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Following the Washington Post’s blog post about a few “worthy” books they didn’t have space to review, the St. Louis Post Dispatch has a much longer explanation of why the paper will never do what readers ask for. “We don’t review every local author’s book. We can’t – we don’t have the space, time or freelance budget. Plus, there are more books published now than ever before…. But we no longer have an Everyday section, where we also used to run feature stories about local and national authors and even book reviews. This is disappointing to everyone.” They have policies, […]

They weren’t just closing the New York office as reported last month, but rather Virgin sold their interest in their comics joint venture to management, which has renamed the company Liquid Comics. Variety notes: “The brand was stymied by low sales of its comicbooks, which were short on major names in the comicbook biz (with the exception of writer Garth Ennis) and sported concepts centered mostly around Indian mythology and thus struggled to find readers in the US…. Liquid didn’t comment on plans to actually continue publishing comicbooks, instead opting to focus on digital versions of its various characters.”Variety The […]

The LAT runs an appreciation of reprint lines published by the New York Review of Books, Europa Editions, Hard Case Crime, and Persephone Books. There are no actual facts here, but the conclusions are grand: “The publishers specializing in reprints have become increasingly important to the people who haunt bookstores searching for the next great read. For some, these reintroduced books are as eagerly awaited as any mainstream house’s seasonal list.” True to journalistic formula, it remains impossible to admire the small without indicting everyone else, as specious conclusions abound: “Whether the increasing number of reprints is because of reader […]

Penguin UK’s blog has two audio clips “announcing” their Eoin Colfer Hitchhiker’s Guide acquisition. One is from Colfer; the more amusing one comes from a character in the book. Separately, the Village Voice “reviews” Philip Roth’s Indignation in a nine-panel cartoon slide show (via Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind).