The Partners Bookseller Insider

I’ve been on hiatus for the past couple of weeks, but I’m back from vacationing in Belize, and as Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The fight is on and I’m stripped to the buff.” I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Great. Let’s get down to business...

I love Ursula LeGuin. Her masterpiece Lathe of Heaven (9781416556961) 15.00 is one of my all-time favourites. However, her resigning from the Author’s Guild over the Google settlement seems to me to be detrimental to both herself and her fellow authors. I’m not one to side with big corporations, but as Julie so succinctly put it, “Would you rather books fade into oblivion or be available and accessible?” I’m thinking available. However, I decided to do a little more research and found out that it wasn't as cut and dried as one would think — Google has different ways of classifying the seven million books they have scanned: whether or not they are in print, out of print, or have copyright protection. It ain’t great, but it does make more books more available to more potential readers. You can read LeGuin’s letter of resignation from the Author’s Guild at Ursula LeGuin’s Website — Author’s Guild Resignation. I did have to chuckle at her choice of words when she mentioned, “And now you have sold us down the river,” which, of course, reminded me of the hit song “Sold Me Down the River” by my second favourite Welsh group, The Alarm. Please enjoy:



Thanks, I needed that. Okay, now, not only is Simon & Schuster responsible for Karl Rove’s upcoming autobiography Courage & Consequence (9781439191057) 30.00, which will be released on March 9, but they are also releasing the book by President Barack Obama’s brother, Homeland (9781439176177) 25.00.  Yeah, that was my reaction too. Obama’s Kenyan half-brother? I like to think I’m fairly hip to what’s going on in the political arena, but this is definitely news to me. Is this kind of like Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy? And if so, should we expect him to market the Obama Bong?