June 24, 2014

Amazon and Hachette have been squaring off for months now, but with neither company saying much to the press, the details of their dispute have been difficult to discern. Nearly… Read more »

Amazon

A Canadian publisher finds surprise success with handmade “high-end promotional protest literature,” Against Amazon — Simon Reichley
What does DC’s Amazon store have that Politics and Prose doesn’t? Not much worth mentioning. — Ryan Harrington
“Single Women Fiction” is a bullshit genre that exists on Amazon — Stephanie DeLuca
The Reckoning: Amazon stops development of its “Block 18” project in downtown Seattle, as the city mulls a new tax — Simon Reichley

Doctor Zhivago is easy to smuggle if it’s small, and other publishing tips from the CIA

Kirsten Reach

What are the repercussions for the CIA funding most American cultural and literary institutions over the course of the Cold War? We’re still working on that one, but it’s clear… Read more »

Revelations from Proust’s questionnaire

Wah-Ming Chang

In the mid-nineteenth century, filling out confession albums was a popular pastime in English households and French salons. In 1886, at age 14, Marcel Proust filled out answers to an… Read more »

The real Mary Poppins revealed

Nick Davies

An almost entirely unknown story by P.L. Travers — the author who created Mary Poppins — about the real-life woman who inspired the character will be released this fall, Alison Flood… Read more »

Scientists study brains of writers, attempt to make creativity boring

In what can be only described as an attempt by the scientific community to strip writers of their sexy, mysterious qualities, a group of German researchers studied the neurological activity… Read more »

Melville House Books

What does Amazon want from Hachette? Pretty much everything.

Alex Shephard