paper trail

Aug 19, 2010 @ 9:00:00 am

Lydia Davis

Barnes & Noble put itself up for sale on August 2. Now, B&N founder and chairman Leonardo Riggio has bought 990,740 shares of the company's stock—apparently in "an effort to strengthen his voting position for a likely proxy fight."

English-speaking francophiles, rejoice: You can get a sneak peak at Lydia Davis's new translation of Madame Bovary in Playboy's September issue. According to a tweet by Hugh Hefner, it's "a great read."

Google Editions, which was supposed to make millions of books digitally available this summer, will now launch in the fall. Despite its seeming potential to demolish bookstores, Google has actually worked out a deal that could benefit independent booksellers. "The deal's success depends on consumers' willingness to purchase eBooks from their local bookstore rather than from a competing retailer such as Apple or Barnes & Noble." Count us in! 

What are we doing tonight? Joining all the sad literary young men and women in New York, of course. That's right, we'll be at the Gary Shteyngart event. He'll be reading from his latest, Super Sad True Love Story.