The NY Mess

Jeffrey Toobin has a really nice long form profile of Mets owner Fred Wilpon in the New Yorker, the piece focuses on Wilpon’s business dealings and his relationship with Bernie Madoff, but has generated a lot of controversy in the sports media because of Wilpon’s candid comments about current Mets players. Controversy aside, I think it’s worth a read, especially if you’re a similarly afflicted Mets fan.

Hot Shots, Part Deux

Apple unveils the leaner, meaner, freshly stocked with Random House titles, iPad 2 set to  ship on March 11th.

PW

Also in the news, Open City, where our publisher Alex Smith interned back in the 90’s, is ceasing publication at the end of the month. NY Observer. Open City Books, whose  backlist includes David Berman’s collection Actual Air and Sam Lipsyte’s short stories Venus Drive, will keep-on keeping-on.

Since it’s still Valentine’s week,

Superchief professed their love for us today. Thanks Superchief, we love you guys too, of course For the Gents especially.

In what seems like old news already:

Borders files for bankruptcy this morning– owing $230M to major publishers and planning to close 30% of its stores.

PW

Post Scriptum- The court allowed Borders to start going out of business sales at the 200 closing locations over President’s Day weekend, rather than making them wait the customary 21 day holding period on Friday. Complete list of closing stores @ the WSJ.

The Tortoise

Crain’s NY has a little piece on the city’s persistent independent bookstores, that focuses on Posman’s.

Remember this less grounded piece in New York Mag a while back.

No App for you

In what could be a sign that both companies are taking digital bookselling a little more seriously, Apple rejects Sony eReader app.

NYT

… continuing our theme of unpleasant notices, as of late.

Borders meets with Publishers again on Thursday

to discuss their future. NYT with a brief report.

Also, “Borders Hires Restructuring Lawyers,” at the WSJ.

More Bad News Borders,

as the nation’s second largest book retailer announces the resignation of two executives and that it will delay payment to some publishers.

NYT

more from the WSJ, which also produced the brutal P&L graph below.

The second generation iPad is coming,

although this late February speculation seems aggressive.

Digital Trends

Remember, way back in the Spring of ’10, when we were all a titter over the first iteration.

All Things Not Being Evil

In the wake of Google Books finally launching this week, Google released a new tool called the Ngram Viewer, a la Google Insights, that allows you to see how frequently certain words have been used in Google’s library over time.

 

… and the Gawker blog Jezebel already went through the trouble of using it to track the usage of pimp versus ho, penis versus vagina, etcetera, revealing centuries of gender bias.