – stands at £60,000.
The award winners from the five categories – Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book – each receives £5,000.
The overall Costa Book of the Year is selected from the five category Award winners with the winner receiving a further £30,000.
The 2016 Costa Book of the Year was Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Faber).
For further information, please contact:
Amanda Johnson
Costa Book Awards Press and Publicity
Telephone: 07715 922 180
Email: amanda@amandajohnsonpr.com
Source: Costa Coffee
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