Have you noticed how Barnes & Noble is selling its own versions of the classics? Brilliant business decision: Get old literature that is past copyright so BN doesn’t have to pay writers, publish the books themselves to cut out that pesky middleman called “publishers,” and distribute the books exclusively in their own bookstores, which happen to be all over the country. Oh, and as an added bonus, drop the cover price so consumers are more likely to buy it through BN than those pesky independent bookstores or legitimate publishers. Yay lots of profits for Barnes & Noble!

Also, from this quiz in the New York Times:

16. Bound galleys of “My Kind of Place,” Susan Orlean’s most recent nonfiction collection, were distributed to the media with the title “Homewrecker” on them. The title was eighty-sixed at the last minute because:

a. Barnes & Noble didn’t like it
b. Orlean’s editor didn’t like it
c. Orlean didn’t like it
d. Rick Moody didn’t like it

The answer is A.