DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ 50 Years Ago, ‘Jaws’ Hit Bookstores, Capturing the Angst of a Generation
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-12 | by ( Brian Raftery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In 1973, the first chapter of an unpublished novel was photocopied and passed around the Manhattan offices of Doubleday & Co. with a note. “Read this,” it dared, “without reading the rest of the book.”Those who accepted the challenge were treated to a swift-moving tale of terror, one that begins with a young woman taking a postcoital dip in the waters off Long Island. As her lover dozes on the beach, she’s ravaged by a great white shark. “The great conical head struck her like a locomotive, knocking her up out of the water,” the passage read. “The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly.”Tom Congdon, an editor at Doubleday, had circulated the bloody, soapy excerpt to drum up excitement for his latest project: a thriller about a massive fish stalking a small island town, written by a young author named Peter Benchley.

Persons: “, dozes, Tom Congdon, Peter Benchley Organizations: Doubleday &, Doubleday Locations: Manhattan

☆ The women behind the glitz and glamour of New York’s fabled department stores
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-05 | by ( Cat Woods | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNN —Before the nationwide influx of suburban malls and the convenience of online shopping, there was a golden age of American department stores. Satow’s evocation of this historic age is timely, with the death knell for many US department stores well and truly ringing in our ears. Sally Moss“When department stores originally opened, (they represented) one of the rare opportunities for women to congregate together in public,” Satow told CNN. Her motivation was to make department stores enticing — and accessible — for women of all means.) Read: “The Dallergut Dream Department Store” (2024)A bestseller in Korea, the debut novel (and first of a two-book series) from author Miye Lee weaves a fantastical narrative around, as its title suggests, a department store selling consumers’ perfect dreams.

Persons: strategized, Hortense Odlum, Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver, Taylor, Geraldine Stutz, Henri Bendel, Julie Satow’s, Odlum, Shaver, Stutz, Sally Moss “, ” Satow, “ Dorothy Shaver, …, ’, ” Doubleday, —, Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, “ Hortense Odlum, Jill Krementz “, “, ”, Madeleine St, Goode, Kim Cattrall, Jonathan, Andrew McCarthy, Estelle Getty’s, Claire Timkin, Hollywood Montrose, Miye Lee, Miss Jones ”, John P, Merrick, Charles Coburn, Mary Jones, Jean Arthur, Helena Rubinstein ”, Lindy Woodhead, mindedly Organizations: CNN, puma, Harrods, Rive, TIME, Fashion Group, Fashion, Fashion Industry Hall of Fame, New, & $ Locations: America, Bonwit, Europe, London, Le Bon, Paris, New York, TikTok, Sydney, Australia, Korea

☆ As MLB changes its records, Josh Gibson, not Ty Cobb, is all-time batting leader
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-28 | by ( Tyler Kepner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +10 min

And as of Wednesday, Josh Gibson will replace Cobb as the leading hitter in the official records of the game. Thorn estimated that about 75 percent of all Negro Leagues box scores have been documented, and that MLB would update the records as more are uncovered. To some extent, Negro League numbers will always be a work in progress. Barnstorming games, essential as a financial lifeline to Negro League teams, are not included in the statistics. The scheduled games range from 26 (Negro American League, 1942) to 91 (Negro National League I, 1927).

Persons: Abner Doubleday, Tyrus Raymond Cobb, Doubleday, Josh Gibson, Cobb, ”, Larry Lester, “, Ty Cobb, Oscar Charleston, Rogers, Jud Wilson, Ed Delahanty, Buck Leonard, Ted Williams, John Thorn, Thorn, ” Lester, I’ve, Gibson, Chino Smith’s, Hugh Duffy’s, Chino Smith, Hugh Duffy, Charlie Blackwell, Ross Barnes, Willie Keeler, Rogers Hornsby, Tetelo Vargas, Vargas, — Lyman Bostock Sr, Bostock, Ted Williams ’, Sean Forman, Ty, Lester, Gary Ashwill, Kevin Johnson, Seamheads, ” Thorn, Elias, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Oscar, Barry Bonds, Jimmie Foxx, Ed Walsh, Addie Joss, Mordecai Brown, John Ward, Christy Mathewson, Rube Waddell, Walter Johnson, Dave Brown, Tommy Bond, White, Willie Mays, Mays, Bullet Rogan, Turkey Stearnes, ’ ” Lester, Simon Bruty Organizations: Major, Baseball, Negro Leagues, MLB, “, Negro League, Negro, Rogers Hornsby, Turkey Stearnes, Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Kansas City Monarchs, American, National Leagues, Negro American League, Negro National League I, Boston, New York Cubans, Twins, Red Sox, Sports, Birmingham Black Barons, Graphics, Retrosheet, Oscar Charleston, Barry, Major League Baseball, Birmingham, Giants, Mets Locations: Turkey, Birmingham, Ala, Chicago, Moline, Washington ,

☆ Penguin Random House Dismisses Two of Its Top Publishers
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-20 | by ( Alexandra Alter | Elizabeth A. Harris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In a significant shake up, Penguin Random House, the largest publishing house in the United States, announced on Monday that the publishers of two of its most prestigious literary imprints had been let go. The departure of Reagan Arthur, the publisher of Alfred A. Knopf, and Lisa Lucas, the publisher of Pantheon and Schocken, likely came as a surprise to many in the company — including, it seemed, to Lucas. Lucas posted on X, formerly called Twitter, that she had learned of her dismissal at 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning. “I have some regrets about spending the weekend working,” she wrote. In a memo to employees, Maya Mavjee, the president and publisher of Knopf Doubleday, acknowledged the news would likely be unsettling to many, but noted that restructuring the imprints was “necessary for our future growth.”

Persons: Reagan Arthur, Alfred A ., Lisa Lucas, Lucas, “, ”, Maya Mavjee Organizations: Penguin Random, Alfred A . Knopf, Pantheon, Schocken, Knopf Doubleday Locations: United States

“It’s a really, really, really big deal," said Jay Ryan, a self-described “astronomy nerd” and eclipse educator. The Guardians have started their home openers in recent years with a 4:10 p.m. first pitch. The Guardians, who start on an 11-game trip, are expected to announce their decision on the opener in coming days. In 2007, their first four games in Cleveland were snowed out from April 6-9, forcing the team to play its “home” opener in Milwaukee. Maybe the eclipse could be a sign of something bigger on the way in Cleveland, which hasn't celebrated a World Series title since 1948.

Persons: Abner Doubleday, “, Jay Ryan, They’ve, José, Ryan, ”, hasn't, ” Ryan Organizations: CLEVELAND, Cleveland Guardians, Progressive, Great Lakes Science Center, NASA, NCAA, Guardians, Chicago White Sox Locations: Cleveland, Ohio, Milwaukee

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the world’s largest and most influential publishers, Simon & Schuster, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. The list tells many stories, through the books selected, not selected, and the evolution of what has been highlighted. “A group of Simon & Schuster staffers took on the daunting challenge of selecting 100 titles from our history that are believed to best represent the breadth and depth of the company’s publishing program, across imprints,” the publisher announced Wednesday. “That book actually had an influence on the course of events.”Like many leading publishers, Simon & Schuster began as an independently owned company and vastly expanded after the 1960s. Along the way, Simon & Schuster acquired numerous other publishers, whose books are now part of the S&S catalog and its centennial list.

Persons: Simon & Schuster, Simon, Gregory Hartswick, Prosper Buranelli, Margaret Petherbridge, Richard Simon, Max Schuster, ”, Schuster, Jonathan Karp, Sloan, veteran’s, Karp, “, — Ralph Ellison, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Harper, James Baldwin, Alex Haley, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, ” Karp, Ntozake Shange’s, Jenny Han’s “, ” Carlos Eire’s “, ” Siddhartha Mukherjee's “, ” Jason Reynolds ’, Safiya, Wendy Sherwin, didn’t, John Irving, Bruce Springsteen’s, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer, Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Rivals ’, Barack Obama’s, Hillary Clinton, Scott Fitzgerald’s “, ” Ernest Hemingway’s “, Alan Paton’s “, Scribner, Judy Blume’s “, Margaret ”, Walter Isaacson’s “ Steve Jobs, Frederick Backman's, Ove, Dale Carnegie’s, Leon Shimkin, David McCullough's, Wright, Blume, Woodward Organizations: Simon &, New York, HarperCollins, Dial Press, Doubleday, Knopf, “, Rivals, KKR, Win, Carnegie Locations: ”, Snow, Havana

Ken Griffey Jr. and Ozzie Smith have agreed to manage or coach at the May 25 Hall of Fame East-West Classic. The Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game began at Chicago's Comiskey Park in September 1933, two months after MLB's first All-Star Game at the same ballpark, and was played annually through 1962. Major League Baseball has recognized seven Negro Leagues from 1920-48 as having big league status, but incorporating those numbers has not yet been completed. “As a kid growing up, I thought Negro League baseball was backyard, barnstorming baseball. “That was the first time I really, really, really thought about it, and I was like, damn, I really want to be in the Hall of Fame.

Persons: “, I'm, Ken Griffey Jr, Ozzie Smith, MLB's, Jerry, Scott Hairston, Sam, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, David Price, Justin Upton, Curtis Granderson, Dontrelle Willis, Adam Jones, Dexter Fowler, LaTroy Hawkins, Edwin Jackson, Buck O'Neil, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin, Cool Papa Bell, hasn’t, Dave Stewart, ” Sabathia, LeBron James, ”, Jackie Robinson, Josh Rawitch, “ It’s, it’s, Carter, Sabathia Organizations: —, Negro Leagues, of Fame's Doubleday, of Fame East, Black Baseball, Negro Leagues East, Chicago's, Cincinnati, Indianapolis Clowns, Negro American League, Major League Baseball, Negro League baseball, American, of Fame, Cooperstown Locations: Tenn, Cooperstown , New York

It is the ideal way to celebrate the musician and civil rights activist, and the ideal gift for a music fan of any walk. Cost: $135SAY CHEESE: This one might give an audiophile a heart attack, but that doesn't make it any less adorable. The “Turntable Cheese Board" from Uncommon Goods is exactly what it sounds like — a cheese board designed to look like the most expensive, slick turntable, featuring a slate platter and hidden slicer in the one arm. Cost: $78HEAR IT LOUD: There's never a wrong time to upgrade headphones — in fact, it makes for a great gift. Cost: $47K-POP COOL: Far too often, holiday gift guides — even those specifically catering to music enthusiasts — fail to account for dedicated, artist-specific fandoms.

Persons: It'll, SIMONE, Nina Simone, Simon, Marc Masters, Harry Styles, Styles, ”, “, It's, Sony's, Barbra Streisand, ” She'd, Jimmy Fallon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Streisand, ” Streisand, I’m, Lol Tolhurst, Tim Burton, Edgar Allan Poe’s, Mary, Emily Brontë, Questlove, Tariq Trotter, a.k.a Organizations: ANGELES, Philips, Doubleday, Associated Press, Division, Bauhaus, Los Tigres Del, Grupo Frontera Locations: They're, longhand, Austin , Texas, Los Angeles, Los Tigres Del Norte, Banda

☆ The Verdict on John Grisham’s Sequel to ‘The Firm’
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-17 | by ( Sarah Lyall | More About Sarah Lyall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Whatever happened to Mitch McDeere, the brash young associate who brought down the corrupt law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke in John Grisham’s game-changing 1991 legal thriller, “The Firm”? Three decades later, Grisham has resurrected Mitch — or Tom, as I like to think of him, because Tom Cruise played him with such seductive charm in the movie — for another outing. The new book, THE EXCHANGE (Doubleday, 338 pp., $29.95), should be a delicious gift to Grisham fans. But once you’ve read it, you might find yourself wishing that Mitch, last seen slipping out of sight while Bendini, Lambert & Locke imploded, had simply decided to while away his days in moneyed obscurity. It is 2005, and despite his earlier experience in corporate law, Mitch — still married to Abby, and now the father of twin boys — has joined the gargantuan international law firm of Scully & Pershing.

Persons: Mitch McDeere, Lambert, Locke, John Grisham’s, Grisham, Mitch —, Tom Cruise, Mitch, Bendini, Abby, —, Pershing, Giovanna Organizations: Doubleday Locations: Bendini, Libyan

Rubin died Friday at a hospital in Manhattan after “a brief and sudden illness,” according to his nephew, David Rotter. “Steve Rubin was a great publisher,” Grisham said in a statement. “For more than a month, it was humanly impossible to miss ‘Fire and Fury,’" Rubin wrote in his memoir “Words and Music,” published earlier this year. Rubin joined Bantam Books, a venerable paperback publisher, in the mid-1980s, and remained there for six years before leaving for Doubleday. In his memoir, he offered a succinct, if incomplete prediction: “I suppose the headline of my obit will read 'Publisher of ”The Da Vinci Code" dies'.”

Persons: — Stephen Rubin, John Grisham, ”, Rubin, “, David Rotter, Jacqueline Kennedy, Beverly Sills, Jane Friedman, ” Rubin, Kennedy, Henry Holt, Simon, Simon & Schuster, Bill O’Reilly, Martin Dugard, Laura Esquivel’s, Mitch Albom’s, ” Hilary Mantel’s, George W, Bush's, Bush, John Grisham's, Grisham, unshaven, “ Steve Rubin, ” Grisham, Doubleday, Dan Brown’s, Brown, Steve, Holt, Trump, Michael Wolff’s, Steve Bannon, Wolff, ’, Michael, Luciano Pavarotti, Sills, Cynthia Organizations: HarperCollins Publishers, Associated Press, New York Times, Doubleday, Henry Holt and Company, Simon &, Holt, New York University, Boston University, UPI, The New York Times Magazine, Bantam Books, Rubin Institute for Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music Locations: Manhattan, Europe, New York City

NEW YORK (AP) — Sister Helen Prejean remembered when she first spoke with Jake Heggie about adapting her book “Dead Man Walking.”“I don’t know boo-scat about opera,” she told him. It’s established in a lot of these abolitionist countries that there is no death penalty — the government, we don’t kill people for their crimes. The Met and Carnegie Hall plan to present excerpts at Sing Sing on Sept. 28 with DiDonato, Sister Helen as the narrator and inmates as the chorus. There have been 1,575 executions in the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to be reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Twenty-four states have death penalty laws, 23 do not and three have governor-imposed moratoriums, the center said.

Persons: Helen Prejean, Jake Heggie, ”, “, you’re, Tony, Olivier, Ivo van Hove, Joyce DiDonato, Helen, ” Heggie, it’s, It’s, ” Prejean, Saint Joseph of Medaille, Prejean, Jason Epstein, Knopf Doubleday, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Heggie, Frederica von Stade, Lotfi Mansouri, Terrence McNally, Mansouri, ” McNally, ” “ Sondheim, Stephen Sondheim's, Robbins, McNally, Joe Mantello, Susan Graham, von, ” Joshua Kosman, ” DiDonato, DiDonato, “ I’ve, ” Von Hove, Graham, de, I’ve Organizations: Metropolitan Opera, Knopf, UCLA, UCLA's Center, Art, Cal, San Francisco Opera, Opera House, von Stade, San Francisco Chronicle, New York City Opera, Houston, City Opera, Sing, Illinois Youth Center, Carnegie Hall Locations: New Orleans, New York, New, Madrid, Francisco’s, Ossining , New York, Chicago, U.S

☆ Richard E. Snyder, 93, Dies; Drove Simon & Schuster to New Heights
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When a friend went for an interview at Doubleday in Manhattan, Mr. Snyder tagged along, and before long was hired as a trainee. “He could rub the material of a jacket between his thumb and forefinger,” Mr. Snyder said in The Times Magazine profile, “and in no more than a second, proclaim, ‘$3.34 a yard.’ He would be right to the penny. I had that gift of feel when it came to books.”In a climate that Mr. Snyder helped create, he billed himself as a businessman rather than as a man of letters. In addition to his son Matthew, from his marriage to Ms. Freund, he is survived by a daughter from that marriage, Jackie; two other sons, Richard Elliott Snyder Jr. and Coleman Yorke, from his marriage to Ms. Yorke; and two grandchildren. Mr. Snyder thrived under Simon & Schuster’s ownership by Gulf and Western Industries, which bought the company in 1975.

Persons: Snyder, Mr, Korda, Dick, ” Mr, Snyder’s, Ruth Freund, Laura Yorke, Terresa Liu, Matthew, Ms, Freund, Jackie, Richard Elliott Snyder Jr, Coleman Yorke, Yorke, Simon, Charles G, Bludhorn, Martin Davis, Davis Organizations: Doubleday, The Times Magazine, Western Industries, Paramount Pictures Locations: Manhattan, Gulf, Western

☆ 2 Supreme Court justices failed to recuse themselves from cases involving their publisher after receiving exorbitant amounts in book advances and royalties
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

On two occasions, the Supreme Court has declined to take on cases involving publishing conglomerate Penguin Random House. There have been two cases that came before the Supreme Court involving publishing conglomerate Penguin Random House. In both situations, the Supreme Court declined to take on the copyright infringement cases, allowing the publisher to win at a lower court level. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch was confirmed in 2017 and was also a member of the Supreme Court during the second case. Sotomayor and Gorsuch had both signed major book deals with the publisher before the cases occurred, and both justices declined to recuse themselves from the cases involving Penguin Random House.

☆ China and the Population Bomb That Wasn’t
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( William Mcgurn | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Doubleday once published a book with a title—“Too Many Asians”—that would never fly today. Author John Robbins argued that “if humanity is to have a future,” the West would have to see to it that fewer Asians were born in the years ahead. Robbins was but one voice in a chorus of think tanks, government aid organizations, international development specialists, environmentalists, zero-growthers, doom mongers and do-gooders who all saw population control as the cure for poverty. China’s recent announcement that its population fell by 850,000 last year, the first recorded drop since the Mao-induced famines of the early 1960s, provoked much comment on the social and economic challenges decline brings. Yet conspicuously absent was any recognition that the whole idea that Chinese moms having children threatened the country’s prosperity was, much like Marxism itself, a noxious Western import.

☆ Are There ‘Too Many Asians’?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( William Mcgurn | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

☆ After another chaotic week on Twitter, some users are nostalgic for the pre-Elon Musk days
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Kahlan-Rosenblatt.Jpg | Kalhan Rosenblatt | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Twitter is not dead — but some of its users are already mourning what the platform was, before Elon Musk's takeover. As the site descends further into chaos, users are getting nostalgic and sharing their favorite memories of "old school Twitter." On Thursday, she asked her followers to share a “happy Twitter memory,” and said the responses affirmed her appreciation for pre-chaos Twitter. “Somebody said, ‘I used to think that queer people were sinning ... and now I don’t because of Twitter,’” Crozier said. There were users who pointed out that Twitter, pre-Musk, had been referred to as a “hellsite“ where users “doomscrolled“ for hours.

Search resuls for: "Doubleday

16 mentions found