Borders, Still Dirt Cheap, Jumps as Goldman Hopes for BN Buy We’ve always regarded it as a poverty of imagination that Barnes & Noble is often tipped as a potential acquirer of Borders, and they strike us as among the least likely of acquirers. But Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler wrote in a report yesterday “we see improved prospects for a deal,” and that “Barnes & Noble could generate significant accretion from an acquisition of Borders.” As Bloomberg reports, “Barnes & Noble may add more than 10 percent to profit if it paid as much as $13 a share for […]

2008 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards Fiction A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini Nonfiction Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver Children’s Literature The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick Children’s Illustrated Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, by Mo Willems Click through to see the honor books Macaulay Forms Imprint for Roaring Brook Bestselling author and illustrator (and Caldecott and Macarthur winner) David Macaulay is creating an imprint called David Macaulay Studio at Roaring Brook Press. The imprint will start with two […]

Borders on the Block; Strategic Review in Place Borders has enlisted JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch as the company’s financial advisors to assist in exploring strategic alternatives, which may or may not include the sale and/or certain divisions. Borders also suspended its quarterly dividend and will borrow $42.5 million from Pershing Square, its largest shareholder. Borders Chief Executive George Jones noted in the press release that “this will be a challenging year for retailers due to continued uncertainty in the economic environment,” and that “the current credit environment has made many of these alternatives prohibitively expensive or entirely unavailable,” he is […]

Arthur C. Clarke, 90, Dies The British science fiction writer, futurist, inventior and author of approximately 100 books died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Clarke is most famous for his short story “the Sentinel”, later adapted by Stanley Kubrick into the 1968 movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. NYT Obit BBC Book Expo America Designates Graphic Novel Day BEA has designated Saturday, May 31 as Graphic Novel Day, which kicks off with a breakfast sponsored by Diamond Book Associates and featuring Art Spiegelman, Jeph Loeb, Mike Mignola and Jeff Smith. The entire day will […]

Weak Dollar Pulls Down Random and Bertelsmann; Direct Group NA on the Block  The weak dollar “and a slowdown in consumer spending in North America” took their toll on Bertelsmann as a whole and Random House and the Direct Group in particular as the company reported results for fiscal 2007 this morning. Companywide sales fell 2.8 percent to 18.8 billion euros and operating EBIT (their current preferred measure of income) fell 3 percent to 1.811 billion euros. The drop at Random House was even larger, with sales of 1.837 billion down 5.6 percent from a year ago, and operating EBIT […]