NEWS: Another Online Literary TV Program
Motoko Rich writes in the New York Times that "... Daniel Menaker, who left his post as executive editor-in-chief of the Random House Publishing Group in June, is moving online in March to be the host of a new Web-based book show."
The online show will be called Titlepage and, reportedly, will feature a discussion between Mr Menaker and four authors. The first episode is scheduled to be online at titlepage.tv on the 3rd of March. It is obviously easier to post videos online than to get a television show.
Only a fortnight ago there was a report of Borders starting their own online television channel at www.borders.co.uk the content for which is now available at www.bookzone.tv which is owned by Simply Media. (See below.)
Edinburgh Festival a terror target?
Shan Ross writes in The Scotsman, "One of Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officers has warned it is only a matter of time before Edinburgh is subjected to a devastating attack."
Police in Scotland's capital say that Edinburgh International Festival, which attracted 380,000 visitors last year, was an "extremely attractive" target for terrorists.
If they have any specific information, the report does not say.
Revenge of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
James Hall of The Telegraph reports that France has ordered Amazon to pay 1,000 Euros a day to French Booksellers Association, Syndicat de la Librairie Francaise (SLF) "... after it defied a Paris court ruling banning it from delivering books for free in France."
A 1981 French anti-discount law, called the Lang Law, has set the maximum discount a book retailer can offer his customer at 5%. A Paris court has ruled that the free delivery service offered by Amazon.com violated this law because effectively this amounted to more than a five percent discount.
The report says that "... Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, has decided to defy the French courts in an attempt to change what he sees as a restrictive practice … (and) has urged French customers to sign a petition to force a change to the law ..."
Yes, that’s the way to do it. Big retailers should gang up, undercut all these nuisance struggling small indies and drive them out of the market and throw all their employees out of jobs, so the French can learn what it is like to have a subprime crisis of their own.
Paying Kids to Read
Iain Sullivan writes for the Associated Press: "Agustin Jimenez, Socialist mayor of the central agricultural town of Noblejas, is recommending the town's children be given a euro for every hour they spend reading in the local library."
Noblejas is described as "an economically strong town of some 4,000 inhabitants". But the dropout rate is 80 percent. A recent study by the European Commission showed that 31% of Spain's students were dropping out of school early. As for reading they were also the worst in Europe with 21% of 15-year-olds having difficulties, compared 19.8% average in the rest of Europe.
Obviously, the reactions are mixed. I would go for the Euros! What about you?
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