Another Rough Week for the Book Biz—And It's Only Wednesday

Book people across the country were stunned Monday at the abrupt end put to editor-in-chief Sara Nelson's tenure at Publishers Weekly. In cuts that affected 7 percent of staff, Reed Business Information removed Nelson from her post along with three other PW editors. Regardless of what anyone thought of her, everyone agrees that Nelson's passion for books, the same that drove her to write So Many Books, So Little Time about her goal to read a book a week for a year, will be sorely missed at the book industry's leading trade publication.

What makes the news almost cruel is the unabashedly hopeful column posted the very same day to publishersweekly.com. Talk about poor planning. I've no doubt that Sara will resurface doing something great soon, but it's still a disconcerting change in the short term.

Now, yesterday, news of the death of a titan of American letters. John Updike, who stayed with the same publisher for over fifty years, dead at 76. Amazing that a man capable of creating such convincingly self-absorbed and unsympathetic characters could come across as friendly and as genuinely likable as he often did in interviews and public appearances. This discussion of his 2008 work The Widows of Eastwick is no exception.

[youtube width="425" height="335"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZexDdfd-lg