The PW Morning Report, September 3, 2008

By Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 9/3/2008 5:57:00 AM

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A daily round-up of the latest publishing news: Palin Wanted to Ban Books; That Secret Obama-Murdoch-Ailes Meeting; Louise Glueck Wins Wallace Stevens Award; No Kindle 2.0 This Year; Brad Meltzer Turns Into Superman; Herman Melville He Ain’t; and Horse Whisperer Author Felled By Poisonous Mushrooms

Sarah Palin Wanted to Ban Books When She Was Mayor, reports Time
Time: "[Former Wasilla mayor John] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. ‘She asked the library how she could go about banning books,’ he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. ‘The librarian was aghast.’ That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving ‘full support’ to the mayor." Perhaps the governor of Alaska would be wise to heed the words of James J. (Jimmy) Walker, the Mayor of the City of New York during the Roaring 20s: "No girl was ever ruined by a book." Beau James, still right on the money

Michael Wolff Reveals Secret Obama-Murdoch-Ailes Meeting
As reported yesterday, Wolff’s new book, The Man Who Owns the News (Broadway, February 2009), is excerpted in Vanity Fair—and all of sudden getting a lot of attention. The excerpt deals with the Obama-Murdoch-Ailes meeting where Obama aired his gripes against Fox. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post takes a closer look. And now Obama is scheduled to make an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox show on Thursday. Once again, the publishing industry is leading the MSM

Louise Glueck Wins Wallace Stevens Award, reports AP
Former U.S. Poet Laureate snags $100,000 prize for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry," the Academy of American Poets announced Tuesday

No Kindle 2.0 in 2008, reports New York Times
Craig Berman, Amazon’s chief spokesman, shoots down 2.0 expectations: "Don’t believe everything you read. There’s a lot of rumor and speculation about the Kindle. One thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be no new version of the Kindle this year. A new version is possible sometime next year at the earliest"

Brad Meltzer Trying to Save Superman’s Creator’s Home, reports New York Times
Superman might have been the Man of Steel, but his creator’s home is falling apart. Enter Brad Meltzer as he emerges from a phone booth to save Jerry Siegel’s home

Herman Melville He Ain’t—Man Wins Prize for the Worst Opening Sentence in a Novel, reports New York Times
Garrison Spik wins Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Let the words speak for themselves: "Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped ‘Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’ " Well earned

Nicholas Evans Ill From Poisonous Mushrooms, reports Agence France Presse
The author of The Horse Whisperer has been treated and is recovering