Apple Responds to DOJ Charges, Death to Microsoft Word, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
4.13.12

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

More news concerning the Department of Justice's antitrust suit: Apple denies the charges, and its spokesperson commented, "The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry." Wall Street's response to the lawsuit: Barnes & Noble stock dropped 6.4 percent. (Shelf Awareness)

GalleyCat editor Jason Boog reminds us of an earlier time publishers faced off against another "retail juggernaut," using a "loss leader scheme." During the Great Depression, in 1934, Macy's Department Stores fought Macmillan over the price of Gone with the Wind. (NPR)

This week's New York Times Magazine features Robert Caro, who has been writing a biography of President Lyndon B. Johnson for over three decades. A slideshow gives us a view of Caro's methodical work process.

Novelist Toby Litt considers the future: "Literature isn’t alien to technology, literature is technological to begin with." (Granta)

Meanwhile, Wired offers a glimpse inside the Chinese factory where Apple's iPads are manufactured.

Netherland author Joseph O’Neill looks at the life and work of Philip Roth, and the dangers of reading Roth's novels as autobiography. (Atlantic)

Cristanne Miller's Reading In Time: Emily Dickinson and the Nineteenth Century—out next month from the University of Massachusetts Press—challenges common perceptions about the New England poet. (UB Reporter)

Tom Scocca at Slate says it's time to say goodbye to Microsoft Word.

With so much of our personal lives online, novelist Jami Attenberg writes of the intricacies of controlling the narrative in a modern relationship. (New York Times)

And the Tumblr created by Lapham's Quarterly offers dating advice for the twelfth century.