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Robert Giroux, an editor who introduced and nurtured some of the major authors of the 20th century and who rose to join one of the nation’s most distinguished publishing houses as a partner, making it Farrar, Straus & Giroux, died Friday in Tinton Falls, N.J. He was 94. He died in his sleep at Seabrook Village, an independent-living facility, a niece, Kathleen Mulvehill, said.

If the flamboyant Roger Straus presented the public face of Farrar, Straus, Mr. Giroux, as editor-in-chief, was its quiet mover, working behind the scenes to shape its list of books and establishing himself as the gold standard of literary taste. The publisher Charles Scribner Jr., in his memoir, In the Company of Writers: A Life in Publishing (1991), wrote, Giroux is a great man of letters, a great editor, and a great publisher.

He was originally attracted to editing while a student at Columbia University, when he took an honors seminar with Raymond Weaver. "Weaver was the first biographer of Herman Melville, and the first person to read the manuscript of Billy Budd, in 1919," Mr. Giroux told the poet Donald Hall in a an interview for The New York Times Book Review in 1980. "This left a mark on me. I thought, 'Imagine discovering a literary masterpiece.'"

How many masterpieces Mr. Giroux discovered will be for the future to decide. As he himself insisted, it can take decades for a book to become a classic. Still, one of the first books he edited is now on any list of the century's best, Edmund Wilson's work on 19th-century socialist thinkers, To the Finland Station (1940); Mr. Giroux judged the manuscript to be nearly flawless.

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Wealthy Reading More Than Ever

There has been a lot of doom and gloom in the newspaper and magazine business because of falling readership. But a new Ipsos study shows that the wealthy are reading print publications slightly more than they did just five years ago. more than ever.

Respondents making more than $100,000 annually said their average hours online had grown to 22.1 each week from 10.7, while the time they said they spent watching TV sunk to 18.6 hours from 23.7 in the 2003 survey. And they said their time spent listening to the radio had declined slightly. But they said they're regularly reading an average of 15.3 print publications, a notch above 15.1 five years earlier. Readers making more than $250,000 said they read just as many publications, 23.8 now, as they did in 2003.

"The conventional wisdom for print is 'Woe is me,'" said Bob Shullman, president of Ipsos Mendelsohn. "But if you look at this, at least among the affluent population, readership of issues per capita, it's staying constant."

The magazine business has its worries, to be sure: High gas prices are reducing drives to the supermarket while the broader economic slump makes readers think twice before buying new magazines. Newsstand sales, as a result, are looking grim this year. Ad-page sales are equally dour, down 7.42% across the monthlies through September, according to the Media Industry Newsletter. Newspapers, for their part, are fighting far darker demons.

But these problems don't affect the affluent market the same way as they do everyone else, said Ted D'Amico, senior VP-research, Ipsos Mendelsohn. "Readership has held its own among the affluent segment," Mr. D'Amico said. "Why is this the case? There are two factors. One, education. And they can afford magazines."

Those with more disposable income -- and education -- have more hours in the day to read newspapers, magazines and books. And businesspeople read a large number of periodicals. That's good news for journalists and freelancers and a small bright spot for struggling magazines and newspapers.

Posted on September 4, 2008
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Nicholas Evans In Hospital Because of Mushroom Poisoning

Nicholas Evans, bestselling author of The Horse Whisperer, is in the hospital for a bad case of mushroom poisoning. He and his family picked and ate the poisonous mushrooms while vacationing in Scotland.

The 58-year-old Evans, his wife, her sister and the sister's husband became sick after cooking and eating the mushrooms – which included the highly toxic variety Cortinarius speciosissimus — which they had picked in the woods August 23. Cortinarius speciosissimus is known to attack the kidneys.

All four had received dialysis treatment at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and are responding well, the AP reports. Evans' 1995 novel about a trainer's rapport with a wounded, traumatized horse was made into a 1998 film, directed by Robert Redford and starring Scarlett Johansson.

How absolutely awful. We were told all during our childhoods never to eat mushrooms that we picked ourselves, because many of them were poisonous and could kill us. We dutifully followed this oft-repeated advice, but until now we really hadn't heard of a serious case of accidental mushroom self-poisoning. We wish the Evans family a speedy recovery.

Posted on September 2, 2008
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Fake Memoir Author Fighting in Court to Keep Profits

Disgraced author Misha Defonseca, who wrote a fake Holocaust memoir, is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit against her.

Misha Defonseca and her co-author said in Middlesex Superior Court on Thursday that it was too late for the book's publisher to try to overturn a $32.4 million verdict they won against her in a fight over profits.

Publisher Jane Daniel claims a jury in 2001 awarded the authors the money believing that Defonseca's harrowing tale of a tortured childhood was true. Defonseca acknowledged earlier this year it was not. The judge took the case under advisement.

Misha Defonseca wrote a wild tale of being taken in by wolves to escape the Nazis, killing a German soldier in self-defense, and walking across Europe in search of her parents were her own fantasies. As it turned out, Misha isn't even Jewish and none of the facts in the "memoir" happened.

Posted on August 28, 2008
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Virgin Comics Closes Its Doors

Virgin Comics has folded. Virgin Comics was an international joint venture between the Virgin Group owned by Sir Richard Branson and Gotham Entertainment, the India-based comics publisher.

Sources confirm that the venture has been closed. However, in a statement released by Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan (who is also president of Gotham Entertainment), he also confirmed that the company has closed the New York City office. Devarajan said that the company is "restructuring" and will relocate to new and as yet unspecified offices in Los Angeles.

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Virgin Comics was launched in early 2006 with an ambitious program to create a list of high profile superhero and adventure print comics inspired by Indian/Hindu mythology that could also be licensed as potential film and merchandise properties to a global audience of pop culture consumers. The high profile venture not only included financing by Branson but also included bestselling author Deepak Chopra, who is chairman of Virgin Comics and wrote a comics biography of Buddha for the house. In addition, his son, Gotham Chopra, is chief creative officer and editor-in-chief of Virgin Comics/Virgin Animation.

The Director's Cut line had comics series by Ed Burns (Dock Walloper), Guy Ritchie (Gamekeeper) and John Woo (Seven Brothers), which the company had planned to make into major feature films. The company even had a comic by porn star Jenna Jameson called Shadow Hunter. We've heard no word of a buyer, so the future of the comics looks a bit grim.

Posted on August 27, 2008
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