"BEST-SELLING" AUTHOR'S NEW PROJECT

The last I heard, Antony Loewenstein was writing a very revealing book on the Australian media to be published this year by Random House. Oddly, an author search for Loewenstein at Random House returns nothing and there's this:

My last book [his first and only book -- ed.] was about Israel and Palestine, My Israel Question, and I became fascinated in voices in various nations around the world, often in countries where state-media has traditionally been the only authority. Frankly, writing about Israel/Palestine is also physically and emotionally draining - hate mail and death threats are not uncommon - and the chance to embrace a different subject appealed greatly.

So, my new book project (due for release in late 2008) is about the internet in repressive regimes, the ways in which the web has changed debate around the world, how Western multinationals are now assisting governments in filtering the net and how Western stereotypes about the non-Western world are finally being challenged. I’ve recently travelled to Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China and spoken to various writers, bloggers, online trouble-makers, politicians and dissidents.

It looks like Random House has sensibly shit-canned the "best-selling" author's book. This makes sense: if they paid Loewenstein nothing for writing it, any book he produces is going to cost more to edit than it's ever going to make from sales.

Update: I forgot to mention that the linked interview mentions two different Guardian "articles" that are actually mere "comment is free" posts. The guy is seriously deluded.